by Hannah Herbst, Founder & CEO – Golden Hour Medical
To succeed as a CEO, you need to focus your energy and effort on building a business that will outgrow you. And that only happens by investing in people.
Developing strategy and casting vision matter, but a CEO can’t stop there. Your real job is to create a team that is smarter and more capable than you in their respective areas, then provide that team with the clarity, trust, and momentum they need to thrive.
Keep the team healthy, and the business will be healthy
Founders who fail to see business as a team effort risk the health of their company. The studies that cite issues like vision misalignment as key reasons why startups fail are essentially pointing to problems that arise when teamwork is devalued. It’s not the idea that serves as the foundation for a successful startup, but the team that brings the idea to life.
To keep the team from breaking down, CEOs must genuinely care for the people around them and ensure they’re set up with what they need to do their best work. When a CEO fails to provide the team with vision and tools, the business will fail.
Micromanaging is also not the path to success. While the approach is role-dependent, I’ve found that setting clear, high-level goals and trusting the team to determine the best path to execution leads to the strongest results.
I am grateful to have a team that is incredibly capable and self-motivated, and I made sure they understood the mission, vision, and goals we’re working toward. When you do that, you can simply give them the space they need and get out of the way.
Seek out mentors with real-world experience
AI is a fantastic business tool. It’s made my company far more efficient in many areas. For a young CEO trying to get a startup off the ground, AI can amplify your team’s skills in a way that puts success within reach.
I have found that AI works best as a supplement for your decision-making, not a replacement for it. When the decision you’re facing can alter the company’s future or affect the people who rely on it, nothing replaces the insights you’ll get from a human mentor with years of lived experience.
Mentors are one of the keys to becoming a successful young CEO. While AI can offer advice, nothing compares to sitting across the table from someone who has been exactly where you are and can provide a powerful reminder that you’re not the only one who has walked this path.
Seek out mentors in your field who share your passions and have shown they are committed to the same goals. I’ve benefited greatly from sitting with mentors who have built companies like mine, focused on inventing technologies designed to save and improve thousands of lives.
I was told years ago that there’s an unspoken code among entrepreneurs. It states that when someone earlier in the process of starting a business asks for guidance, those with more experience give it freely. Early on, I was connected with a very successful, very busy entrepreneur who spent several hours helping me build a pitch deck, without expecting anything in return except that I pay it forward one day when someone asks me for help.
Because of this understanding, finding a mentor who can contribute to your success can really be as easy as sending a message on LinkedIn. Every successful entrepreneur you see had help and mentorship to get off the ground, which gives them the responsibility to do the same for others.
Welcome divine appointments
Becoming a successful CEO while you’re young requires knocking on a lot of doors. In some cases, you won’t have what you need — the connections, the credibility, the cash flow — to get those doors open. Still, I would encourage you to knock anyway and expect some divine appointments.
A lot of doors opened along the way to allow my company to evolve from an idea into a real product that will save lives. From my personal perspective, I believe God played a role in that journey. He brought the right people together at the right moments in ways I couldn’t have planned and can’t take credit for.
Success requires building a great team and gathering the knowledge needed to lead them effectively. Do that, and you’ll be ready to take advantage of every opportunity, regardless of what brings it your way.
Hannah Herbst, Founder and CEO of Golden Hour Medical, is one of the inventors behind AutoTQ, the first smart tourniquet built for rapid, reliable bleeding control. Her inspiration to pursue emergency response innovation began after a mass-casualty event in her community underscored how quickly uncontrolled bleeding can turn fatal. With a background in engineering and a passion for practical, accessible solutions, she assembled a multidisciplinary team to design an automated device that could be used by anyone under extreme stress.
