创业公司共同创始人转型的3个路径

2.成长为COO。我投资组合中一家成功的公司拥有两名年轻的MBA创始人。一个人做CEO，打理所有外部事务；另一个做COO，主管公司内部事务。虽然公司规模不断扩大，这位年轻的COO迅速学会了如何成为一名成功的运营管理者。我的其他公司也曾聘请导师帮助年轻的幕后创始人成长为COO。这是幕后创始人的理想职位。

3.推进公司的下一步发展战略。随着初创公司进入运营期，他们变得非常专注：新产品发货、圆满完成下一季度任务、构建重要的合作伙伴关系。但是，初创公司需要不断思考未来即将发生的事情，专门分配资源推动战略计划，实现非线性增长。这是一个幕后创始人能创造巨大价值的领域。因为他在公司内广受尊重，有能力推动跨部门协作和战略计划，同时提供创新所需的“初创企业内部创业”的文化。

    这样的主题我个人相当熟悉，因为我在自己的一家初创企业Upromise中就曾担任过这样的角色。我的职位起初是总裁兼COO——因此，我一开始的角色是负责公司内部事务，很快我管理的公司变成了一家大公司。后来，我们聘请了一位经验丰富的运营CEO，我转为负责推进战略计划。

    我猜这就是为什么我特别能理解幕后创始人的原因。（财富中文网）

    本文作者是风险投资公司飞桥资本合伙公司的一般合伙人。

    译者：早稻米 

2. Grow into the COO role. One successful portfolio company of mine had two young, MBA founders. One played the CEO/co-founder, Mr. Outside role and the other played the COO/co-founder, Mr. Inside role. Even as the company scaled, the young COO rapidly learned how to be a successful operator at scale. I have had other companies hire coaches to help the young other founder grow into the COO role. For the right profile, this can be a great role for the other founder.

3. Drive the next strategic initiative. As startups evolve into functional startups, they get very focused on the here and now: shipping the next product release, successfully closing the next quarter, closing an important partnership. Yet, startups need to always worry about what's around the corner and have resources dedicated to strategic initiatives that can provide non-linear growth. This is an area where the other founder can be very valuable. Because of the respect he has within the company and their ability to cut across functions, he is well positioned to drive strategic initiatives and provide the "startup within a startup" culture necessary to innovate.

    This set of themes is one that I'm personally very familiar with because I played this role at one of my startups, Upromise. My title at the start was president and COO -- thus I initially played the Mr. Inside role and rapidly grew into running a large organization. Then, as we hired a skilled operational CEO, I transitioned to driving strategic initiatives.

    I guess that's why I'm always a sympathetic ear for the other founder.

    Jeff Bussgang is general partner at venture capital firm Flybridge Capital Partners.