Lessons Learned: My Advice for Tech Start-up Founders

I joined Sue Siegel, former Chief Innovation Officer at GE and CEO of GE Ventures, for a Fireside Chat at the Tough Tech Summit 2021, hosted by The Engine at MIT. The Engine backs founders solving the world’s biggest problems through the convergence of breakthrough science, engineering, and leadership. In October, I had the honor to be named MIT’s Visiting Innovation Fellow, allowing me the opportunity to help inspire and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.??

During my time as CEO, IBM acquired 65 companies. My experience has helped me understand the areas that can make or break a company that is trying to become a market leader. I shared my learnings with founders in tech and future leaders at the Tough Tech Summit, and now I’m sharing it with all of you because I believe it’s important and it can help you grow and learn as a founder.?

?1. Always partner with someone with whom you can build belief.

My first piece of advice is about partnerships. A partnership should benefit both sides. From your partner’s perspective, think about what they want out of the relationship. When I was at IBM, we often carefully crafted partnerships to test how the market would react before actually acquiring a company. For example, we partnered with Red Hat, before acquiring it. An important part of this relationship was building belief to test if we could successfully acquire an open source software company and see it thrive.?

Timing is also important to think about with your partner — is the acquirer making a market or responding to a market? Know your position.?

Finally, think about the ecosystem you are building — your network of “friends.” What are the applications and platforms you’ll be able to work with that will make or break yours and your partner’s success? If you’re going to partner, know if you’re going to be able to build bridges between each other. Meaning, how will you connect to the acquiring company’s core? The bigger company’s core business can often build adjacency to the smaller company's core; not often the other way around. Know your company’s position in the organizational orbit.?

2. Finding diverse talent isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible if you genuinely try.

To successfully recruit diverse talent, you have to be clear on why you believe this is important. I authentically believe I get a better team, better products, and better ideas with diverse talent. Your reasoning can be different, but it must exist to make this type of hiring successful and authentic to your company’s core.??

One way to hire diverse talent in your company is to remove false barriers to entering the workforce. If you remove false barriers, particularly as you scale, you’ll get better results.?

At IBM in 2012, we couldn’t hire enough cyber talent, so we decided we’d go to high schools and community colleges in underserved areas, and provide them with curriculum, and if they gained the resulting skills, then a chance at a job.?After a year, the employees we hired from this program performed as well or better, demonstrated equal innovation, and were more loyal, than those hired only for their university degrees. But interestingly, many later went on to get their college degrees — showing that it was never a question of aptitude, but of access and opportunity. If you need more talent, go look at pools you haven’t looked at yet.?

Strong talent is critical to an organization’s success, and there’s an important lesson I learned a while back. I asked someone how they could spend so much time conducting hiring interviews. They responded, “I spend all my time doing hiring. If I hire the right people, that’s all I have to do.” As a founder, put the time into recruiting and onboarding the right people to work with, because it will make your job that much easier and your company stronger in the long run.?

3.?Understand the role of your board and how they can be a partner for growth.

Boards can be a critical partner for an organization’s growth. First, it’s critical to have alignment between your objectives and the board’s — for example, your timeline on when to go public. If there’s a difference in opinion, it will limit the actions you can take in advancing your goals.???

One helpful technique for working with your board as CEO — and this works whether your company is young or old — is to write down a matrix of what you think the company needs and what you think you’re not personally so good at yet. It forces you to be honest — it’s a sign of strength when you can admit what you can’t do. This will help you define the role of your board; for example, for many new companies it isn’t clear how to scale, so it’s important that one or more board members has expertise in scaling companies. This can also help ensure alignment on objectives, because it gives you a stronger argument for a discussion about why someone is or isn’t the right fit for a seat on your board.?

It’s really important to have someone on your board with the right technical skills and expertise that you don’t have. They’ll be able to see around corners and ask you the right questions to keep you on track.

As a founder, you will frequently be faced with new challenges. It will be important to lean on others — your partners, the teams you build, and your Board — to fill in the gaps. I shared this advice and more, at the MIT Tough Tech Summit below:?