A few months ago I moved out of the CEO role at Appirio to take on the role of global culture officer at Wipro. Wipro acquired Appirio, a company I co-founded nearly 12 years ago, so I still get to stay in the family, but I’m more of an in-law now. It’s been a big transition and the separation has made me nostalgic and reflective of my 4,300(ish) days at the helm of Appirio.
Before I get too far into this next phase, I wanted to capture some of my biggest lessons learned as a founder and CEO of a start-up for other founders who may be somewhere along this journey.
Stay Relevant, But Stay Focused
I’ll never forget the words of one of Appirio’s earliest employees, “Chris, you have one job, and that is to keep us relevant.” We did a good job of this over 12 years, expanding into different regions, markets and partnerships. However, certain choices and acquisitions we made distracted us and, to be honest, probably cost us market share in the long run.
When we started Appirio we were very clear about wanting to be a products and services company. The early venture capital funds we pitched were rightfully skeptical about our ability to do this well, as so many others had tried and failed. And they were right that it's hard to be truly great at multiple business models in a company’s formative years. We did create some great technology, but if we had stayed 100% focused on cloud-based professional services -- without splitting our team and focus -- I wonder if we would’ve been more market-dominant longer.
Don’t Let Swagger Switch To Cockiness
There is something exhilarating about a startup and those first years of being CEO. You’re building a team that is almost family and is as passionate and driven as you are. As a first time CEO, you’re also getting wined and dined like never before.
I will never forget when I found out Appirio was selected as a Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and that I’d be able to attend the WEF events in Davos and Dalian. I'll always remember hanging out and trading stories with Frank Quattrone at some investor event (his stories beat mine hands down). When you’re riding the wave it’s easy to get caught up in the success and forget to stay humble. Make sure to surround yourself with people who will snap you back to reality if you start floating toward that ivory tower, and be open to the criticism when they do.
Build (And Use) Your Board Wisely
I was fortunate to have a boardroom lineup that many founders and first time CEOs dream about. From day one it was a heavy hitting and full contact experience and I could not be more grateful for the guidance, chemistry and eventual friendships that developed across this team.
While a CEO ultimately works for the board, they should also work for you. We gamified our board’s revenue contributions by tracking and being very vocal about the deals they helped influence, source and close alongside our sales team. Over the years, we’d trend between 15-30% of all pipeline and deals being board-influenced revenue.
Team First
From the beginning, my co-founders and I were clear that “team” was a core value. We personally interviewed our first 100 employees because we knew they’d set the bar for the next group of people we hired. We shipped every new employee a box of Appirio swag to welcome them. We made sure our technology was the best in the business. Most importantly, we trusted them as free-thinking adults and were very transparent with our business -- when we were doing great and when we weren’t. There is no single action that instills trust and transparency, but rather many combined decisions, processes and actions at all levels of the organization.
One of my biggest regrets as CEO relates to the team as well, specifically around executive hiring. Approximately every other year for 10 years, I made at least one bad executive hire which set us back in some way -- some further back than others. Boards will pressure executive team rotation and outside thought instead of promoting from within. While companies do need fresh ideas and experience that the existing team might lack, it’s easy to rush a hire and not do enough back channel referencing, overlook a rising star internal candidate or misjudge cultural chemistry.
Spend More Than 75% Of Your Time With Customers
It’s easy for a founder or CEO to get entrenched in internal processes, politics and decisions. Fight against this and make it a goal to spend most of your time with customers or those in your organization who work directly with customers. While your team might be your top priority, any company’s success and survival depends on how well it serves the needs of its current and future customers.
For a channel-driven company like Appirio, our partners were our customers. When we started Appirio, we lived at Salesforce's headquarters -- our primary partner at the time. When they needed a demo, we dropped what we were doing to create it. When they needed a customer reference, we gave them one. As they got bigger and we got bigger, our strategies started to diverge. When Salesforce shifted their go-to-market to industries, we stuck with our horizontal approach for another few years. Was this delay crushing in the end? No, but we should have moved earlier.
This isn’t an all-inclusive list of my lessons learned. but it hopefully captures a bit of the journey. So to you and my future self, I say stay focused and humble, put your board to work and keep team and customers (in that order) front of mind in everything you do.
