Leadership · Organising to Scaling
Founder mode
You choose, topic by topic, whether you get hands on or let go, and you say why and until when.
Worth reading first: Situational leadership, Mission command
Does this sound familiar?
- You hired a good manager and gave them room. Six months later the product is worse than when you ran it yourself, and you're the last to hear.
- You want to know how things really are with customers, but everything you hear comes through two layers and has already been tidied up.
- You stepped in on something because it was going wrong. Three months later you're still in it, and nobody knows whether that's permanent.
- You read that you should let go, and also that the best founders are in the detail of everything. You don't know which one applies to you right now.
Who it's for, and when
For founders who've learnt to let go and notice something slipping: the pace, the quality, the feel for the customer. It comes up from Organising onwards, once other people run their own part of the business. In Searching and Proving you're in everything yourself, and that's how it should be; this choice isn't relevant yet.
The model
The usual advice to a founder whose company is growing is: hire good people and give them room to do their jobs. Paul Graham calls that manager mode. You treat each part of the business as a box and only look at what comes out. Brian Chesky did that at Airbnb, and it went wrong. He went back into the detail, talked to people several levels below him, and stopped working only through his managers. Graham called that founder mode.
Founder mode isn't a licence to get back into everything. Being hands on and letting go both work, just not on the same piece of work at the same time. Hands on works for what makes or breaks the business, for a short spell with an end date, and with a reason everyone knows. It becomes controlling when it's everywhere, has no end, and goes around the people you gave room to.
So you choose topic by topic, and you say it out loud. 'I'm running the new subscription myself until 1 March, because it's what we win or lose on this year. Everything else stays with you.' Then your team knows what's theirs, and you know what to keep out of.
Situational leadership is about how much direction someone needs for a task. This lesson is about something else: the work you want to be in yourself, even when your people can do it. Mission command calls going around a manager a pitfall, and it still is; below you'll find how to skip a level anyway without undermining anyone. What happens to your team when this lands on the wrong work is in the lesson Ownership in your team.
Paul Graham, Founder Mode (essay, September 2024, paulgraham.com/foundermode.html), based on a talk by Brian Chesky of Airbnb at a Y Combinator event.
What makes or breaks the business
A new product, the promise to your customers, a market you're betting on this year, a crisis. Not the office layout, the engineers' schedule or the formatting of a quote. If you can't explain why this particular thing depends on you, it belongs to someone else.
Short, with an end
Write down until when. A date, or an outcome: until we've had a full quarter on the new prices. On that day you hand it back, or you say why you're staying. Without an end, being hands on quietly becomes the new habit.
With a reason everyone knows
Tell the manager whose work it is first, then their team. If they don't know why you've suddenly turned up, they'll read it as distrust. If they do know, they can help you.
Skipping a level, in the open
You can talk to people two levels down to hear how things really are. Graham says that's the difference from manager mode. Do it with their manager's knowledge, and don't hand out instructions while you're there. If you want something changed, it goes through the manager, or you say out loud that you're running this part yourself for now.
Pitfalls
Hands on with what you enjoy
A founder with a technical background dives into the code; a salesperson into the big deals. It feels like founder mode, but it's about what you like doing. Look at what the business needs right now, even if it's something you don't fancy.
Half hands on
You interfere with how it's done, but the manager stays responsible. Then nobody knows who owns the outcome. Choose: either you run it until a set date, or it's theirs and you check in at a set time.
Watch and read
Chesky himself, at Y Combinator's first Founder Mode event, on the talk the essay came from and what he started doing differently at Airbnb.
Watch on YouTubeChesky on why he doesn't believe in full autonomy and how he gets into the detail himself. Watch it with this question in mind: would this fit everywhere in our company, or only where it makes or breaks us?
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
A long conversation from before the essay, on how Chesky reorganised Airbnb after the pandemic: fewer layers, one roadmap, the leader in the detail.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Amp It Up
Frank Slootman · 2022 · ISBN 9781119836117
Graham's essay isn't a book. Slootman writes about the same idea from practice: the leader in the detail, the bar higher, the pace up, and focus on what counts. Short and direct, 224 pages.
View the bookApply it
- 1
List the topics
Write down what the business will run on over the coming months: products, customer groups, processes, projects. Ten lines is plenty. Start with your priorities.
- 2
For each line, choose: hands on or hands off
Hands on only for what makes or breaks the business, and no more than two or three at once. Everything you don't choose is hands off: it belongs to someone else, and you check in at a set time.
- 3
Write down why and until when
For each hands-on line, one sentence on why, and a date or outcome at which it ends. If you can't write down a reason, move it to hands off.
- 4
Tell the people it affects
The manager whose work it is first, then their team. Also say what stays hands off: that matters just as much to them.
- 5
Take stock on the end date
Hand it back, with what you've learnt, or extend it with a new reason and a new date. Don't stay on without saying so: then nobody knows whose it is any more.
Who's got the monkey?
Examples
The card: hands on or hands off
One line per topic: Topic Hands on or hands off Why (one sentence) Until when (date or outcome) Whose is it after that? No more than three lines on hands on. Put the card up or bring it to your leadership team meeting, and go through it every quarter.
The card, filled in
The new maintenance subscription: hands on. Why: we win or lose on it this year. Until the first quarter with fifty customers on it. After that, the service manager's. Complaints from large customers: hands on. Why: two customers cancelled. Until 1 April. After that, the account managers'. The engineers' schedule: hands off. The planner's, I look at it in the weekly meeting. Recruitment: hands off. The HR manager's, I do the final interview. The website: hands off. Marketing's, I see it before it goes live.
Getting hands on, the wrong way and the right way
Wrong: on Monday you walk into the workshop and tell the engineers the subscription has to change. Their manager hears it from them. Right, to the service manager first: 'I'm going to run the subscription myself for the next three months. It's not that you can't: we win or lose on it this year, and I want to hear what customers say myself. I'll go out on jobs with your engineers, and anything I want to change goes through you. Once we've got fifty customers on it, it's yours again.' If they push back ('so you don't trust me'): 'I understand it feels that way. That's why I'm telling you until when, and what stays yours: the schedule, the people, the rest of the service.'
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.You've launched a new subscription you're betting on this year. Your product manager runs it, but customers are dropping off and you only find out from the monthly figures. What fits this lesson?
2.You want to hear how things are really going with the engineers, two levels below you. How do you go about it?
3.Six months ago you got hands on with complaints, because two large customers cancelled. Things are running smoothly again. You're still in it. What do you do?
4.You let the operations manager fit out the new workshop, but every week you tell them where the machines should go. It runs late. Where did it go wrong?
5.You come from sales. Since letting go, you're back on every big quote, while your salespeople are doing well. Meanwhile delivery is falling behind. What does this lesson say?
6.After a bad quarter you decide to get hands on with everything again, until things pick up. What's the risk?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Ownership in your team · For each team, you know whether the mission and the mandate are in place and whether you're keeping your hands off. And you let the next decision someone else makes stand.
Not sure where to start? Take the growth scan