E12: Deciding to Hire an Outside CEO with Jason Cohen

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On this episode, I’m talking to Jason Cohen, founder, and CTO of WP Engine. WP Engine is a world-class WordPress hosting company with over 60,000 customers in 120 countries that provide innovation-driven technology and top of the line customer service. Jason is a serial entrepreneur with vast experiences in the space: bootstrapping companies, selling businesses, getting outside funding, working both alone and with co-founders, and being involved as an angel investor in additional ventures. Join us as Jason shares his approach to entrepreneurship and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Jason’s background in digital entrepreneurship
• Market research and evaluating the WP Engine business idea
• Deciding to hire an outside CEO
• Experiencing burnout and delegating work
• How to set up expectations with employees
• Business management and leadership without micromanaging
• Personalization and performance of digital products
• Pillars in the future of the digital space

Links:

WP Engine
a smart bear Blog
Jason Cohen – Twitter
Remember The Milk tool
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton M. Christensen

Quotes by Jason:

“As founders and CEOs we tend to put ourselves last and treat ourselves worse than we would our employees.”

“Delaying the inevitable is always wrong, regardless of how hard it is to pull the trigger”

“There’s a ton of advice out there. Listen to all of it and pick out the things that resonate with you.”