You May Be the Owner, But Should You Be the CEO?

When Trapeze was founded over two decades ago, there were only three of us in the whole company. Our office was the local pub where we’d give each other floppy disks with the code we had been working on and bar napkins were our paper when an idea struck or we thought of a new line of code.

Since those humble beginnings, Trapeze grew immensely, I’ve matured as a leader, and Volaris was founded. But the business would not be where it is today if it weren’t for the team of skilled people working together to push Volaris forward. Our strengths complement each other and though we may not always agree, we keep the company’s best interests at the forefront.

As a founder, it can be hard to determine how far you can grow the business by yourself and when you need to bring in other leaders to propel the business further. Sometimes it’s a matter of control – every entrepreneur can tell you that it’s not easy to share the control of running your business.

In the event there’s more than one founder, sometimes it’s a case of competing visions of the company that keep it from growing. We’ve seen that one founder is happy with the current performance of the company while the other has a much larger vision and growth goal for the business.

A great example is one of our businesses, Wellington IT. The two owners of Wellington IT had grown and developed the company but knew it was their time to step away from the business and have a new leader take over. So they assembled a new leadership team and promoted one of their employees as the managing director.

As the owner, you either have a) the vision for your business, b) the strategic know-how to continually grow the company, or c) both those qualities. If you’re finding there is a gap in one of those areas, there’s nothing wrong with bringing people on board to help round out the leadership team’s competencies.

If there are some competency gaps, one option is joining Volaris. At Volaris, one of our key strengths is that we come alongside business owners and help them develop their day to day strategy as well as the overall vision for their company. In addition, our business unit leaders have access to a network of other software leaders to whom they can reach out to get different perspectives and advice for running their business. Plus, we’re decentralized - so it’s ultimately your call with what direction you want to take your business.

Curious to see how we’ve helped grow our businesses or provided an exit plan for entrepreneurs ready to start their next project? Check out some of the case studies on the Explore section of our website. Or contact us if you think Volaris can be the right partner for you.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for more content on M&A, leadership best practices, and talent management.