> Misconception 2. You should find a CEO to run the company
At early stages, no brilliant CEOs will agree to that and you don't want to do business with mediocre CEOs.
Of course it's better if someone has had the chance to gain leadership experience prior to that, but there are also a big chunk of responsibilities in a CEO role that other mid-level management positions won't prepare you for either. Given that (at least im my field) a PhD graduate usually had leadership over a bunch of Master/Bachelor students for the duration of their PhD, there is usually at least some experience to build on.
It’s not that they’ll never be good leaders, it’s that it’ll take a while to get there, and that timeframe might be measured in failed startups.
The article expands a bit on why it's not a good idea to hire a CEO, and I mostly agree with that part, though not so much with having no business person on the founding team.
I guess one could make the argument that all startups should do that, but it seems the most successful ones usually don't.
So this article I think should have one extra point--you should hire a CEO that you report to as the president or CSO of the company. That CEO doesn't need to be fantastic, they just need to have been in leadership roles for sometime in industry. This way you get the organization and management expertise only gained through years of work, and you as president and scientific expert do the leg work around selling the science to potential investors and pushing the research forward.