Charles Ross has been selected to serve in the dual roles of Director of Entrepreneurial Services for the Enterprise Innovation Institute and ATDC General Manager. Charles has been with ATDC for three years and functioned as a Catalyst and Manager of the ATDC Seed Fund. For the seven months Charles has been serving as Acting ATDC General Manager. He has been an excellent contributor to ATDC, and we are excited about the opportunities and successes that Charles’ leadership will bring to the organization.
Please congratulate Charles and give him your support.
After almost 9 years of serving as the general manager of the ATDC and in a broader role as the director of Entrepreneur Services in the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute, Tony Antoniades will be closing this chapter of his career at the end of the month. He is leaving to take a new position with Autotrader. His responsibilities will be specialty products, Hispanic products, and innovation processes. This is a great opportunity for Tony and while we are very happy for him, we are equally sad to see him leave.
Tony made enormous contributions to ATDC and the Entrepreneur Services Group. He has been the face and driver and has helped to push it to a greater level of performance and visibility across Georgia, the nation, and the world.
Charles Ross will serve as Interim Director of Entrepreneur Services until a permanent replacement is named.
Over the weekend about 20 co-founders of Atlanta Startup Weekend, the creators of Skribit, got together to move the product to the point where we could extend the number of beta users in the wild.
My biggest task during the day was to give a presentation over lunch
about the state of the corporation and what I termed "Startup 101".
This included a discussion of the four generic categories of venture
risk. I thought it would be good for the team to think about these
risks in relation to Skribit to understand what it might take to make
the company successful.
One of the risk factors that we discussed was management risk. When
I told the group that I felt like the company’s management risk was
extremely high people were aghast. The comment that stuck in my head
was "we have more then 20 people here, we have more then enough to
handle any situation that may come up." True enough.
But more people is not necessarily a good thing. Management risk
might be defined as the probability of the venture failing to meet its
business objectives due to not having the people with the appropriate
skills in leadership positions or due to poor teamwork. Management
risk is about both skill and teamwork. You have to have both to reduce
it.
As an example, when Fred Nixon, Vince Zappa, and I were working on
the Alele concept, we were perceived as having relatively low
management risk. We had worked together at a successful startup for a
number of years and our skill sets were rather complimentary,
containing what is needed to get a startup off the ground. The
feedback we heard from investors was "We like the team."
Conversely (not to pick on all the good folks that helped bring
Skribit to life, they have done great work), 49 co-founders who have
never worked together as a team, regardless of the amassed skill set,
has a high degree of management risk. The teamwork aspect is a high
hurdle. Coordinating the effort of that many people is difficult. The
20 we had over the weekend is much more efficient than 49 but still too
many. Don’t get me wrong. Having 20 people that want to stay actively
involved in the project is fantastic, I have achieved the goal of
bringing together a segment of the Atlanta startup community. But as
the concept moves forward a core team is going to form in some manner
to remove the management risk. The founders are smart, they will
figure this out.
Before the holidays hit us I intend to do a brief writeup on the other categories of venture risk.
Recently over cocktails I asked a former Bain colleague who gets hired by the top private equity firms in the country to evaluate the leadership teams of prospective portfolio companies what he has learned that is not so obvious about the qualities of good leaders.
In short, he said, we’ve learned that a failing profile for a leader is the Lamb!! The lamb is the individual where if you interview the person’s direct reports, they praise him or her for being a good guy or gal. This is a big red flag he says. They are well-liked, sociable but do not hold their team accountable.
Just the opposite, he said, is the winning leadership profile of one who sets high expectations and holds their team accountable.
At a recent TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs Society meeting, Kelly Gay spoke about this topic. 80% of what she focused on was the key job she has in helping her 7 VP’s be true leaders, taking accountability and responsibility for their actions and the actions of their team. Gay added that to make this work, a chief executive needs to be willing to let his or her leaders make decisions that she would not have made herself. Click here to view Kelly Gay’s presentation.
Are you the type or leader who truly bears the burden of leadership even when it means requiring leadership from your employees?
The next TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs Society Meeting and Roundtable on Thursday, October 4th will feature Claire “Yum” Arnold, on The Journey to Entrepreneurship:
Some entrepreneurs are born, for others it’s an evolution. Yum Arnold will explain how she moved from corporate roles at Coca Cola to forming Leapfrog Services, Inc. in 1998.
Click here for more information or to register.
Does not necessarily stay at the ATDC.
The StartupLounge recently had Andy Monin of Vendormate on their podcast. Andy discusses management philosophy and how he has built the Vendormate team.
Straight talk from a good leader.
Brad and Jason over at Ask The VC posted some interesting compensation figures for startup company management. As they note in their post these figures are different in different parts of the country. If you ask me Series A VC backed companies here in Georgia are about 10% below the averages they quote. The equity seems pretty dead on.
If you are at the angel stage I would take these figures and give them a 25% – 50% haircut to give you an idea on what angels can stomach.