Startup Founder Starts from Google CMO: How does leadership change when you build it

At 25, I became a CMO of the youngest country in Google, monitoring millions of dollars of budgets and top teams. I fought for this role for two years, and I hope to feel glad when I finally got it, but instead I was surprised.

Yes, the possibilities of my career were immense, but something was missing. Perhaps it was realized that I was executing someone else’s vision. Or probably after chasing such a harsh role for so long, the pressure I created on my head was just this.

Nine years later, I made a decision that, in fact, many of my colleagues felt reckless: I left Google to start my own company. This shift taught me more about leadership than any handbook or training session. From scratch to the building to move from the scale to the scale forces you to completely re -create how to think about top people.

Each startup founder is a hit when they realize that they can only do it themselves only by themselves. One day, you are taking customers to the ship and the next 3 o’clock is the code debugging code, you are looking at an org chart, trying to understand how your five teams have become fifty when they talk individually.

This is not just about hiring more people or implementing the new process. What leadership means to you is fundamentally about change.

Corporate leadership runs in the structure

Google, millions of customers had to be able to manage. I couldn’t do anything that had not been sclable since the first day. The culture was already – I just need to accept, adjust and apply it. There was framework for everything: 10 Innovation principles, established communications channels and hundreds of parties constantly thought about organizational functionality.

Corporate leadership is basically about working in established systems. You inherit a culture instead of creating a. Infrastructure can make you big and effective but between defined parameters. Sometimes even if you don’t have your projects you can be extremely successful, only because you were very good in internal marketing. I think it is both a power and the weakness of the larger company.

Risk tolerance becomes increasingly conservative over time. When I left Google, it became so risky that I felt that I couldn’t even try to make a more billion dollar business. Everything moved slowly. When you were accustomed to innovation, it felt incredibly frustrating.

Startup leadership demands elasticity and rearrangement

When I started my own company, everything changed overnight. My every day was completely different. Although I have worked in the corporate world for a long time, I can sleep well at night. As an entrepreneur, I am always excited and encouraged, but always the problem solution. It is a different type of intensity, more raw, more personal.

At a startup, you think about both the strategy and performing every day. There is no one else to represent a jack of all business because of all the business. The resources are stronger, so the decisions can be made quickly, often with incomplete data and large companies without the supporting function or brand.

You need 10x elasticity in a startup – the work is not because of the tough, but your decisions are in real time business shapes. That level of ownership is both empowering and relentless.

The corporate setting contains your infrastructure that allows you to believe, big thoughts and perform, but at the beginning you need to finish from the end when you are constantly adapting to disaster. The most interesting difference is how you create a culture from scratch instead of how you adapt to an existing person. When your team fits around a table, the culture occurs through your direct verbs and values, not through formal process or agency-distracted communication.

In a startup, every two months, the entire structure of the company is different because many more people are joining here and forming different groups. This means that you need to adapt to your communication style and management approach. You grow up in a way that you never expected-not as a leader, but as a communicator, employer and culture-sector.

What do you change as the scale

From startup to scale-up-led conversion, I think the business is one of the most difficult changes in the business. You need to learn how to get the results through another person, when somehow retains the quality and speed of you so far and it is in no way easy.

You begin to understand that systems and processes are no longer bureaucracy and corporate words, but something that keeps you steady. As your team expands, they help you maintain clarity and alignment. What was used to operate with casual check-in is now needed to structure.

Perhaps the biggest and most difficult change is that you don’t make every decision anymore. Instead, you become a visionary and culture carrier. You now affect the end result through others and your job is how they behave, how they lead and how they decide how they decide when they are not in the house. It requires a completely different skill set, which I am openly, I am still learning.

The challenge of the representatives is real. Leaving control may feel risky, but this is the one that lets your team grow in their own leadership. I knew every customer’s interaction, the decision of each product, each rental. Now I look for the important development of the Slack Channel or weekly update.

It may feel less in the loop but the impact you have through others who share your outlook is often stronger.

Increased policies with you

Although methods must be dramatically developed, some leadership principles create elasticity throughout your journey.

Whether you have five or fifty people, you always need urgent need. However, when you are young, the urgent fire comes out of you. When you scale up, you need to believe that it is important from everyone else. The truth becomes more important, not less. I never tried to pretend to have something or to pretend to be like that. It was true in both corporate and startup role in my corporate and I believe it is a big part of the success I have achieved.

Most critically, you must live in the market yourself. If you are not operating five or five hundred, you cannot submit your connection to customers. Instead of spending time directly to understand customer friction and requirements, the moments you depend entirely on the reports, you begin to lose contact with the reality that drives your business.

This is what I learned on Google and it served me well in the Startup World.

The sensitive aspects of enhancement as the founder

Psychological change is dramatic as operational. In a startup, the link between your decisions and results is instant and clear.

In the corporate world, you may sometimes think about what your impact will be if you go on vacation for three months. The machine continues without you. In a startup, there are no questions about your direct impact. Sometimes it is thrilling; Sometimes it is awful.

If I hadn’t followed my dream of being an entrepreneur I would never have been a happy corporate executive. There was really no option for me. But I also had to accept that this is not just a career step. It’s like choosing a life partner for the next 10 years, which includes. Good and bad.

Others advise to create this elasticity

Anyone who is considering getting into a corporate life to start something, be ready for an uncomfortable exciting journey that requires 10 years committed mentality. Equivalents that are now skills such as methodological thoughts, formal processes and working through others are tools that will unlock your next level effect. But you have to be willing to accept the discomfort of constant education.

Start implementing formal communication rhymes before you think you need. Regular All-Hands meetings, transparent target tracking and systematic check-in are not corporate bureaucracy when completing properly. These are the nervous system of a scaling company.

Most importantly, keep in mind that increasing a company means growing as a leader. The challenge is not just scaling your business. This is a scale of your mentality, systems and effects while you have the truth to the outlook to start you in the first place. Cut yourself somewhat. You are about to rumble in some parts of this transformation and it is normal.

The urgent and truth that you get here will serve you well, but only if you are willing to publish them through a whole new approach. The evolution of leadership is not about changing who you are. About expanding how you lead you to never lose why you started.