The aspect of conflict in startups in Cameroon are not no more unusual than conflicts in established companies. With the endeavor requiring human beings to cooperate with one another for extended periods of time, the startup business is no stranger to personality conflicts, ego defenses and diverging goals. However, some conflict in startups in Cameroon has rather led to growth if managed properly whilst other conflicts have killed the startup venture.
Startups in Cameroon usually have the following conflicts at different level as follows;
Start-up Phase 1: Seed Round (Founder Conflict)
At this stage, the main motivation is the believe in the idea, mission and vision as no one is making money yet. Emotionally-driven momentum is what repletes the seed round of a startup alongside trials and tribulations. Therefore, uncertainty and mistakes are quite abundant.
With the emotional excitement, change, and uncertainty comes conflict between founders. This phase, especially, is rife with founder conflict, much of which is due to the following;
1) Lack of Clear Lanes
The seed phase of a startup is an all-hands-on-deck time as everyone tends to do a little bit of everything. This phase usually sees the CEO involved in product development as well as selling, the COO handling HR and Finance related tasks, the CMO trying to streamline delivery strategies. This creates a lack of clear lanes which can be very challenging. So, the stake holders at this stage are crossing over into each other’s lane regularly.
While this is often the nature of an early-phase start-up without the money to hire a robust staff, this lack of clear lanes often leads to conflict, especially among partners or co-founders. There’s usually at least one founder that thinks he’s doing too much, that he’s doing other people’s jobs but he has no choice because they just can’t handle it the way he knows they should.
Then you have the co-founder who feels the first one is stepping on his toes, micromanaging, and acting like a control freak. This makes him feel undervalued, underappreciated, not trusted, and monitored. So, both sides foster resentment.
When clear roles and responsibilities are not established and lanes are not adhered to diligently, the turf war conflict is inevitable.
Start ups in the seed phase should, as quickly and as often as reasonable, develop clear lanes for each role and adhere to them.
2) Misalignment of Goals/Values/Vision Among Co-Founders
One founder thinks they should market this way and build revenue that way; the other thinks that doesn’t make sense and has her own idea of how the business should be structured. A lack of clear hierarchy also adds to this issue, which is the common “problem of egalitarianism” in early-stage companies.
There’s no clear head or final voice that stops the buck; and so, the question of who calls the shots, who leads the vision, regularly results in conflict.
Again, some clear lanes, boundaries, and perhaps even a hierarchy is highly recommended.
3) Division of Labour and Shares in Preparation for Funding
At this stage, the founders go out for funding which then exposes them to learning of the particular demands and expectations of early-investors. The visions and structures of the co-founders may be changed as investors get involved. Some founders may discover their shares, titles and board seat have the chance of being significantly diminished upon funding.
Sometimes, this is the only way to get funding, and they must bite the bullet for the company and thus for their own jobs and their future prospects; but that doesn’t mean they’ll like it. Swallowing such a pill leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of many. The prospect of reduced control and ownership, especially if it only applies to particular founders and not others, can create resentment and conflict if not confronted and spoken about with everyone openly and logically, including laying out the clear long-term potential for all involved.
Start-up Phase 2: Launch (Series A Round)
This round comes in after funding is complete as their vision has been validated by venture capitalists. The time to prove their worth has come and this brings with it the activities of new hires, new roles assigned, new clients and customers attained.
And with establishment in the marketplace comes a host of new potential challenges, including the following three common conflicts:
1) Poor or Total Lack of HR Protocol / Standards
Although new hires are inevitable at this stage, some companies in the launch phase still rarely put much time into developing their people operations. This should be as a result of the excitement that comes with launching into the market and there is the general feeling that everyone is going to be happy, understand their roles and live up to expectations. Unfortunately, not everyone always does.
Some companies start experiences mismatches which eventually lead to lack of productivity, miscommunication and sometimes confusion as a result of the wrong people being put in the wrong positions.
These personnel issues happen despite the fact that most young companies hire an outsourced HR service for compliance issues, payroll, and recruiting. That’s why early-stage companies would be well-advised to, at the very least, bring on an experienced HR director or people ops manager as one of their first, core hires.
2) Power Struggle Among Executives
Fortunately, after funding, co-founders tend to become a bit more defined and lanes become clearer. This because the founders tend to focus on doing what they know how to do best without taking into consideration the entirety of responsibilities their position demands within the company. Considering that the company though haven secured funding is still open to other challenges like competitors which may expose the company to large risk and need for more experience.
This period of time takes a big leap of faith by the stakeholders — that each exec is in the right place and should be trusted to do their jobs well. When they have an idea or believe a particular decision is right for their respective departments, it should be wholeheartedly considered and discussed before denying the decision.
3) Mismatches of Executive Roles
During the seed phase, everyone is doing everything. Perhaps one or several of the co-founders or early-stage employees were placed into roles that they were not quite suited for, whether due to a lack of experience or a lack of desire to do that job, but they did it anyway in order to help get the company launched. Now that funding has come in and the company has launched, however, the mismatch becomes evident. What worked prior to funding — i.e., all hands-on deck — no longer works, at least not as efficiently as it needs to at this stage. But now egos are involved. The COO, who would be better suited as the CRO or Biz Dev Director, doesn’t want to lose his title as the second in command; even though the newly hired financial strategist would be a much more effective COO.
Handing out new titles and placing founders in new roles can be a tricky endeavor. One that is typically rife with conflict. To manage the potential for intense conflict, this stage will, again, require clear communication, pragmatic reasoning, open minds, and agreed-upon visions for each stakeholder’s future as it relates to the company. Further, a company would be well-advised not to assign new hires to C-level roles too quickly, but rather bring executive in at director-level titles and let them prove they are worthy of a promotion when the next phase of the company emerges.
Startup Phase 3: Growth (Series B-D Rounds)
A large cash injection has taken place. There is a buzz now about the company, from the general public. It’s a truly exciting time. The founders have proven a model, they’ve developed a viable product, and now it’s time for expansion. But with expansion comes a whole new slate of challenges. The following three conflict themes are those consistently seen at this phase.
1) Customer Conflict & Public Relations
Capital has been injected, there are resources to hire expert marketing personnel and implement massive marketing campaigns. The customer base and the demand of the product should grow rapidly and the company is expected to scale as projected. What is however expected with the early growth stage is customer service issues as to company grows.
More customers mean more problems, and the company is still developing its best practices for customer service reps, not to mention still scaling the customer care department. During this growth, some customers will inevitably be upset or not feel taken care of, which can lead to poor reviews and bad press. As soon as possible, the company should assure their customer service reps are well trained both in solving product challenges and in conflict resolution for customer service specifically.
2) Cultural Mismatches of Employees
A startup during the growth phase can face challenges of employee mismatches. It is presumed at this stage that the founders and co-founders have likely proven themselves in their respective roles and expertise.
But as the people operations department grows and has to scale the workforce via several more hires, there will inevitably be some challenges and errors. At this stage, the rapidly expanding recruiting process is trying and testing who and what works, but because the company is so new and growing rapidly, cultural mismatches are inevitable, which will lead to interpersonal conflict.
As quickly as possible, people ops or HR departments must develop a working model and protocol for finding not only the right people for the jobs but also for the culture.
3) Time Management
The growth phase is the busiest phase for most executives as they will be engaged in more innovation, procedural systems creation and additional ideas to enhance their products, marketing strategies and revenue models.
Unfortunately, many executives, let alone lower-level employees, do not learn or implement effective time management skills.
During growth, some executives become obsessed with meetings — meetings for the sake of meeting, another poor use of time. Aside from a productivity issue, the lack of clear boundaries when it comes to availability and an overabundance of meetings can create resentment, frustration, and inevitable conflict among executives and staff.
It is therefore advisable for company leadership to design, implement and enforce clear guidelines around how and when time ought to be used and allocated throughout the entire company.
Conclusion
There are certainly other phases of conflict or challenges to add to the top three conflict areas we have examined above.
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