COO Survival Guide

There are very few books entirely dedicated to the role of a Chief Operating Officer, and all of them are focused on corporates, not startups. We’re on a mission to share with you the world’s first-ever book for startup COOs, by startup COOs. Stay tuned as we drop a chapter each month in 2023.

Preface

— by Charlene Chen, Co-Founder of Operations Nation

There are hundreds of books and articles written for CEOs, but very few designed for the second-in-command. This book is for COOs, written by COOs who have walked in your footsteps and are passionate about sharing some of our key learnings and war wounds in hopes that they will help you become and remain healthy and successful (however you define success) as an individual leader.

What this book is intended to be:

• A resource for aspiring or first-time startup COOs to get a better sense of what the ever difficult-to-define role of the Chief Operating Officer is and can be, and to help set you up for success in your new position.
• A resource for COOs already in the thick of your roles to address some of the common challenges we face as COOs.

What this book is not intended to be:

• An end-all-be-all guide to how to be a great COO - it is a unique journey that is a choose-your-own-adventure book. Only you can determine your style of leadership and how you will make decisions on the path to taking your company from startup to scaleup.

Click here to download the Chapter Two of COO Survival Guide.

Acknowledgements

• To all the amazing contributors who laid the initial groundwork for this book over the past couple of years: Kat Neureiter, Allegra Day, Kalie Gold, Theodore Sutherland, and Meredith Karazin
• To our Copywriter and Editor Simon Rodrigues
• To all the aspiring and first-time COOs in the Operations Nation community who inspired us to write this book in the first place - this is dedicated to you. 💜

Chapters