Very nice post – I really like your “rules of thumb” and find myself following a similar set every day. One additional rule I would add would be to always stay positive and constructive. A CEO must understand how fellow employees are doing / feeling. Sitting down each week and seeing where peoples’ frustrations lay and outlining solutions helps the company as a whole function more soundly and productively.

I left a NYC finance job to found CollegeJobConnect about 9ish months ago. Quick background: we are a job connection service dedicated to exclusively helping current undergraduates connect with career opportunities. We built a connection platform, not an endless list of job postings. All our student members create a Resume Beacon (similar in concept to your posting on “My Visual Resume”), which indicate their abilities and interest in employment opportunities. Employers have free, immediate access to all these Beacons year round. We have been marketing our service to students at Dartmouth mainly and have seen a lot of interest.

A start up has many ups and downs and everyone, especially the CEO, needs to help each other when those “downs” hit – it is cliche, but you need to be a fearless leader