Harvard Business Review Special Issues Winter 2016

START-UPS ARE USUALLY HOTBEDS of innovation. They buzz with an energy and excitement that only fresh ideas and new possibilities can bring. They also are full of risk, which is why many never truly get off the ground. The qualities that entrepreneurial souls bring to their ventures—passion, courage, and tenacity—are not enough to propel them into orbit, or to keep them there. After observing hundreds of start-ups, Amar Bhidé distills his advice in the article “The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer”: What are my goals, for myself and for my business? Do I have the right strategy for the trajectory I envision? Can I execute the strategy with the resources I’ve got? These three questions are critical for helping entrepreneurs analyze their unique situations, prioritize among numerous opportunities and problems, and…

Every start-up entrepreneur has an overwhelming amount to get done— the “to dos” are constantly outrunning the “dones.” It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks and forget that running really hard does not necessarily equate with running in the right direction. To paraphrase one of my partners, the good news is that you’re making good time; the bad news is that you’re lost. To stay focused, early-stage CEOs should remember that a business needs to do just three important things—planning, selling, and executing—and that these tasks require three different mindsets. Some entrepreneurs can excel in all three roles, but the best ones are aware of their strengths and weaknesses— and they build their teams accordingly. The first step is knowing which role your talents match most closely. THE ARCHITECT Big-Picture…

WHEN IT COMES TO new tricks, sometimes new dogs are just as hard to teach as old ones. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I recently sat in on a senior team meeting at a fast-growing, twoyear-old e-commerce company. I winced when Daniel, the 32-year-old CEO, said, “Come on, guys, I need you all to focus more on execution. If we’re going to scale successfully at the pace we’ve laid out, we’ve got to execute faster and delegate more. I want you pushing hard on your teams. Get them to step up and execute! That’s why we’ve brought Jeff in, to coach all of us on how to motivate the troops.” I smiled sheepishly. Really? I thought. That’s not what I had in mind. Don’t get me wrong—Daniel’s intentions…

AS I APPROACH the 10-year anniversary of HubSpot, the marketing and sales software firm of which I’m CEO, I’ve been reflecting on the decisions I’ve made—both right and wrong. I’ve also been considering how my decision-making process evolved as the company moved from an early-stage start-up to a growth-stage scale-up. Understanding my own evolution in decision making and the tools I use today may help spare other scale-up leaders some unwanted headaches. Flip-Flopping Will Cost You In start-up mode, I changed my mind all the time. Most of my decisions didn’t affect many people, so I didn’t hesitate to change course often. This became problematic in scale-up mode: Every time I changed my mind, it impacted hundreds of employees and typically involved retooling lots of processes and systems. Over time, I learned…

ENTREPRENEURS ARE a unique group of people, but they behave in patterns. In fact, my firm’s research shows that most serial entrepreneurs exhibit persuasion, leadership, personal accountability, goal orientation, and interpersonal skills. But in that same study, we also discovered a set of skills they do not possess. To rehash our methods, we assessed the personal skills of subjects identified as serial entrepreneurs. Then they were compared with a control group of 17,000. As before, this group was assessed on their mastery of 23 practical, job-related skills. We measured whether skills were well developed, developed, moderately developed, or needed developing. After analyzing the data, we found that most serial entrepreneurs lacked four distinct skills: three statistically significantly and a fourth also noticeably lacking. The statistical significance was derived by comparing the lowestranking…

“YOU REALLY hate people,” my former boyfriend said to me as we discussed our weekend plans. He, as always, wanted to get groups of friends together. I wanted, in contrast, a night to ourselves. “I don’t hate people,” I said, angry and sad that we were having this conversation again. “I just don’t want to be around them all the time.” I’m an ambivert—both an introvert and an extrovert. As an ambivert, I love being social and participating in social activities, but with active pauses for restorative personal time. Most people are ambiverts. For anyone with introverted qualities, the above conversation (or some variation of it) might sound familiar—your desire for alone time, one-on-one time, or a little peace and quiet is met with misunderstanding and often judgment. I don’t think the…