Job titles in startups are usually loosely defined and casually managed. In many cases, founders hand out very senior-sounding titles to their co-founders and early hires.

While everyone likes having a fancy-sounding job title, they can come back to bite the company later as it grows.

The one big title you need to have in the company is a CEO. Investors, partners, vendors, and employees all need to know who speaks authoritatively for the company. They are both the face of the company and the person with ultimate operational control.

Beyond that, in an early-stage company, titles are somewhat arbitrary. Sometimes they are silly or descriptive, but often founders give all the early employees very senior titles like CTO, CMO, or Vice President of whatever.

Early on, these inflated titles do little harm and can make everyone feel important. The problem comes later.

Check out the written version of this episode here https://ftb.bz/62B

Get the video version here https://ftb.bz/62V

Get all the other episodes on our website https://ftb.bz/

Get all the videos on our YouTube channel https://ftb.bz/YouTube

To get access to free one-on-one coaching with me, join our mailing list here: https://ftb.bz/Join

62. Design your C-suite with care. Consider the next 2 years of your startup when handing out titles