Netflix has two CEOs: Co-founder Reed Hastings oversees the streaming side of the company, while Ted Sarandos guides Netflix’s content.
Warby Parker has co-CEOs as well — its co-founders went to college together. Other companies like the tech giant Oracle and luggage maker Away have shifted from having co-CEOs in recent years, sparking a wave of headlines suggesting that the model is broken.
It’s impossible to be in two places at once or clone yourself. With co-CEOs, you can effectively do just that.
While there isn’t a lot of research on companies with multiple CEOs, the data is more promising than the headlines would suggest. One study on public companies with co-CEOs revealed that the average tenure for co-CEOs, about 4.5 years, was comparable to solitary CEOs, “suggesting that this arrangement is more stable than previously believed.”
The study’s authors also found that co-CEOs were spread across industry types and that splitting the role can “complement each other in terms of educational background or executive responsibilities.”
I serve as co-CEO of an organic meal delivery company with my sister Laureen. Having two CEOs has helped us take Fresh n’ Lean to new heights. We closed 2020 with $87 million in revenue, more than double from the year before, and project similar growth this year.
We complement each other well, and the results bear that out. During the decade that we’ve served as co-CEOs, the company has grown from a very small team to 475 full-time employees and 40 part-time employees. We’ve delivered more than 17 million meals, launched four different meal lines, expanded our retail offerings, partnered with some great names in sports and fitness, and saw our annual revenues climb exponentially.
The leadership structure isn’t for every company, but it’s been a great fit for Fresh n’ Lean. Here’s why.
Divide and conquer to shorten your learning curve by 50%
Laureen launched the company in 2010 out of her one-bedroom apartment.
“Those early years were especially tough,” she said. “I consistently worked 20-hour days as I performed just about every role — cooking dishes, preparing labels, making deliveries and performing customer service duties. I was devoting so much energy into product, packaging and logistics, but in order for the company to grow, I needed help with marketing, tech and finance.”
Those areas happened to be my strengths. There was too much for one person to oversee as CEO and not enough hours in the day. But given the equal challenges that both sides of the company presented and the trust we shared, it made sense for us to be side by side on the organizational chart.
The divide-and-conquer approach allowed us to accelerate our learning curve. Rather than one person trying to accelerate learning across every facet of the business, we could split those responsibilities in two.
In a lot of startups involving two central executives, one leader will embrace the top role or make a power play. We saw each other as true equals and never felt the need to try and delineate who did more. Ego and title were never a concern.
“The company was established with family in mind, and it made sense for family to be a defining feature of the company’s structure,” Laureen said. “We both wanted the company to succeed, and from our childhood, we happened to know that we worked well together.”
Deep, focused work
Fresh n’ Lean is entirely bootstrapped, and in those early days, with no budget for marketing, we built our marketing foundation on search engine optimization. That meant grinding down and making every tweak across the website count.
Having two CEOs allowed me to do that deep, focused marketing work. And over time, as we started seeing success in marketing, our efforts became more sophisticated — we shifted to doing more on-page work with the user in mind, then to paid ads. Then we were able to hire more staff and concentrate on building our brand on top of a profitable foundation.
This is a very different approach and mentality from a fundraising-focused strategy that grants you access to “needed” resources and an urgent need for growth, sometimes at a questionable cost. From a platform built on efficiency, we’ve been able to grow into linear channels like TV without sacrificing profitability.
Be in two places at once
The CEO role seems to include a million responsibilities, both private and public-facing. Staffing and structuring. Products and services. Branding. Operations. Securing capital. Community initiatives. Answering to employees and other stakeholders. The list goes on, and it’s a 24/7/365 commitment, a massive undertaking for one person to tackle themselves, especially for a startup building departments and teams from scratch.
Carrying that responsibility between us has made the burden more manageable — not easy, but easier. Having mutual support and collaboration from someone on the same journey has made all the difference.
It’s impossible to be in two places at once or clone yourself. With co-CEOs, you can effectively do just that.
Tough decisions aren’t ego-based
Serving as co-CEOs means you’re taking yourself — and your emotions — out of the equation and being pragmatic with your decision-making. Decisions don’t involve only you, and the solutions shouldn’t involve only you, either.
“We strive to attack difficult topics with a level head, maintaining our calm and balance and thinking through issues,” Laureen said. “That approach sends a message to our team, too. We both keep each other informed on anything important, and we meet weekly to talk about the company’s direction.”
When Laureen and I don’t agree on something — which happens, as it would for anyone — we discuss it and decide on the most practical approach.
That process came into play as we decided to move forward on the construction of our 55,000-square-foot commercial kitchen facility, something we’d dreamed of for years. But it was a costly long-term project. The timing had to be just right — if we embarked on the project at the wrong time, it could have financially devastated our company.
Choosing the right moment to strike meant our production and financial needs had to be aligned, which required that we were on the same page, too. Thankfully, we were, and the opening of our facility marked a new horizon for the company.
Many executives want to make the final decision themselves and feel slighted if someone else’s plan wins out. Being a co-CEO requires collaboration — it means basking in each other’s successes and sharing in each other’s setbacks.
It helps us remember where we came from, the seemingly never-ending hardships of the early days, and how far we’ve come.
The co-CEO model can work — with the right ingredients in place.