Should I Change The Direction Of My Company? By Brett Fox Years ago I was working at a company. The company was doing incredibly well. We were growing at pretty nice clip and the stock price was going up. We were the dominant player in several different end markets. But there was a new market…
Can you believe the best work environment I was ever a part of I used to call “The Pit”? It’s true. And, not surprisingly, the company that had that work environment was the most successful company I ever worked at. The most successful company I every worked at was Maxim Integrated Products. Maxim was a…
Are There Consequences To Firing Someone On The Spot? By Brett Fox There are always consequences when fire someone. Even in California, where employment is “at will.” Years ago, I was running a division of a company. Every Friday the company had an operations meeting that included senior management. The meeting always started at 1PM…
Should A Startup Fire An Underperforming Intern? By Brett Fox Let’s be honest. The amount of money you are going to save over the next month by firing him isn’t the issue. The real issue is a lot more important. Remember, everything you do as CEO is analyzed (and overanalyzed) by your employees: Why did…
What Are The Main Reasons A Startup Fails After Breaking Even? By Brett Fox I was advising a bootstrapped startup for two years. The startup was at zero revenue when we started working together. They recently got to break even. The future looked really bright for the company. Then the wheels started falling off. The…
What Is It Like As CEO To Downsize Your Company? By Brett Fox I remember when we had to layoff people in order to get our funding closed. We needed the funding to last at least 18 months. So I had to let a lot of really good people go. These were people that helped…
What Are Some Signs Of A Bad Startup Culture? By Brett Fox I was interviewing an engineering candidate a while back. Everyone on the team really liked him, and we were set to hire him if our interview went well. It turned out that I liked him too. He was smart, passionate about his work,…
Can I Fire My Cofounder The Week Before His Shares Vest? By Brett Fox Every CEO on the planet has to ask themselves a really simple question: What type of CEO do I want to be? Do you want to be a CEO that acts with integrity and does the right thing, even if it’s…
How Does A CEO Determine Their Pay? By Brett Fox “So, what are you going to pay yourself?” One of our investors asked me after we closed our funding. I told him the number. “Sounds a little rich to me,” he replied. He would have said that to any number I said. The reality was…
It was a rainy Sunday afternoon in October. I had done my research. I had waited patiently for a day like this for a couple of weeks. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “Thank you,” I said to myself. I got in my car and I started driving.…