How do growth-stage companies match with suitable COOs?

Over the past decade or more, many founders have asked me the same question: "Meiji, do you know a truly great COO?"

This is a common question, but not a good one.

There are plenty of excellent COOs in the market. However, the COO role is probably the one with the least "standard answer" among all C-suite positions. Just as you know whether the water you drink is cold or warm for yourself, there is no absolute good or bad. A COO who performs exceptionally well at a 10-billion-yuan company may be completely incompetent when joining a 1-billion-yuan company. A COO with a highly successful track record may fail and leave your company in just half a year. A person with an annual salary of 5 million yuan is not necessarily a better fit for you than someone with an annual salary of 1 million yuan. Even what title he holds — COO, President, Co-CEO, No.1 leader, partner, or no title at all — I don't think it matters that much.

What matters is exactly what problem you want this person to solve together with you.

If the problem is already set by you: "I need to increase our revenue from 1 billion yuan this year to 1.5 billion yuan, help me break down the goal." That calls for one type of COO.

If you haven't even figured out the problem yet: "Where will our growth come from in the next three years? How exactly can AI be integrated into our business? Is going global our second growth curve?" You want this person to redefine the problem with you, and then work together to find the solution. That calls for a completely different type of COO.

I just posted a video on my WeChat Channel yesterday: Executives solve problems defined by others. Partners are the people who set their own problems and solve them on their own. Both report to you, but their problem-solving capabilities are worlds apart.

The COO that a truly growth-oriented company needs, in most cases, is no longer the traditional figure who is expected to have the professionalism of a "professional manager" and the flexibility of an entrepreneur. He has the capabilities of a No.1 leader, but chooses to help another person become a better No.1 leader at this stage. This is the unique romance of the COO role, and it is also the main reason why a good COO is so hard to find.

Over the past years, I have served a large number of growth-oriented enterprises with annual revenues ranging from 100 million to 3 billion yuan, and I am increasingly convinced that finding a COO is never a problem of hiring an individual, but a problem of multi-dimensional matching. At least four things need to be considered at the same time:

First, which stage your enterprise is currently at, and what kind of battle you are about to fight.

Second, what the soil of your organization is like, and whether it can accommodate this person.

Third, what level you as the founder are at, and whether you are truly capable of managing such a top talent.

Fourth, what kind of person this COO actually is.

Missing any one of the four conditions may lead to mismatching.

01

Don't look at the candidate first, figure out what battle your company is going to fight

Many business owners looking for a COO will say at the first sentence: "It's best if he has experience in our industry." "It's best if he has managed a business with revenue over 2 billion yuan." "It's best if he comes from a large leading company." "It's best if he has led hundreds of people."

None of these requirements are wrong, but none of them are the top priority.

The top priority should always be: What problems do you exactly want to solve in the next three years?

Because the 0-to-1, 1-to-10, 10-to-100, and 100-to-10000 growth stages require completely different types of people.

At the 0-to-1 stage, you don't even know if the business is viable. The most important thing at this time is to explore, make trial and error, find product-market fit, find customers, and find a way to survive. What you need is someone who can find a path where there is no existing road.

When you reach the 1-to-10 stage, the business model has probably been proven. You know that people will buy your product, and the model can generate profits. The problems now are: how to turn accidental success into stable performance? How to turn the personal capability of the business owner into the capability of the whole team? How to make ten salespeople perform well instead of just one top sales champion? What you need at this time is to scale up, to cope with rapid growth.

Later at the 10-to-100 stage, the problems change again. The company enters a period of rapid growth, the organization becomes more complex, there are more business lines, more employees, and more regional branches. Things that could be solved with one phone call in the past now require cross-departmental collaboration across three teams. What you need at this time is a sound system, refined operation, and strong organizational capability.

After that, at the 100-to-10000 stage, growth slows down. The company is no longer a fast-growing startup, but a huge organization that keeps moving forward. The problem at this stage is often no longer "how to expand the business", but "how can this organization survive in the long run and keep evolving". The person you need is no longer just an executor or a system builder, but an operator who can truly work with you to look three, five, or ten years into the future.

What a COO is truly responsible for, in most cases, is not creating the 0-to-1 breakthrough, but scaling up the verified 0-to-1 result in a stable, continuous and efficient way, leading the organization to go through several such leaps.

But this is only the first layer. The second layer I will look at is: are all the resources needed to solve this problem ready?

There is a type of problem where the business owner has a clear plan, sufficient capital, enough people, and all required resources, the only thing missing is someone who can execute it. The top priority for this type of COO is to break down the goal and execute. You set the problem, and he solves it.

There is another type of situation where the direction is clear, but the resources are not ready. For example, you say "I will expand our business overseas next year", the direction is set, but you don't have an overseas team, no sales channels, no local resources, and no corresponding organization. This person not only needs to do the work, but also create the required resources.

The most common situation is: you haven't fully figured out what problem you need to solve. How exactly can AI be integrated into the company? Where is our second growth curve? Where should this brand develop in the future? The person you hire at this time cannot just be "strong in execution", because you don't even have a definite task for him to execute. You need him to set the problem with you, organize resources, and solve the problem together.

For different situations, I simply divide COOs into several categories:

You know how to do the work, but you don't have time to do it — find someone who can replicate your capabilities.

You don't know how to do the work, but the problem is very clear — find someone whose professional capabilities can complement yours.

You know where the new battlefield is, but no one is there to fight for it — find someone who can open up the new market.

Even the new battlefield is not certain — find someone who can set the problem together with you.

The last type is already very close to a partner.

So before looking for a COO, don't look at resumes first. Put the problem on the table first. Different problems definitely call for different people.

02

Can your company accommodate this person?

This is something I have attached more and more importance to after seeing too many failed cases.

Many founders say: "Meiji, I want an exceptionally capable person."

I will ask: "How much is the highest-paid person in your current team paid?"

He says: "Around 800 thousand to 1 million yuan a year."

Then he says: "For this COO, we are willing to offer 3 million yuan, 5 million yuan a year, we can negotiate as long as the candidate is good."

I will continue to ask: Have you ever thought about what will happen when a person paid 5 million yuan a year joins a group of people who are paid 500 thousand yuan a year?

This is not a matter of who is better or worse. It is a very real organizational problem.

Those senior employees may have followed the business owner for ten years. They were there when the company had no clear direction in the hardest time. They were there when clients left. They were there when the company had no money in the account. Suddenly one day, a new person joins from outside, whose salary is five or ten times theirs, with a higher title, and the boss tells everyone: "Many things will be decided by him from now on."

What will the old team think? It's simple: "We have been through ten years of hardship with you, why can he get so many benefits as soon as he comes?"

And the new COO will also feel wronged. He will think: "The boss paid me so much to hire me, isn't it to make changes to the company?" So he starts to change the workflows, restructure the organization, adjust personnel, modify meeting rules, and optimize the performance assessment. The "dark side" of human nature is often aroused under such circumstances. In this state, the old team will become more and more resistant, and the new COO will increasingly think: "Why are you all so backward?" Six months later, the business owner in the middle will suffer the most. I often say a sentence: For a brilliant COO, no one except the boss and himself wants him to "truly succeed".

When the boss is most troubled, the senior employees usually give him a conclusion: "This COO is not suitable for a startup, he is not grounded, he is all talk and no action..."

But is this person really incompetent? Not necessarily. Most of the time, the organization is simply not prepared to welcome him.

I really like a word: soil. Talents cannot survive just by being planted in. The same seed will have completely different results when placed in different soil.

The difference in capabilities is often not about who is better or worse, but about different ways of thinking, different decision-making rhythms, and different starting points when looking at problems — the two different ways of thinking of new and old employees make their collaboration inherently difficult.

A senior executive from a large leading company used to have a complete data system, mature middle platform, excellent middle managers, and professional finance, HR and legal support. After joining a startup, he finds that there is no complete data, no capable middle management, no standardized workflow, and the business owner changes his mind every day. Then we ask: "Why can't this executive from a large company land his work?" This is actually unfair to both sides. After all, you hired him precisely because your old team lacks systematic and standardized capabilities.

So before matching a COO, I will definitely look at several questions: Has your core team ever been iterated before? Can your backbone team keep up with his actions? Has the team ever collaborated with people who have stronger capabilities, higher income, and more diverse backgrounds than themselves? Has the business owner completed authorization in advance? Does the old team understand why the company must upgrade at this stage? Does the new COO have the ability to see the value the old team has created in the past?

The last point is particularly important. I am very wary of a type of executive who says as soon as he joins: "This part of yours is not good." "That part is not professional." "This workflow is too outdated." "These people don't have enough capabilities." What you say may all be correct, but the problem is: it is this group of people you look down on that have brought the company from 0 to where it is today.

A truly mature COO's first priority is not to prove that he is smarter than the old employees, but to understand first: why could these people succeed in the past? What qualities of them are worth retaining? Which past advantages only need to be upgraded now? Which parts are the things that truly need to be changed?

A person who cannot see the value of the old team is most likely incapable of leading the old team to the future.

03

It's not about the COO, it's about you as the founder

This is the variable that many business owners are most reluctant to pay attention to.

When looking for a COO, we always evaluate the candidate. How good are his capabilities? How good is his leadership? What about his mindset? How open is he? But few people ask: how good is the founder himself?

Only a top talent can truly manage another top talent.

Note that I am not talking about "managing" in the general sense, but "nurturing and operating" top talents.

A person with an annual salary of 300 thousand yuan and a person with an annual salary of 3 million yuan do not just differ in capabilities by 10 times. Their ways of looking at problems, the information density they need, their decision-making habits, their autonomy at work, and their demand for power are all completely different.

Many founders say on their lips: "I want someone more capable than me." But when someone more capable than him really comes, he starts to feel uncomfortable every day. Why doesn't this person report to me? Why does he dare to challenge me? Why doesn't he do things in my way? Why does he still think about it after I give the order?

So do you really want a top talent, or just a more advanced executor? These are two completely different things.

Especially for a COO. If what you want is someone who can truly set problems with you, you must allow him to disagree with you on some path choices. Otherwise, the so-called "partner" you talk about is just a professional manager with a partner title, who will only follow the path you want. The founder cannot compromise on the general direction, but there is a professional optimal solution for the execution path.

So when I judge whether a founder is qualified to work with a high-level COO, I will pay special attention to his leadership level. There are many leadership theories, and I prefer to think from the following three levels:

The first level: Power. People follow you because they have to — you are the boss and he is the employee, this is the most basic power relationship. This kind of relationship does not only exist between low-level employees and the boss, many founders and executives also have this kind of relationship: you pay him, so he is your employee. At this stage, the founder often has to be "omniscient and omnipotent": he has to know a little bit about everything, and whenever the team has a problem, he is the one who has to jump into the pit to solve it. At this leadership stage, you cannot hire a truly capable COO or top talent, you can only get executors — because top talents are never driven by power.

The second level: Capability. People follow you because they see the excellent side of you — they follow you because you have truly delivered results before. There is a premise that everyone often ignores: you have to become a truly excellent person first, then you will be noticed by other excellent people. You have to become a truly capable person first, then you can build trust with others through work, and form a solid relationship. You win their respect and followership with your results. They believe that following you, there is no task that cannot be completed, no profit that cannot be earned, no goal that cannot be achieved.

The third level: Aspiration. People follow you because they see a better version of themselves. — They follow you no longer because of your position or your past results, but because of your character and belief, your vision, your integrity, your influence. They see that you do not only pursue results yourself, you value people, appreciate people, and even replicate your own strengths in others. You start to solve business problems with talents and organizational capabilities, building a space where you don't have to handle everything personally. When you reach this level, you are truly capable of operating a high-level COO — because you are finally willing, and capable enough, to delegate power. The founder at this stage will attract not just executors, but people who are willing to bet their own careers on you.

Most founders stay at the first or second level, but the third level is the beginning of the qualitative leap of your organizational capability. This is also why many business owners say "I want someone more capable than me", but when