Why Founders Should Shoulder Growth Duties Early On

According to Alex Schultz, Meta's marketing leader, emerging startups frequently err by prematurely setting up growth-focused teams.

Schultz, in an interview on the 'Twenty Minute VC' podcast, highlighted that founders often hastily shift growth responsibilities elsewhere, while it remains crucially theirs to manage. Companies with workforce sizes in the hundreds should prioritize growth collectively, eschewing dedicated units.

"If you're managing a small company with just a couple hundred employees, concentrating solely on a growth team isn’t practical," Schultz commented.

"The entire workforce should be tackling growth, thus delegating it early can be misguided," he continued.

The principal role of a CEO at this stage is to fuel business growth. Handing off this mission to specialists is only sensible when a founder is preoccupied with broader strategies, new ventures, alliances, or critical sales.

This transition should happen considerably later than many startups anticipate, Schultz emphasized.

"Hiring a growth squad when you’re about 50 employees strong is somewhat premature," he pointed out.

Schultz further revealed that at Meta, growth teams are intentionally compact. A central hub with a few hundred members oversees key systems like SEO, advertising optimization, and email operations.

Individual products, such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, maintain specialized growth teams, each generally comprising fewer than 100 individuals, Schultz explained.

"With nearly 100,000 employees globally, less than a percent are dedicated to growth teams," he noted.

"Efficient, small teams endowed with talent can achieve a great deal, especially in growth sectors."

The Essence of 'Founder Mode'

Schultz’s insights align with a wider Silicon Valley discourse on whether startup heads should remain actively involved in their companies.

The concept of 'founder mode,' made prominent by Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, was attributed to inspiration from Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky. Graham critiqued the tendency of founders to slip into 'manager mode,' neglecting the crucial involvement experienced during initial startup phases.

"Founder mode can be encapsulated as a focus on intricacies," Chesky elaborated during The Verge’s 'Decoder' podcast session.

"Great leaders practice presence rather than distance," he added.

George Arison, the CEO of Grindr, echoed these thoughts in a Business Insider interview, expressing his affinity for staying connected by using the product himself.

"The 'founder mode' buzz initially felt familiar, as it mirrored all I've ever known in management," he reflected.

"Having a term for it is neat, yet it's always been my management ethos," he concluded.