CEO Handoff Doubles Growth

Andrew Wilkinson shares an observation about what happens when founders transition from running their business reluctantly to hiring a CEO.

"I found that going from being a checked-out founder operating your business reluctantly to somebody who's highly incentivized for growth, who's excited to do it - almost always the business doubles in the first year. I've been astounded by how much I had been holding back my business."

He reinforces this pattern with another example of a founder who hired a CEO after 8-9 years:

"A founder the other day was telling me after maybe 8-9 years of running his business, he hires a CEO. He plans to stick around, saying 'I'm here, I'm available for the next year transition.' He's like 'Yeah, they haven't called in a little while. We beat our numbers which I wasn't able to do the last 3 years and everything seems to be going really well.' Turns out they didn't need me as much. Little hit to the ego, but also isn't this exactly what I wanted?"