Your job as a CEO: Communicate a Vision

When I joined Techstars, we had a lot of meetings, presentations, and talks with mentors and potential advisors. One presentation from David Mandell struck me. David said in this presentation that a CEO has three jobs:

1. Communicate a vision

2. Hire and fire

3. Do not run out of money

After two years of running a small startup, I couldn’t agree more with David. This blog post will go into the first job: communicating a vision.

Communicate a vision

There is no playbook for communicating a company vision. This is why this job is so hard. Think about some famous brands and their visions:

• Steve Jobs’ initial vision for Apple: put a computer in the hands of every day people.

• Sara Blakely vision for Spanx: create a product for women to wear under clothing, that helps them feel more comfortable

• Bernard Arnaud vision of LVMH: become the world leader in luxury

• Elon Musk vision of Tesla: develop sustainable energy worldwide

How do you communicate your vision? How could Musk tell the world what a world with sustainable energy would look like without an electric car, charging station, and giant batteries? How could Steve Jobs show what a world with a computer for everyone would look like when the only computers we had at the time were gigantic?

You need to be inspiring. Build demos. Write great articles and make metaphors everybody can do. There is no secret sauce, and it all depends on your business.

Communicate a vision is essential both internally and externally:

• Internally: it helps you to hire and keep true believers. Employees that are not here for the money but for the purpose. The true believer will come to church on Sunday morning and defend your vision of the future more than anybody else.

• Externally: it is a marketing statement about your brand and how you see the world. Ultimately, your vision will drive your product development and attract customers. Apple wanted to make a computer for everyone and build hardware and software that was intuitive and easy to use. It is critical, especially in early companies when customers will become customers not for what you have but for what you build and the future you promise.

As an early-stage startup, it’s crucial you clearly articulate your vision. It helps you hire true believers, people that will stick with you because they believe in the direction you are taking. It is hard but a crucial factor when building a company, especially in the early days.

Among all companies and founders, I do not know a company that communicates its vision more than Patagonia and its founder, Yvon Chouinard.

The Example of Patagonia

Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder, wanted to build a brand that creates sustainable products and doesn’t destroy the planet. He loved traveling and was an avid climber.

Chouinard constantly demonstrated his willingness to build a brand that would be sustainable. Chouinard started to sell Pitons for rock climbing. His product was a success, but when he noticed that intensive use of his pitons was hurting Yosemite rocks with wall cracks, he stopped producing them. Instead, he changed the assembly and sent documentation to fellow rock climbers on how to use his new product and stop making cracks in rocks. The rock climber community shared Patagonia's environmental values and embraced the new product.

What Chouinard did was communicate to his employees and customers the company values: build sustainable products that do not destroy the planet. And in 2011, he made it clear to the world.

For Chouinard, it was not enough to build products responsibly. He wanted to make a responsible and sustainable company. At that time, Patagonia had already told customers to recycle their products, and they were sourcing materials from recycled sources, despite higher costs.

But the most sustainable and eco-friendly purchase is no purchase. Chouinard knew it. Chouinard did not want customers to buy new products. He wanted them to repair existing products. Patagonia executives were scared of this strategy because it would tank sales numbers. Chouinard proceeded nonetheless. In 2011, Patagonia bought this iconic ad in the New York Times for Black Friday. It is now a case-study of authentic marketing.

After the release of this ad, Patagonia sales jumped. One year later, yearly sales were up by 34%. Not because customers replaced their existing products but because they chose Patagonia over another brand for their values.

Patagonia has kept communicating its vision since then:

• When PETA exposed wool-sourcing practices, Patagonia did not ignore them and stopped using the incriminated suppliers, despite having new wool-based products to launch

• When everybody buys useless products on Black Friday, Patagonia stays closed, does not give any discount and instead asks you to go outside, recycle and repair your existing product.

Patagonia communicated their mission and values to the world, which made them accountable. Very few companies articulate their mission so clearly.