How to Run a Company

I recently hired a new coach, and to give him a clear starting point and an idea of how to improve, I decided to explain how I’m currently running EWOR. So I opened my emails, and as I started typing up this message for him, it wasn’t long before I asked myself, “What the hell does it actually mean to run a company?” There are millions of aspects that matter—so which ones do I choose to describe to him?

I recognise that there are so many different management styles. For example, some founders don’t “run” the company – they just found the company, hire good people, and give them plenty of autonomy. Others, on the other hand, try to do everything themselves. But the most effective approach, I believe, lies somewhere in the middle. After reflecting on this balance, here’s what I’ve concluded about what it really means to run a company.

The Fundamental States of Running a Company

First of all, I believe there are two fundamental states of running a business. The first is mostly explorative, typically before Product-Market-Fit. The second is mostly exploitative, focused on scaling a product.

When you're in the exploratory stage, the key is to run as many high-quality experiments as quickly as possible until you find a solution that can scale and effectively solve a problem. Moreover, your company is typically so small that everyone knows about everything that is going on. There is very little effort required in running the company, as all co-founders and founding employees are typically very motivated and aligned to drive the company forward.

After the exploratory stage, the fundamental question is, “How do I scale and grow the company as quickly as possible?” Answering this question comes with multiple challenges: you’ll need to hire and lead people, align them around key company goals, understand your key goals, maintain high product quality, bring in money from investors, and so on. In the next section, I show you how I break that process down.

OKRs

To me, running a company means striking a balance between structure and flexibility. I believe in setting clear, measurable goals for the team but also allowing enough space for exploration. 

For all things that are number-driven, I love Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). We measure everything that can be quantified through these OKRs. Each leader aligns their team’s goals with the company-wide objectives, and we push ourselves to hit ambitious targets every quarter. It’s not just about hitting 100%, but more about maintaining a healthy tension between ambition and realism, so we aim for an 80% mark, which I believe shows we are aiming high enough without being unrealistic. 

The challenge with OKRs is simple: they need to be high-level enough so that if all OKRs are reached, your company is in a healthy stage. For example, if you keep onboarding enough customers (# of customers key result), retain them (retention key result), and get them to pay a high enough price (ø price key result) in a way that eventually leads to a profitable business, you’re already doing okay. 

At the same time, OKRs should be low-level enough so that they are connected to a certain “input” a person or team is able to deliver every week. For example, if you sell to enterprises with sales cycles of over 12 months, setting a revenue key result is not advisable. 

Every week, the entire team tries to focus 60-90% of their time (depending on their different functions) on tasks that contribute to reaching their OKRs. Our leadership team uses different measures of accountability for this. Within the first one to two years of running the company, I typically change OKRs a lot. Every quarter, we detect better metrics that measure the value creation of our company in a truer form. However, at one point, it’s important to hone in on what really matters and avoid conversations about OKR’s being “wrong” just to excuse performance. 

Yet, not everything fits neatly into OKRs. Some tasks are intangible but equally critical, which is why we manage those through projects. Let’s discuss below:

Projects

In general, every team member has a maximum of two key objectives and a handful of projects each quarter. This keeps our focus sharp and ensures that our time and resources are allocated efficiently. It’s an intentional decision to limit the number of priorities we pursue at once. By doing this, we prevent overstretching and direct 80% of our efforts towards the most significant initiatives.

My job as CEO is to achieve balance. Therefore, I need to ensure that the projects are aligned with the overall goals of the company and defined clearly enough so that we can evaluate their success afterwards.

Depending on team dynamics, I’ve found myself in the role of both pushing people toward higher ambitions and reining in ambition to set more realistic goals. Though, this balance largely depends on the types of people you hire.

Communication

Communication is about how you show up in daily interactions, the feedback you provide, and the way you make people feel in everyday moments. These subtle, intangible exchanges shape company culture, build trust, and elevate performance. To accomplish this effectively, I believe there are three key areas of CEO communication to consider:

• Establishing a Regular Rhythm
• Tracking and Sharing Progress
• Preventing Paralysis

These are the areas I’m always looking to refine—how I can elevate those around me not just through process but through presence. But what exactly does it mean to be active in these areas?

Rhythm

Firstly, when it comes to ensuring a rhythm, I try to maintain regular touchpoints with the leadership team. This comes in the form of weekly one-on-one calls for roughly one hour with every person I’m directly working with, to longer leadership check-ins with the entire leadership team.

If your company does not have a leadership team yet, just replace “leadership team” in the above text with “every single team member”. These aren’t just status updates—they’re opportunities to discuss challenges, share wins, and ensure everyone is aligned and hold us accountable. My rule is to never miss any of the weekly leadership meetings, so I end up having 48-49 of them every single year. Purely based on gut feeling, I’d suggest that the more weekly (leadership) team calls a CEO attends, the higher the company’s valuation. Rhythm, consistency, and incremental progress are crucial factors.

Progress

Secondly, communicating progress is one of the biggest motivations for anyone working in the company. Theresa Amabile wrote the “Progress Principle”, an entire book devoted to making precisely this point. In the end, everyone wants to work on something meaningful, and growth is the ultimate prerequisite of that. This is why we have a dedicated space for daily wins and shoutouts (a #winning channel in Slack). Moreover, we share weekly wins in a 15-minute weekly stand-up with everyone from the company. It’s important to recognise momentum, no matter how small, as it keeps everyone motivated and connected to the bigger picture.

Paralysis Prevention

And finally, what I believe is the third key aspect of communication is preventing paralysis. Often, pending decisions, reviews, and discussions prevent people from continuing their work. I see it as my job to give people the right to make as many decisions as possible by themselves. Then, everyone should be able to reply within 5 hours to anyone who needs anything. Slack is a great app for this, but as long as this is a given, I believe you’ll do fine. It is your job as a founder to prevent people from paralysis. Everyone should always have permission every day to contribute a maximum amount to OKRs.

Setting Standards

Moving on to this next point, I think anyone who “runs” a company needs to set standards. For me, this means ensuring that the quality of anything external is always as high as it can be. This means accepting scrappy launches if necessary, but within the timeframe given, always ensuring the highest level of quality. 

Moreover, I believe that putting the company goals about one's individual professional goals as well as working hard and smart are essential elements that any company requires. I see it as my job to demonstrate those attributes myself on a daily basis. If everyone else realises that you are always putting the company first and, with whatever you do, you’re coming from a good place. 

This and the above are, at least to me, 80% of what it takes to run a company. The remaining 20% would need an entire book, or series of books. 

A Final Note

I believe running an early-stage startup, at least until the first 50 employees, is not as sophisticated as people often want you to believe. If you show up every single day, measure the OKRs and projects that truly matter, align everyone on reaching them in a way that is respectful and efficient, communicate progress effectively, and set the right standards, things will work out!

A question I ask myself every week is, “Does what we are currently doing make sense?” If not, I adjust one of the variables above. If it does, I focus on stabilising, maintaining momentum, and enjoying the process. This serves as my guide to running a company.

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