Why I’m Hiring A CEO

Sunrise walk in North Shore of Oahu

I emailed my investors to let them know I was hiring a CEO. In two years, I built a mental health company that now operates 90% of the time without me. But in the last year, I've realized that I'm spending my time on the wrong things.

The tech industry told me that to be successful, I needed to 1) raise venture capital and 2) dedicate my entire focus to building one company working long grueling hours.

I followed this storyline with my previous company, growing it at an explosive rate while depleting myself and putting many of my personal relationships at risk.

Over the last year, I’ve pushed the boundaries on what it has meant to be an entrepreneur in the tech industry. 

I started experimenting with working only 4 days a week. This in itself seemed absurd. CEOs don't work 4 days a week. But I noticed that the more time I spent away from my laptop, the more impact I made.

So, I moved to working 5 hours a day, Monday to Thursday. Finally, I pushed the boundary further by not only running my tech company, Butlr, but starting two new personal projects - providing executive coaching to CEOs and starting another tech company - while still working ~20 hours a week.

As a result of gutting out all the things that were draining me and focusing on what energized me, I've never accomplished so much. Working on multiple projects helps me move them forward with less effort.

I don’t have time to over-analyze, or to control every little thing so delegate/automate at a higher frequency. I am naturally forced to ruthlessly cut out what doesn’t move the needle, while only focusing on the most important priorities of the business.

In the end, I run a company rather than it running me.

With what I learned from my previous two companies, I built a business that scales with a small team leveraging systems and technology. We were profitable within months of launching with no venture capital.

It is now a machine that can operate without me 90% of the time.

All the while, I was falling deeper in love with writing and teaching. It has given me a sense of purpose I haven’t felt with any of the businesses I have built up to this point.

But I was stuck.

I felt obligated to continue to run my company. I knew that staying the course would just extend what was inevitable. I was done running big businesses. I had done it for so long that I was only doing it because of the expectations I felt I needed to live up to.

Well, and to avoid my ego having a panic attack.

After a lot of internal struggle, I decided to hire a CEO to run my company.

The last two years have taught me how little time we have to spend with the people we love and on what energizes us most. 

Having built big businesses for over a decade, I am now stepping into the sidelines to help entrepreneurs realize their full potential. I will be dedicating myself to helping entrepreneurs lead as the best version of themselves without sacrificing their personal relationships, values, or who they are.