A day in the life of a CEO

Last week, I recorded a podcast and the host said that many people count themselves of out being an entrepreneur, CEO, or founder because they don't see themselves in those titles. This strongly resonates. If you had asked me in college what I wanted to be, the answer was some version of "a company person." I didn't think to think I could start a company. I just assumed I'd join one (or in the case of the Army, an institution that I guess George Washington started).

If I pictured a founder, I pictured a young guy in a hoodie. I'm more of a leggings woman myself so this didn't fit. If I pictured a CEO, I saw someone who always looked vaguely looked like Mitt Romney. Put together, established. Very pale, male and Yale.

The host's point was that when we share more context on what an entrepreneur actually does, more people can see themselves in the role, versus when the title itself is just a rather abstract (and hard to spell) word.

So today I thought I'd share, well, a day!

Dear diary

I'm the CEO and co-founder of Ethena. Together with my better half, Anne Solmssen, I founded the company with the idea that mandatory training was broken. We re-designed compliance training to help employees actually learn versus just check a box.

I'm going to take you from 9AM to 9AM mainly because I'm writing this around 9AM, and given I'm almost 9 months pregnant, my memory only goes as far back as 24 hours!

Wednesday 9AM: co-founder time

I walk to our WeWork listening to a Lenny's Newsletter podcast about managing nerves. I love podcasts and am interested in any form of fitness, physical, mental health, whatever, so this podcast hit the spot.

Anne texts me asking if I want a cappuccino because she's thoughtful and I say, "yes!" because I am always tired.

We do a 1:1 meeting where we go over 3 topics, including the increased demand we're seeing for Ethena's Hotline & Case Management tool. I share a few things I've learned on Sales calls about what prospective customers want from the next set of features we release and Anne, as our Chief Technology Officer, explains how long she thinks it will take to build these features.

As CEO, I'm in charge of the entire company, meaning every employee, including Anne, rolls up to me, but Anne, being an engineer, is far closer to what's called our Product team, which is the team that makes our software and content. I am closer to our Commercial team, which is primarily Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success.

10AM to 1PM: internal meetings

I have 1:1 meetings with most of my direct reports. I once heard that as a CEO, you hire the smartest people you can find and they bring you the problems they can't solve. What this means in practice is that in a 1:1 meeting, my direct reports often share only a handful of things they are working on, but these things are hard and meaty and require us to figure out something new.

An example might be a prospective customer who has a use for our technology that is different than than the hundreds of companies we already serve. We need to figure out things like:

• Do we want to say "yes" to this?
• If we say yes, how much do we charge?
• How difficult do we think it will be to service this new use case?
• Are there more of these opportunities, or are we going to do a bunch of work for a one-off situation?
• etc.

1-2PM: a Sales call

I hop on a sales demo. I like to talk to 1-2 customers or prospects (people thinking of buying) every day because I always learn something about our market, our product, or our team. In this situation, the prospect tells us what they are looking for (a "one stop shop for compliance" so they don't need to run 5 different systems), we get curious and ask a bunch of questions, and then because we could solve their problems, we show how our product does that with a screen share of our product. Then we move to the process of buying our product and rolling it out.

2-3PM: networking

I talk to two different revenue leaders I've met through a mutual connection. I find that asking someone, "Who are the smartest people you know in your field and will they talk to me," is a great way to learn more about a function. You can read a ton, but a live conversation always shows me how a really excellent, say, Marketing leader thinks about a certain problem.

3-5PM: Internal meetings and then leave for school pickup!

My son is in daycare and a few times a week, I'm on pickup duty. I love this because I get to walk, which is good for my physical and mental health, and also, I get to see his little face when the door opens and it's just a really nice moment in my day. He yells, "Mommy!" and it always takes me out of my work head and into the present.

He scoots around Brooklyn as I occasionally yell, "Brake!"

We do family dinner every night but to be abundantly clear, I do not cook on weeknights. I heat things up. Last night was mac and cheese and I snuck in an egg when my son wasn't looking.

My husband then tackled bath and bedtime so I could log back online and it seemed to go mostly well, except when I overheard my husband explain that, "Spitting in someone's face is not kind." If you think about it, this is compliance training for preschoolers.

7:30 - 9ish: Back online

I break up my day so that I can actually see my son but this means I need to sign back on because in my experience, being a founder is not a 9-5 job.

Last night, I worked with a few colleagues to get a deck ready for our upcoming board meeting. Board meetings always sounded very high stakes to me – I envisioned a skyscraper, big conference table, pencil skirts and a lot of drama around terms like, "poison pill."

But at least at our stage of company, a Board meeting is more a review of key metrics, us as management proposing what we want to tackle next, and then fielding questions and helpful pushback from the board to make sure this plan is solid. I have never worn a pencil skirt to these.

10PM: Bedtime!

I always read before bed. Right now, it's "Hello Beautiful," which is a delightful read. I just finished, "Demon Copperhead," which was very good but deeply upsetting. I am often a moth to a flame with sad books and I don't know why I do this to myself.

5:30AM Thursday: Stumble into Crossfit

I set my alarm with no padding room so I have to frantically get out of bed. I've done this for years and I imagine there is a better way to greet the day than with panic but I haven't figured it out.

My big pregnancy goal was to workout right up to my due date. This morning, the coach came over to me today and asked, in all seriousness, "So what do you want me to do if your water breaks?"

I told her, "Get me an everything bagel so I can eat before labor and then call my husband."

CEOs, they're just like us

So that's my day! I don't know if this demystified anything but let me know what would be helpful. Oh and given the aforementioned water breaking/everything bagel situation, if you stop getting this newsletter for a while, please send good vibes because I'll be hanging with the newest member of our family!