Caring is a balancing act ⚖️
Consultant to Founder #16
Last week, reality hit me.
An employee asked for 30 minutes of my time for a 1:1, and shot a missile straight at me:
“Edo, you are too brutal when you give feedback to the team. Your straightness hurts.”
I care so deeply about what we’re building, and about the end result, that sometimes I forget something obvious: as much as I care about my team, I treat my teammates the way I treat myself. I’m direct. I expect a lot. I don’t bullshit. If I have something to say, I just say it - no overthinking.
And don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep behaving this way (remember? no politics). But sometimes you have to realize that the people around you aren’t always in the same mental state as you. Sometimes they’re having a bad day. And a misplaced word can land like a knife.
Not because of the word itself, but because that word is thrown at them by their Founder.
You see yourself as a peer. But deep down, they see you as their boss. And it stings being treated harshly by your boss, even when nothing was meant personally.
The plot twist as you grow
In the beginning, every conversation is 1:1. You talk to your first hires, your buddies. You have time for everyone on the team.
Then you grow. The team grows. The time you can dedicate to each person fades. You start leveraging group forums to give feedback, but your communication style stays the same: direct, upfront - just with way less context per person.
Picture a salesperson getting 1:1 feedback on a deal. A tough comment in private can sting, but the damage is limited because there’s room for context and the sounding board is small.
Now picture that same blunt feedback delivered in front of 10 people, as you run through a 1-by-1 roast of each sales rep. The context justifies the roasting, sure, but the individual comment hits way harder when you’re hammered in front of your peers.
You’ve been built for velocity. But velocity also means adapting your communication style to the growing context of your org. Sounds easy. Trust me, it’s not, when you’re building at an insane pace and your day-to-day feels like a washing machine.
Where to find time for people
The same teammate who gave me that feedback also said:
“What I feel is missing is that people would love to have more 1:1s with you. Keeping the team aligned and motivated will be even more your job as we scale.”
Again, when you feel pulled in every direction, hyper-motivated, sparkling adrenaline from every pore, you operate under the assumption that everyone beneath you runs at the same flow. Your energy helps - but people still want to be heard, and they need a space for it.
Hiring a great People Lead helps a ton (thank God we did). But in the end, you, the Founder, have to step up and walk the talk. You have to care about people in the first person, and show it - not just know in your head that you care.
Facts speak louder than words, a motto we live by at Compri.
Time spent talking to people is always well spent. I know, sometimes it would feel like it nukes your productivity, but there are ways to make it work.
Propose 1:1s during chilled hours: breakfast, lunch, drinks. It makes the conversation more relaxed without breaking the flow.
Set common rules of interaction
Finding the balance is the hard part. Every time I take my AirPods off in the office, or stand up from my desk, someone is asking me for something. Literally everyone is trying to grab a slice of your time to unlock something. And trust me, after the initial emotional boost (”wow, people count on me”), it becomes a shitshow that makes your life really tough.
That’s why setting boundaries is critical.
Define structured times to engage: “Founder’s office hours,” or clear rules for when to pull a Founder into a project.
For example, I recently set a policy: each salesperson can involve me in 1 deal per week. The beauty of this rule is that it:
Increases the likelihood of closing the deal
Gives them tailored coaching
Creates space for a 1:1 debrief later, where you can actually communicate and build a relationship
It’s all about humans, after all.
For instance, last week, I decided to go on a full-day trip to visit a prospect in Naples together with my colleague Gabri. Left Milan at 8am, spent the full day in Naples, got back on a midnight flight.
Was it worth it? As the team scales, does it really make sense to burn a Founder’s full day like this?
On paper I would have said no. Honestly? It was so worth it.
I built a stronger bond with Gabri, onboarded him faster, and gave him a full day of Founder coaching - pure gold for a newly joined sales rep.
Time spent like this is an incredible energy multiplier, for you and for the people around you. It reignites the fire, the desire to win, the feeling that this is a team effort and we’re in it together.
It seems obvious, but with a growing team, growing complexity, more personalities and more opinions, our job becomes more and more a people business. This is where a Founder plays a real role. The sooner you realize it, the more it compounds.
Never take this for granted.