The List

I’m going to share something with you that I’m not proud of.

It’s something I did with my first company.  A company that did really well and changed my life for the better. But of course, what I’m about to tell you occurred before it was going well.

I’m talking about: “The List”.

It seems hard to believe right now but 20 years ago when I started this company, we were burning money. The term “burn rate “really resonates with me. We were losing

 $10-$30,000 a month for many months on end. Every month it was just a grind, a struggle.  Would we make it? Would customers understand what we were selling?  Would they adopt it before we ran out of cash? That, of course, in one of the goals of a startup - to start making money before you run out of it.

I’ve been a pilot for 30 years and one of the things that training taught me was how to be prepared for things. You have a checklist; you have a contingency plan.  To know what’s going to happen if scenario A happens or if scenario B happens. I brought that thinking into my business side. What’s going to happen if the business doesn’t work? What’s going to happen if the business starts to work but not fast enough? Of course, I always had the “what’s going to happen if it does work?” question.  That was an exciting one to think about, but I had to be prepared for the more negative scenarios.  Specifically, what if this starts to work but not fast enough or it never takes off and I have to think about shutting it down - and letting people go.

So, I had “The List”

“The List” was a physical list I had in my pocket or in my desk.   It listed the names of all the people that worked for me ranked by their importance to the company. I was number one on the list. These were the people that I would have to let go in the order I would have to let them go if things started going badly or did not go well quickly enough.  I would have to start at the highest number and start letting people go when I had to. I’d have to work my way toward the lower numbers.   I was at the top of the list because it was my company.  I would have to be the last person standing. The captain that would have to go down with the ship.

I did not enjoy “The List”.  That little piece of paper was very heavy in my pocket. I did not enjoy the idea of having it. But still now, 20 years later, I will sometimes tell the story. Because it illustrates how committed you have to be, how you have to be prepared. It also illustrates how uncomfortable it is sometimes to be the boss. Having to let people go that share the dream you have. Having to fire people that you enjoy working with, that know their jobs, that are so good at what they do.  Activating “The List” would also tell me that I had failed.   Because I couldn’t keep these people employed. It was really a report card on how well I was doing running my business.

I’m happy to say I never had to act on “The List”.  There was a certain point in the growth of the company where things took off.  We started making money beyond what we thought we would ever do. Then I threw the list away. I like to think I burned it, but I didn’t. It just got crumpled up one day and thrown in the trash. Throwing it away was a huge milestone for me and the business. It meant that while I still may have to let people go, it wasn’t because I was doing a bad job with our business.

It didn’t mean there wouldn’t be another “List” someday if things went badly. I remembered the lesson. Be ready with a contingency plan. Measure how your company is doing often and know what your possible scenarios will be. Plan ahead. Be proactive rather than reactive.  

I hope I never get into a situation again where I have to look at someone and wondering if I will have to fire them because I am not doing a good enough job  Because, after all, I’m the one that started this whole thing. I was the captain. It’s my decision and it’s my stress.

Funny how people always think it’s great to be the boss. 

 I should make a list of things to keep in mind.