Member-only story
“I’m managing three companies,” “Jason” said to me. It was our first conversation, and warning lights started going off.
“Tell me about the three companies?” I said.
Jason said, “The first company is a software company which is doing about $5 million in revenue. The second company is a SaaS company doing about $1 million in revenue. And the third company is my law practice.”
“Interesting,” I responded. “How many direct reports do you have across the three companies?”
Jason said, “Let me think about that.” Then after a very long pause, he said, “17.”
“Wow. That’s a lot,” I said.
You’ll need to leverage yourself if you’re going to manage multiple startups.
“Think of your multiple companies like one big company,” I said to Jason. “Each of the companies are then like divisions of the main company, run by you.
“Ideally, you want to develop infrastructure in each division (the individual companies), so that you’re free to manage all three divisions at once. The only way this is going to happen is if you reduce the number of direct reports you have.”
