Author: Mitch Black

Venture Director, Mitch Black explains why startup CEOs must balance bold vision with disciplined execution, and how understanding one’s own strengths can make all the difference. Drawing from both personal experience and his work mentoring founders, Mitch offers practical insights for navigating this leadership challenge.

Many first-time founders and entrepreneurs struggle to balance big-picture vision with day-to-day execution. Especially in the early stages, founders are expected to articulate an inspiring future while also delivering results in the here and now. Doing either well is a challenge, but both? After many years of leading organizations, I am now advising and mentoring start-up CEOs and founding teams and see the struggle of balancing vision and operating discipline consistently.

Finding the Balance: Vision vs. Execution

Vision is a long-term, aspirational goal that defines where a company wants to be in the future. The founder normally “sees” the WHY and even the WHY NOW in projecting the company’s future impact. Meanwhile, operating discipline in a startup refers to the ability to consistently execute business activities with focus, structure, and accountability, even during the roller coaster ride that describes early-stage companies.

So how do I know if I am better at one or the other?

Many people assume that all founder CEOs are magnetic personalities and see the world from 50,000 feet and motivate people through sheer will. While many founders certainly fit that description, others may be more naturally technical and internally focused; and while these leaders are skilled at building, aligning resources and developing a solution to solve a market-driven problem, scaling a business with vision to build long-term value can be a challenge. The former is more common, but both are important to succeed.

I find founders and entrepreneurs typically already have vision and then learn operating discipline. And learning it really is critical. It is a key point to enabling startups to scale successfully versus those businesses that fade away. This starts with strategic planning and milestones then evolves into KPIs and tactical measures underpinned by team communication. There are many frameworks designed for driving operating disciplines such as OKRs, SMART Goals or EOS. My advice, just pick one and stick to it. Be consistent.

Know Your Strengths

Few founder CEOs possess both vision and operational excellence right out of the gate. I started my career in sales and then management in a larger company well before leading a company. So while my ability to apply vision early in my career was limited, the benefit of working for a larger company was understanding first-hand how operating disciplines in your business can drive organizational accountability and execution.

If you are visionary founder and unsure if operational discipline is a strength, ask your mentors, investors or friends, or consider taking a simple personality/EQ test, like StrengthsFinder or DiSC.

Knowing who you are is a gift and attempting to be someone else is a recipe for failure. If a visionary founder lacks operating discipline, it can be learned, to a point. I recommend always leaning into your strengths and offsetting weaknesses by surrounding yourself with people that complement you. If possessing or developing operation discipline is a stretch, find a co-founder or key number two with the ability to develop a disciplined operating process and rhythm around your vision.

Simply put, the more successful founders that evolve into great CEOs often possess both vision and operational excellence. If it is still in the early stages of the business, know who you are now and act accordingly.

The Heritage Group’s New Venture Group—which includes HG Ventures and The Heritage Group Accelerator—recently appointed Mitch Black to the newly created role of Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Here, Mitch outlines his vision for that role, and how founders stand to benefit. 

When thinking about why The Heritage Group sought to bring on board an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, or EIR, the immediate questions that need answering are: ‘Why now?’ and ‘Why me?’.

First let’s cover the ‘Why now?’ and a little background on the EIR role and The Heritage Group to provide context.

Why Hire an Entrepreneur-in-Residence now?

Traditionally, the EIR role has been positioned in venture capital or private equity as a CEO-in-waiting or stepping-stone to lead a portfolio company or a new start-up venture. EIRs may also be temporarily placed inside portfolio companies to build, innovate and scale new opportunities or products. Recently that role has started to shift within VC and CVCs. Rather than being a temporary launching pad, the role of EIR is now being conceived as a permanent fixture within a firm, where value is created continuously by contributing to the success of its portfolio companies and investments.

Enter The Heritage Group’s New Ventures arm, which includes HG Ventures and The Heritage Group Accelerator. HG Ventures supports innovation and growth across The Heritage Group by investing in startup companies developing new technologies in both its core and adjacent markets. Since its inception in 2018, HG Ventures has invested in 35 companies. The Accelerator is entering its sixth year and is an intensive accelerator program designed to propel hard tech startups. The program offers investment and access to world-class corporate labs and mentors from seasoned entrepreneurs within and outside The Heritage Group.

Over the past six years, HG Ventures has not only added more portfolio companies, but those same companies have continued to evolve into various stages and ages of growth. The Accelerator has concurrently matured in its applicant acceptance process and overall program relevance in the competitive hard tech accelerator marketplace.

One of the primary investment theses of both HG Ventures and the Accelerator is to bring value beyond just capital investment. This value includes providing resources borne out of The Heritage Group including things like market insight, research and development expertise, pilot testing and market connectivity. Now an opportunity has emerged to expand that value further to the already-thriving venture capital arm, established accelerator program and emerging internal incubation efforts. This new value includes delivering commercial insight and mentoring those individuals–start-up Founders and CEOs–in which HG Ventures and the Heritage Group Accelerator has invested time and capital.

Why Me?

My professional objective at this stage of my career is to move from an operating role into an advisory/mentoring role, so the timing of the emergence of this EIR role has created a serendipitous opportunity for both of us.

I have enjoyed a long career as both an entrepreneur and executive with companies at various stages. For the past ten years, I have led venture and private equity backed companies that include two successful exits, multiple capital raises and yes, even a few unsuccessful outcomes.

Most of my career has been in the technology and software space, not hard tech. While I am learning every day more about the Heritage Group and its markets, The Heritage Group’s New Venture arm has a world-class team, seasoned in the industry. They do not need another chemistry PhD or professional hard tech investor, but someone that has ‘been there and done that’ as a startup founder and executive.

My passion lies now in enabling leaders and investors to move their business from one stage to another. This may include moving a startup from early stage to market fit into go-to-market acceleration or scaling a growth business to exit. I love helping businesses and leaders to plan, evolve, adjust and scale their businesses for success, which can also mean something different to the individual founder and its growing stakeholders, just as I did as an operator.

I am looking forward to the next chapter of my career as Entrepreneur-in-Residence here and driving value for HG Ventures, The Heritage Group Accelerator and its constituents.