What Does It Mean to be in Founder Mode?

Founder mode has become one of the latest buzz words to hit the startup industry. What exactly does it mean to be in founder mode? How does a founder know that they should be in founder mode? Once in it, how should a founder be leading their startup?

Perhaps the first thing to recognize is that founder mode isn’t a permanent state. It’s rather a transition stage between wolf pack mode for early-stage startups and manager mode for established companies in a more corporate setting. In other words, founder mode is for those startups that have found product-market-fit and are hoping to turn that into product-market-dominance. Therefore, navigating founder mode properly is critical to reaching product-market-dominance.

At this stage, a startup is always looking for ways to improve. This includes better strategies for selling, betting channels, and new additions to the product to make it better and more appealing. The best thing a founder can do during this period is to keep raising the bar. It’s hard to get to product-market-dominance if you don’t have high hopes and aspirations.

The key is finding a balance between stepping on people’s toes and doing work for other people. By this stage, founders are past doing all of the hard work on their own. Instead, they have to be able to take a step back and trust the people they hired to do the job.

In founder mode, founders set the goals and allow the team to work. With everything a founder says, the most operative word should be “you.” For example: “These are the goals I want you to achieve.” Founders should convey their goals and expectations to employees and let them do the work.

After all, founders should be able to trust the people they’ve hired to fulfill the job duties they were hired to perform. By staying out of the weeds and keeping their distance, founders can remain objective on whether employees are achieving the goals that have been set for them. In other words, setting a high bar and monitoring whether employees are reaching that bar is what founder mode is all about.