Issue 174, Part Time CEO Newsletter

Hey, it's Dhiren 👋,

I remember the afternoon clearly during my time at Cloudscape.ae, about eight years ago.

I was building a process video for a client. One of those detailed walkthroughs that takes you through a system step by step. I loved that kind of work. Still do. It lit something up in me that most of my other work couldn't touch.

Then I looked at the sales pipeline.

Thin. Not dangerously thin. But thin enough that I knew what the next few hours actually needed to look like. Not the video. Phone calls. Follow-ups. The sales conversations I'd been putting off because I'd rather be building something.

I closed the laptop. Picked up the phone.

That afternoon, I understood something I'd been living for years but hadn't named. Being a founder and being a CEO are not the same job. And I was doing both every day, with no system for switching between them.
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🧠 Two Jobs

Most founders I work with are in exactly the same position.

They started the business because they were good at something. Really good. The work lit them up. Whether it was design, consulting, software, events — the craft was the point. The business was the vehicle.

But somewhere along the way, the vehicle started demanding more attention than the destination.
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Here's the best way I know to picture what happens next.

Two triangles. One for the Founder — the Maker, the innovator. One for the CEO — the Manager, the one responsible for execution and operations.

Where they meet, at that single shared point, is Vision.

Vision is the bridge. The Founder creates toward it. The CEO protects it. Without it, the two roles have no connection. They're two exhausting jobs wearing the same face.
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🧠 The Physics

The diagram shows the structure. What it can't show is what's pulling at the Founder.

Three forces. All working at once.

SOS. Shiny Object Syndrome. The next idea, the new offer, the collaboration that didn't exist yesterday. Pulls the Founder up and outward. Away from Vision. Away from the grounding work.

FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. The conference, the trend, the thing everyone else is building. Pulls sideways. The sense that the real opportunity is always somewhere else.

And then there's the CEO, sitting at the bottom of that hourglass, acting like gravity. Every time you rise into creation mode, the weight of execution and operations pulls you back down.

Most founders I've observed respond by trying to choose. Go all-in on Founder and let the management work pile up. Or commit fully to CEO and starve the part of them that started this whole thing.

Neither works. The business needs both. You need both.

The real work is understanding what lights you up and what you can eventually hand off. The tension doesn't disappear when you figure that out. It becomes navigable.

Vision is still the bridge. It tells you which role the business needs you in right now. Without it, you're not managing the tension. You're being managed by it.

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Your Turn

One question this week.

Which role are you avoiding right now? Not which one you prefer. Which one are you actively running from?

The business is already telling you. Pay attention to what it's saying.

Know a founder who keeps saying yes when everything in them says no? Forward this to them.

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📢 Dhiren’s Updates

​Basecamp is back. June 4th. It's a three-day in-person intensive in Dubai, where we build the foundation your business needs to run without you — your offer, your money, your time, your team. One room, small group, no fluff. If you've been thinking about it, now is the time.
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📌 Dhiren’s Pick of the Week

📚 Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work — Dan Roam

I've been spending more time building visual frameworks and models lately. The hourglass in this newsletter is one example. Dan's book is what happens when you stop trying to explain everything with words and start drawing it instead. Worth reading if you've ever struggled to get a complex idea out of your head and into a room of people

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ps: did someone forward this to you?​
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Cheers