The term “North Star metric” is usually used in the context of picking

How CEOs Think Credit Pete Flintar Mind Shift 1 Pick A Clear North StThe term “North Star metric” is usually used in the context of picking KPIs, but it has a broader meaning Your North Star is often.

How CEOs Think

Credit: Pete Flint

Mind Shift 1: Pick A Clear North Star

The term “North Star metric” is usually used in the context of picking KPIs, but it has a broader meaning Your North Star is often defined by which of the different groups of stakeholders in your company you consider

most crucial to the success of your company

You need to identify the highest leverage

constituency and choose your North Star based on

what creates the most value for them.

Mind Shift 2: Deeply Understand Your

Multiple Constituents

Step two is to go beyond that and develop a deep understanding of who all your constituents are — what their needs and incentives might be, and how to

manage their competing demands.

Fortunately, one of your biggest jobs as a Founder during Phase One will have been to figure out how to engage and retain customers in a scalable way

Some of the same techniques you used to delight your customers can later be used to service other key

constituencies — such as employees, advertisers,

To do this, you have to translate their needs into the appropriate metrics, product experiences, and

processes, just as you did with customers to achieve

product-market fit.

Mind Shift 3: Seek Out Advice and Feedback

As a CEO, you need to be constantly learning and evolving If a startup is a learning machine, then the CEO needs to be the standard-bearer of this philosophy

The more advice you can get, the more mentors you can

find, the more feedback you receive, the better

You need to be constantly learning and getting

better at what you do.

Mind Shift 4: Learn to Leverage Your Time

and Delegate

To scale any startup, you need to bring in leadership talent Founders need to hire exceptional leaders to fill in gaps in their early team’s capability — leaders that they

can trust to help scale the organization

Beyond removing yourself as a bottleneck, this is also about finding a way to free up your time so that you can

focus it on the highest-leverage activities.

Mind Shift 5: Build Trust By Embracing

Authenticity

Authenticity is therefore critical to building trust If, as a Founder, you are transparent about what’s going on and the true situation your company is in, and if you can clearly articulate the plan and then deliver on that plan,

the trust you build with employees and other

stakeholders in your company is beyond measure.