You’ve done it alone for a while, creating your product, service of offering and reached a certain stage in your offering where you need investor funding.

Investors will provide money and you will keep on running things. How hard can it be?

The smartest  founders are those that give the CEO role the respect that it is due. Unless you have demonstrate experience as a CEO, you are not a CEO and presenting yourself as one only serves to devalue your business and all the hard work you’ve done to date.

It’s time to practice the gentle art of letting go and giving away equity to build a team that, combined, have the best chance, given their combined experience, of commercialising your business. Or put another way, build a team that de-risks your business to the extent possible from where you stand today. It is my promise, you will retain more overall equity by taking this approach rather than trying to convince investors that you are a one person industry disrupting power house.

Typically, the most appropriate role I would suggest the founder move forward into post an investor funding phase is an operational, product management, sales or advisor type role. Or put simply, a role commensurate with their demonstrated prior experience.