What Makes A Successful Founder Into An Effective CEO? 5 Lessons From Someone Who’s Been Through The Pitfalls
January 10, 2022
My co-founders and I started Beam in 2012 with the mission to revolutionize dental insurance and employee benefits. At first, I was focused on building Beam to fulfill that mission.
By 2016, we were struggling. Our first product didn’t scale, our second didn’t find customers, and our third was stuck in regulatory purgatory.
Additionally, it was my fault that we were losing trust and buy-in from our board, key investors, and team. Ultimately, we had to lay off two-thirds of our employees, and I technically got fired as CEO.
I then woke up to the realization that I was performing the job of the founder—not the CEO my team needed.