A founder reflects on being too friendly with early managers, which backfired when they underperformed. The mistake cost valuable relationships and taught a hard lesson about setting clear expectations and boundaries from the start.
I tried to be too friendly with my managers too early, and that caused me a lot of trouble because when they weren't doing what it took to grow, they would use the personal relationship against me. That was hard, man. I lost good relationships with good people because I no longer catered to their neediness when they weren't doing what it took for them to win. And that's hard. That's the piece I missed early. I didn't set those expectations. I just had to have a hard break. It was a, it was a tough lesson. I, I tell you stories for 4 days about that shit. I lost really good relationships. I mean, it's, it's an unfortunate piece of business sometimes.