No difference. CEO is when the founder likes to call himself that! Think about it - CHIEF EXECUTIVE Officer. Required only when you have many executive officers and you need a chief for them.
Funnily, here in Bangalore, there are so many startups with only CxOs working for the company/firm. So I guess they'er quite literally all Chiefs and no Indians then! :-)
In fairness, there will usually be one founder who is the de facto leader. Democracy, although fair, is inefficient. So I guess "CEO" is shorthand for "the founder who is in charge".
I've always found the CEO title somewhat ostentatious in a company with less than 10-20 people. President is even worse.
I prefer to term Founder or Director.
That said, I'm from New Zealand where the standard term for the head of a company is Managing Director, so anyone calling themselves a CEO here is probably just wanting to sound important.
I think the habit of using CxO job titles stems from most technology startups having a view to being involved, one way or another, with the US where these titles are the norm and things like "Director" tend to be mid-level management positions.
When I went to my first tech conference, I couldn't understand how people walked around with CEO on their name tag, yet that company sometimes consisted of themselves and one other employee. To this day, that annoys me (probably more than it should).
The rule of thumb should be: If you have no board of directors, you have no CEO.
I assume you're aware that "managing director" is technically a member of the board of directors of the company (a director) who also manages the day-to-day operations of the company, unlike non-managing directors (e.g. investors).
> I've always found the CEO title somewhat ostentatious in a company with less than 10-20 people.
It is.
My startup is a team of six, and soon to be seven. One of the team once asked me what his job title should be. I told him to make it up himself. It doesn't matter what your title is. It matters what your role is.
These wanky "05:00 herb tea CEO" posts are the equivalent of titles (and tantamount to linkbait IMO). The value contributed is the equivalent of the role.
Or, put another way: it doesn't matter how you do what you do. It matters what you do.
The Managing Director title is used for very senior positions in finance firms in the US. Sort of equivalent to partner in law firms.
Finding the title CEO ostentatious is fine, but a company with 20 people is a big company. I have never managed anything that large. If someone is running that sized company, by all means, they should call themselves a CEO if that is what they are comfortable with.
At the end of the day they need some title, and CEO works as well as founder, president etc.
I work in a small start up where I am one of 3 owners. I have a CEO(I am a CTO) and my CEOs role is pretty much as follows. CEO spends the day pumping contacts from previous business relationships to setup new deals for the company. Afternoon he spends an hour with me the CTO to plan technical strategy before settling down and doing his daily work as a team member.
My CEO is a manager who is able to mentor me(a tech guy) in management and leadership skills while still managing to keep up connections with third parties and perform a number of technical/business functions we reserve for his role.
A CEO is a job with a predefined role, a founder, technically isn't. I know technically they overlap, but having worked in a business where there was a CEO AND a founder, it helps you see the boundaries.
If you ask me CEO is douchey if its a team of just "guys getting started". So I go with founder. When you get proper employees, its time to wear that CEO badge.
