When to call yourself CEO: a three-stage framework for founders

Executive overview

Most founders call themselves CEO too early. The title signals a role that doesn't yet exist — and it distracts from the actual work.

The transition from founder to CEO has three distinct stages, each with its own demands. Moving too fast through them — or skipping the identity shift entirely — leads to hiring weaker people and holding onto the wrong functions too long.

The core insight: don't become CEO until you have people and functions to chiefly execute over — and even then, your job becomes recruiting people better than you, not being the best yourself.

Stage one: just be a founder

• No team or tiny team — there is nothing to chiefly execute over.
• Calling yourself CEO creates false hierarchy and distances you from the work.
• Introducing yourself as a founder signals you are in the trenches alongside early hires.
• Own everything: sales, product, code, customers, investors, support.
• Titles matter — they shape how others see you and how you see your own role.

Stage two: founder and functional lead

• Once you start hiring, someone must be accountable — but you are still doing, not just managing.
• Use a title that reflects both hats: e.g. Chief Happiness Officer plus founder.
• Dedicate separate days to the maker schedule (building) and the manager schedule (leading people).
• Context-switching between the two is difficult — naming the split helps manage it.
• The biggest mistake at this stage: handing off a function (sales, marketing) before a real leader exists to own it.
• You are still the de facto VP of every function you haven't hired a leader for.

Stage three: become CEO — and mean it

• Triggered when you hire functional leaders: VP of Sales, VP of Marketing, VP of Product.
• Your job shifts from doing to leading and coaching those leaders.
• You must be dangerous enough in each function to evaluate performance — not the best at it.
• Hire people better than you; they will raise your level, not threaten it.

The two pitfalls in stage three

• Ego-driven under-hiring: believing no one can match your skill in a function, so you unconsciously set the bar too high or never give the role away.
• The sacred cow: one function you hold onto without realising it. It often isn't the one you expect. The author assumed his sacred cow was engineering or product; it turned out to be marketing — a gap he only recognised after selling the company.

How to spot your sacred cow

• It is the function you never fully hired a leader for.
• You rationalise it as "I'm good enough at this" rather than "someone better could own this."
• The cost is not incompetence — it is that you are splitting focus across CEO duties and a function that deserves full-time ownership.