My work has grown and changed significantly since I first incorporated with the name Max Wenneker Consulting two years ago. What started out as operations and scaling consulting for two-sided…
Companies that find product-market fit typically want to aggressively chase that newfound demand. Particularly after an often-lengthy period of having a difficult time bringing on customers, it can be a…
Scaling a startup brings a crucial shift from individual work to team dynamics, and it's not always smooth sailing. ⚠️ Projects stall ⚠️ Inefficient resource allocation arises Often leaders react…
You built something from nothing. You had an idea, you hustled, and now you've got a thriving business on your hands. But success brings its own set of challenges. When…
This post is a transcription of a Management 101 Podcast episode titled Why Your Company Is Getting Less Efficient As It Grows, And What To Do About It Intro to…
My journey to my current job of fractional startup executive was indirect and accidental. It started three years ago, when I was contacted by a two-sided marketplace startup that had…
This post is a transcription of a Management 101 Podcast episode titled How To Manage Employee Professional Growth and Hold Professional Development Conversations Intro to Episode Setting the right expectations…
Is your company in a growth spurt, or is it stuck in a rut? A tough question to answer for a company experiencing rapid change. If the answer for your…
Right after you deliver a Performance Improvement Plan, an interesting phenomenon often occurs. For the period of approximately 2-3 weeks after the plan is delivered, the employee who has received…
In the early stages of a startup, employees can be very effective while operating independently from others on the team. This is the case because most employees are departments of…
1-on-1 What's the difference between a 1-on-1 and a professional development check-in? A 1-on-1 is something that you do once a week with your direct reports, perhaps even more often.…
Question 1: “What's on your mind?” This question opens up the floor to your direct report to talk through what they're thinking about and what's bothering them, whether it's project-related,…
Welcome back to Management 101 with me, your host, Max Wenneker. Before we get into today’s episode, I first wanted to apologize to my tens of listeners for the extended…
Time management has been on my mind a lot lately. I have observed many founders and company leaders who, particularly in the face of larger shifts in the labor marketplace,…
Hello and welcome to podcast episode three. I'm your host, Max Wenneker. And thanks for joining us today. And by us, I mean me. Today we're going to be talking…
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Management 101. I am your host, Max Wenneker. Thanks for joining again. Today we're going to talk about 1-on-1s. I'll talk about what…
This podcast is going to be focused on how to be a better manager and leader. It's going to be focused particularly on the startup setting, which has its own…
Recently I had a conversation with a startup leader who told me that it took her a long time to realize just how connected her job satisfaction and the company’s…
In the last post I discussed why most companies’ org structures don’t work well. The main reasons are that 1) they result in a disconnect between the company’s biggest problems…
You’re working on a big project for your company and need to get people from other parts of the company involved. Maybe you’re a customer service leader and need some…
As companies grow they naturally need more executives to manage a growing number of employees and an increasingly complex business. A seed stage company of 10 people probably doesn’t need…
A company with strong engineering and product teams is a force to be reckoned with. That company can more easily outrun its competition by consistently building better technology, and it…
When a company is growing fast and is relatively lean, it is incredibly common to have a bunch of unexpected problems arise on a daily basis. Founders and leaders are…
In the last post I discussed the idea that pedigree and “rock star”-ness are not great indicators of potential in candidates. In this post I’ll go into detail on two…
In my last post I discussed some of the things that I believe are extremely important to include in a hiring process to separate good candidates from bad ones. On…
Someone once told me that the difference between bad hiring and good hiring is actually pretty small. They said that the best hiring managers hire great talent 70% of the…
Founders are drawn to their profession of starting companies because they have a problem they want to solve and a vision for how to solve it. Oftentimes, though, the characteristics…