CEO – The Musings of the Big Red Car

The $10MM Gross Revenue Reality Check

Big Red Car — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 15:58:15 +0000

If you are a startup, I hope one day soon you get to $10,000,000 in gross revenue. If you do, I have some thoughts for you. A caveat first — there are a great number of exceptions to what I am going to share with you, so do not fall prey to missing the difference […]

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CEO Shoptalk — What Do You Tolerate?

Big Red Car — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 14:16:11 +0000

In the CEOing business, we spend a lot of time discussing culture, as we should. Culture is spawned by the founder’s values which many times are a work in progress, particularly for first time CEO/founders. Perfectly natural. In mature startups — still growing, but growing at scale meaning they are out of the cradle and […]

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CEO Shoptalk — End-Of-Year Reflection And Musing

Big Red Car — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 21:58:54 +0000

A client of mine a few years ago said, “You always make me think, and I prepare for our meetings.” That is a good thing and it makes me feel good. Nothing wrong with thinking, but it should be more than that. At the end of every year, a CEO/founder/entrepreneur should conduct a bit of […]

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Lowering The Zoom Boom! Vishal Garg

Big Red Car — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 14:20:13 +0000

Remember this name: Vishal Garg. Vishal is/was the Chief Executive Officer of a digital mortgage company called Better.com. Better.com — who are they? Better.com, founded in 2016, operates in the United States and India with its headquarters in New York. It is currently pursuing a SPAC merger (resulting in a public company) with Aurora Acquisition […]

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CEO Shoptalk – The Mantle Of Power

Big Red Car — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:06:36 +0000

The best job I’ve ever had was as the company commander of a combat engineer company in the Army. It is like being a Chinese feudal war lord which is reputed to be a very good gig. Company D as in Delta was in need of a firm hand having failed to pass its annual […]

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The Common Touch And Other Real World Issues

Big Red Car — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:58:53 +0000

Eight years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled: “Tone And The Common Touch (5-8-2013)” wherein I laid out case for ensuring that your — assuming you to be a CEO or C-suite denizen — tone and the way you dealt with your subordinates was a critical element in how they perceived you and, thus, […]

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CEO Shoptalk — CEO Self Help, Self Appraisal

Big Red Car — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 18:23:02 +0000

I am a huge fan of routine, standard operating procedures, process development/management, and ritual. I am also a big fan of regular, rigorous Performance Appraisal and, in particular, Boards of Directors appraising the performance of their CEOs, and CEOs demanding an in-depth appraisal by the Board (subset of the Board is fine, try to get […]

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CEO Shoptalk – Executive Decision-making

Big Red Car — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:31:01 +0000

One of the things that strikes new CEOs is how bloody many decisions there are to make to run a startup and a fledgling business to say nothing of one that survives the trip from the cradle to the marketplace. I have read that a CEO makes more decisions in a day than CEOs did […]

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CEO Shoptalk — Replacing the CEO

Big Red Car — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 15:40:33 +0000

This post is written from a slightly different perspective as it is spawned by three conversations of about a year ago wherein VCs asked me what I thought about replacing CEOs and what the ideal process might be. I typically advise CEOs and advised three CEOs who were replaced, so I knew the territory from […]

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CEO Shoptalk — You Will Learn

Big Red Car — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:03:06 +0000

About five years ago, I had a chat with the younger brother of a successful CEO. The older brother was a friend of mine of longstanding and through him I met the younger brother. The younger brother was in awe of his big brother — All State Basketball First Team kind of awe. We got […]

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