startup COO
What is a COO anyway?
When I became COO of Prolific, I’m not sure I really understood what a COO was. I had the idea that a COO was a senior leader, with broad responsibilities, focused on the operational functions of the business.
The COO role is a confusing one, as there are many different types of COO out there. This well known Harvard Business Review essay details some of the classic forms of COO
The COO can be pigeonholed as “just” an operational leader, which leaves out key elements, ignores COOs who don't fit this mold, and can lead to a failure to get the most out of COOs.
The key factor of the COO role, is that it is defined in relation to the particular CEO, and CEOs vary wildly, so do the COOs who partner with them.
Despite this it’s true that COOs tend to lead Operational/People type functions. But COOs can equally be Sales leaders, or more often in technology companies, Product leaders (my background)
There are a few ways we can view the typical balance or spectrum between CEO and COO:
CEO:
• External
• Inspiration
• Extrovert
• Optimist
• Vision
• Outside
COO:
• Internal
• Management
• Pragmatist
• Realist
• Execution
• Inside
Are COOs strategic?
There is sometimes the idea that COOs should be execution and not strategy focused. But I see strategy as the key link piece where CEO and COO work together. So it might look like:
• Vision & Mission - Why? (CEO)
• Strategy - What? (CEO/COO)
• Operating Plan - How? (COO)
Inside/Outside
COO has awareness of org and culture, and can be a conduit to surface things to the CEO. But as companies grow COOs should be strategic leaders.
Most critically the COO is a partner to the CEO, and without this understanding the relationship is not effective.
COO roles are constantly evolving and changing as companies change. I worked with 2 CEOs at Prolific, who were quite different in terms of strengths, values, leadership style, and focus. And so my role, and approach as COO changed significantly when changing CEOs, as did the company. This also left me with some interesting lessons in driving cultural change (for another post).
Should startups have a COO, when?
We tend to think of COOs like Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook, or Claire Hughes-Johnson at Stripe, coming in as the company reaches a certain scale.
Should startups have COOs, when does it make sense? In earlier stage startups if the COO role exists, it’s usually held by a co-founder with generalised responsibilities. Non-founder C-level roles at early stage are usually avoided, unless there is some very specific skillset that needs to be added at a senior level.
While Ben Horowitz makes a case for using inflated titles as a form of bribery, any C-level role in an early stage startup can become problematic later, as responsibilities shift. Perhaps it can be an indicator of future intent of responsibility.
Very early it doesn’t make sense to bring someone into the COO role, who is not a co-founder. Founders need to be driving the culture and execution of the team through these stages. As the company grows, even in still relatively early stages, startup COOs can become valuable to balance weaknesses of the founding team, or to fill a gap if some of the original founding team leaves.
What does a COO do at early stage?
One image that stuck with me was from Mark Logan, former COO of Skyscanner, who described the COO role as finding the biggest blocked pipe in the company, and unblocking it.
Keith Rabois. former COO of Square, uses a similar metaphor of the Emergency Room Doctor;
In his words, startups are “incessantly chaotic,” with something always broken and needing urgent attention. The COO’s job is to triage these issues—identifying which problems are critical and need immediate action versus those that may seem urgent but are actually minor, and vice versa.
COOs often operate as gap fillers jumping in to lead or create new teams that don’t have a leader.
Beyond immediate problem solving, the role of the COO in a startup is to scale, which means building the initial team.
I'm a fan of Rabois's concept of Barrels and Ammunition
Barrels are individuals who can take an idea from conception all the way through to execution, independently leading projects and rallying others to achieve results. Ammunition refers to talented specialists or team members who excel at executing tasks but need direction. You try to increase the available barrels as fast as possible.
What type of personality is needed, is it something you want to do?
The COO role takes a particular type of person to be successful, as it requires attributes of an effective leader, but to put yourself in service to the CEO of the company, and stay out of the limelight.
Good COOs I’ve observed manage to have a balance of assertiveness, and high agency with low ego, and need for status. They also tend to be generalists, or high flexible, as the role evolves constantly. COO are often, but not always, strong people leaders. Ideally they have a high degree of awareness, empathy, and emotional self-regulation - biting your tongue is sometimes required in this role.
As noted success in the role, requires the ability to build a high trust relationship with the CEO (and other leaders).
The historical archetype of COO was Marcus Agrippa, a Roman general, who was instrumental in consolidating Augustus's power. He managed vast areas of the empire, and even served as co-ruler, with powers far beyond that of a typical general, while never showing any signs of wanting to become Emperor.
He was an excellent administrator, builder, and a brilliant military leader - making up for Augustus’ weakness in these areas, and leaving him free to focus on his talents for political leadership. The relationship worked because of a high degree of loyalty and trust.
What makes COOs succeed?
While often having an execution focus, the role of COO is strategic and political. Part of the job is continual political alignment as the company evolves. Key to this are relationships with other leaders and managers in the team, and with the board. COOs can often act as a trusted conduit for this, able to give raw feedback to the CEO that they are unwilling to hear from elsewhere, or that people are tentative to give them.
COOs should be sensors for what is going on in the company, and wider ecosystem. They really need to know what’s happening at ground level, and again should have trusted relationships through the team, such that they are hearing “the truth”. The more layers are added in scaling, the more information gets distorted.
COOs typically have a focus on risk management. Wearing the “COO hat” in an interaction sometimes means balancing the natural wild optimism of the CEO, and being aware of potential existential threats to the company.
COO are typically coaching style leaders, becoming enablers of other leaders, Their job is to build an effective system and leadership team, not to act as project managers.
What makes COOs fail?
Common failure modes also relate to relationships, with the CEO, but also with other leaders.
If trust and communication breaks down between CEO and COO, to any degree, then things become ineffective, and potentially dysfunctional.
A common issue is backdooring, or undermining behaviour by one of the other. The CEO-COO pair need to work out any disagreements in private, and present a unified front. If people think they can get a different answer by going around the COO to the CEO the job is impossible. The COO needs to be able to speak with the authority of the CEO.
The COO can be an effective driver of unpopular change, and play a bad cop role, taking some heat for the CEO but this has a limit, if they become too much of a lightning rod, they will become ineffective.
As we saw there are many skillsets of COO, and while COOs tend to be highly adaptable, sometimes the context has changed so much that they are no longer the right COO for the job. Successful CEOs can work with many different COOs over the course of a company’s life, allowing them to work around their own weaknesses. Travis Kalanick and Uber, and Jack Dorsey at Twitter both worked with a rapid succession of COOs as the companies scaled.
Who do you really work for?
I’ve talked a lot about the CEO-COO relationship, but who does the COO really work for, and where do their responsibilities extend. Despite this the COO should not simply be a tool of the CEO.
The COO often has a pastoral element through their focus on People, and needs to look out for team stability, and need to bring them along on the journey.
Ultimately the COO’s responsibility extends to the success of the company, and they should be afraid of conflict with the CEO as a consequence. They are often one of the few people who can put the brakes on “Founder mode gone bad”
Where Next for the startup COO?
COOs can go onto a variety of roles, reflective of their broad skillsets and variety. The more they step outside the purely operational the more they can succeed in a range of roles subsequently as Founders, CEOs, functional leaders, and investors. As for me, let’s see…
