How to find and work with the right COO for your stage of growth

Executive overview

Most founders try to hire a great second-in-command before they understand what they need offloaded. The right COO is not a generic operator — they are the specific yin to your yang at a specific revenue stage.

Start with an activity inventory: catalogue every task you do, rate each by competency, price each by hourly value, then find who should own it. Only after stripping your plate of EA-level work does the COO role become clear.

The COO's job is to execute the CEO's vision, act as a filter for the CEO's energy swings, and tell the CEO what no one else will.

Titles and timing

• Do not give out C-suite titles early; the title must match roles, responsibilities, metrics, and compensation.
• At 1–30 employees, you likely need a director or VP of ops, not a COO.
• At 30–100 employees, you have your first real second-in-command — someone who could run the business if you were away for three months.
• Hire an executive assistant before a second-in-command; clear admin work first, then strategic delegation.
• A COO suited to the $2M–$100M stage will be wrong for the $100M–$1B stage — and vice versa.

The activity inventory

• List every task you perform in a month (expect 80–90 items).
• Rate each: I (incompetent), C (competent), E (excellent), U (unique ability).
• Assign an hourly market rate to each task.
• Delegate or automate everything below your unique ability threshold.
• What remains — tasks that drain you but require leadership — is the COO's core remit.

What makes the CEO-COO relationship work

• The COO needs to fit your stage, your culture, and your behavioral style — not just have an impressive CV.
• Core values must align; behavioral traits and skill sets differ by role.
• The CEO needs enough humility to name what they are bad at; the COO needs to be a safe confidant for that honesty.
• The COO acts as a stabiliser for the CEO's natural high-low energy cycle — brakes to the CEO's accelerator.
• "Date night" away from the office matters: decompress together, reset the relationship annually.
• The COO must be able to tell the CEO privately when they are off track — the emperor's new suit problem.

Vision as the alignment tool

• A vivid vision — a written description of the company three years out — is the primary tool to attract and align a COO.
• A strong COO reads the vivid vision and immediately sees which sentences they know how to make true.
• Shared vision gives the leadership team the same intuitive decision-making lens as the CEO.
• At 1-800-GOT-JUNK, the 2003 vivid vision was fully realised; the 2006 vision (targeting $100M from a $16M base) was achieved at $106M.

Hiring for behavioral fit, not just pedigree

• Corporate executives hired into small companies often expect infrastructure that does not exist — "who fills out the FedEx slips?" is a real failure mode.
• Just because someone ran a large company does not mean they can grow one.
• Interview explicitly for core values, behavioral traits, and proven skill set — separately.
• A COO who thrived from $70M to $450M would have been the wrong hire at $2M; the same is true in reverse.

Ending the relationship well

• A COO may be right for a reason, a season, or a lifetime — not every departure is a failure.
• Recognise when someone's DNA has hit its ceiling for that stage of growth.
• Exit the relationship with integrity so the person can move to their next chapter.
• Keeping the wrong COO too long is more damaging than the discomfort of the transition conversation.