A Day in the Life of a Growth Stage Startup CEO

One of the questions I get from entrepreneurs is “how has your day-to-day changed going from a seed stage startup to a growth stage startup?” The three core responsibilities of a CEO never change: make sure there’s enough cash to keep going, help set the vision, and get the right employees on board. For my first year as a seed stage CEO, I spent most of my time writing code (~40 hours/week) and the rest of the time doing whatever it takes to be successful (20 – 30 hours/week). Now, five years later, things are much different.

Here’s what a typical day looks like:

• 10 minute daily check-in with the executive team
• One or two one hour catch ups with a department head (meet with each department head bi-weekly)
• One to two hours working on strategic projects (usually juggling 2-3 strategic projects at any one time)
• One hour reading blog posts and books (usually read one business book per month)
• Miscellaneous meetings, email, and other work

As you can see, the ratio of doing front-line work to managing people changes dramatically as the startup gets larger. Days go quickly and are very productive.

What else? What does a day in the life of your startup look like?