No, Show, & Go: Three Words Startup Founders Need to Master

Most startup problems come down to three words founders hesitate to use:

No, Show, and Go.

1) No: We’re not doing that.

A key employee or executive may have a brilliant idea. It might genuinely be better than yours. Ideally, you find ways to channel that energy into the company’s direction. But sometimes the idea simply doesn’t fit into the broader strategy. Great employees will occasionally leave to pursue those ideas themselves, and sometimes they’ll succeed. Unfortunately, that’s the price of focus.

2) Show: Explain why we’re doing this.

Early success attracts capital. Capital attracts executives. You hire them because they’ve done it before, but reflexive deference is a mistake. Give them autonomy, but ask them to show their work. Founders need to understand every part of the business, and speed of learning is a core competency. Delegation is good. Blind trust is not. Remember, their success happened in a different context, with different resources. A track record doesn’t transfer automatically. Make them show you how it applies at your startup.

3) Go: This isn’t working.

You have to be comfortable firing people. Not performatively, not capriciously, but decisively when the moment calls for it. Unless you’re the luckiest recruiter alive, some hires will fail. The only question is how long you let the organization pay for a decision you already know is wrong. Firing people, especially the ones you like and believed in, is one of the hardest parts of the job. It’s also a skill every CEO needs to master.

These words are easy to type, but I know from my time as an operator how difficult they can be to say. Fortunately, the better you get at using these three words, the less often you’ll need them.