My company is a 3-year old startup based in Brazil. We reached the breakeven, got major customers and a good revenue. As it is not a technology company, it is hard to escalate, but we have 35 people on board. I'm having troubles with the majority shareholders: what should be a vibrant, engaged, decentralized culture became "corporate-y" too quickly. Bad hires, leading to bad managing habits, evolving to cracks in products and services. 25% of the revenue comes from my sales alone. Everybody just underperforms. While I'm trying to get to strategic level, the company needs my revenue directly to keep going. I'm starting to burnout. I feel I'm working for money only. I feel distrust growing, I'm feel I'm being "Woz'ed" away, and not by a Steve Jobs. I need some insights!!
I may be wrong on this one, but the situation smells of excessive funding and its consequences. Having successfully bootstrapped (no outside investors) two of the world's largest tech startups during the first wave of the Internet, I've been advocating for bootstrapping and/or MVF (Minimum Viable Funding) since coming back to entrepreneurship. More on that here: http://RMentrepreneur.fyi.to/Bootstrap
Culture is driven at/by the helm, which typically translates to founders with majority shares. It's very difficult to be the only one trying to row the boat in a different direction, especially if nobody really cares where the original direction is leading to.
Biggest question now is are you the only one that cares about the status quo? If yes, then it might be a tough one to pull through. Remember, you can always build another successful company. And if you need any advice on starting a fresh, please do feel free to reach out to me here on Clarity.
Answered 7 years ago
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