My initial title at Looker was ABC. As in: Anything But Coding. That’s what I did. I was simultaneously the CFO, the head of sales, the chief counsel, and the head of marketing. None of those was a job I was actually qualified for. I muddled through. And in the process, I learned exactly what each of those roles required at our particular company at our particular stage.
Then, little by little, we recruited people who knew vastly more than I did. A real CFO. A real head of sales. A real general counsel. Each time, I handed off the job and watched the function get dramatically better than anything I could have built.
By the time we sold Looker to Google for $2.6 billion, my title was just “Board Member.” And I was completely fine with that.
That’s what success looks like at a startup. You work yourself out of every job, in order, until the company doesn’t need you anymore.