Can Innovators Be Great CEOs?
Too many researchers and innovators are told to step aside and hire a CEO. Is this the answer for all?
Innovation doesn’t always come from boardrooms or business schools. Some of the most groundbreaking ideas and leaders are born in university labs, research centers, and the minds of domain experts who have never once opened a business textbook. However, having a revolutionary idea and building a successful company are very different.
Across campuses and research institutes, a new generation of innovators is wrestling with a critical decision: whether to commercialize their discoveries, and if so, how. Some hope to balance a startup with their academic careers, while others feel pulled to leap fully into the unknown world of entrepreneurship. Yet many are uncertain about their ability or desire to run a company.
The reality? Not every innovator is meant to be a CEO. But far too many are told they aren’t cut out for it before they’ve had a chance to try. With this article, I will expose you to the messy middle, the truth about startup leadership for non-business innovators, and what it takes to go from invention to impact.
From Discovery to Dilemma
It starts with a breakthrough: a novel material, a unique algorithm, a medical advancement, a new sensor, a new application for photonics, or a system. The innovator experiences the euphoria of discovery, often followed by peer validation, journal publications, and academic recognition. But eventually, someone (an advisor, tech transfer officer, investor, or fellow researcher) suggests something radical:
“You should build a startup around this.”
And just like that, the innovator enters a new world filled with unknowns.
Where do I start? Who do I talk to? Can I even do this? Should I keep my academic role, or leave it behind?
The shift from innovator to entrepreneur doesn’t come with a blueprint. Instead, it brings a series of high-stakes decisions. These decisions can be helped by participation in NSF I-Corps programs. However, these are just a starting point.
Part-Time Founder or Full-Time Leap?
For innovators with tenure-track or research-intensive roles, the first question is commitment. Can they realistically juggle the startup journey while keeping their academic post? Some believe they can, and it works in a few rare cases. These innovators carve out time for startup activities, usually with the help of an operational cofounder or a robust team. Their lab becomes their launchpad.
Others soon realize that building a tech company demands more than occasional attention. Investors, partners, and early customers expect focus. Someone needs to be all in when things go wrong (and they will). For those who go full-time, the emotional and financial risk is real. Leaving a stable academic career, with its structure and prestige, for the uncertainty of a startup is no small leap.
But that leap is where the magic happens for many successful founders. It’s where leadership is forged, especially with a strong, experienced startup mentor’s guidance.
The CEO Question: Who Should Lead?
One of the most common and dangerous pieces of advice innovators hear is: “You’re visionary, but you’re not a businessperson. Just hire a CEO.”
At first glance, it seems logical. The innovator brings the tech; someone else handles the business. However, this oversimplifies what startups require, especially in the early stages.
Hiring a professional CEO too early can kill a startup before it gets off the ground. No matter how experienced, that CEO doesn’t necessarily have the same passion, context, or sense of urgency as the innovator. And unless the startup is already showing strong traction, most qualified CEOs aren’t interested in joining at high risk with little to no pay.
For some, the better path may be to build a well-rounded team. Instead of stepping aside, innovators should surround themselves with complementary talent who can manage sales, operations, product, or fundraising while staying involved in vision and leadership. In many cases, that means the innovator becomes the interim CEO. Maybe not forever, but long enough to lead the company through early discovery, validation, and growth.
Can Every Innovator Be a CEO? No. Should They Try? Absolutely.
Not every innovator is wired to run a business. That’s okay. But skipping the learning curve entirely is a mistake.
The early startup phase isn’t about mastering accounting or enterprise sales. It’s about learning how to think like a founder:
- Understanding the customer and market
- Making tough tradeoffs
- Building a minimal viable product
- Testing, iterating, and evolving
- Hiring the right people
- Raising capital or bootstrapping wisely
These are leadership skills. And you don’t need an MBA to start learning them. You need curiosity, humility, resilience, and a great one or two mentors.
Some innovators take to it quickly. They find they enjoy the fast pace, the strategy, and the external focus. Others struggle. The ambiguity, rejection, and context switching feel overwhelming. That’s when a complicated conversation becomes necessary.
If an innovator realizes they’re not suited for startup leadership after trying, that’s not failure. It’s clarity. With that clarity, they can decide whether to take a different role in the company (CTO, CSO, advisor).
However, that decision must be based on experience, not assumption or pressure from external voices.
Self-Awareness: The Core Startup Competency
Radical self-awareness is one of the most valuable skills an innovator can develop early. It’s the foundation for making smart decisions about your role and the company’s future.
Ask yourself:
- Am I curious enough to learn the business side?
- Am I interested in customers, or do I love the tech?
- Can I handle rejection, ambiguity, and slow progress?
- Do I want to manage people and raise money, or would I rather stay in the lab?
- Can I commit 3–5 years to full-time building something from scratch?
If the answers trend yes, stepping into the CEO role, at least in the early stages, is viable and valuable. If not, the goal becomes finding the right partners and positioning the startup for success without needing to drive every decision personally.
Success Is More Than Exit or Equity
Ultimately, the goal for many of these innovators isn’t just to build a unicorn. It’s to make a real-world impact. They want to see their discoveries reach people, solve problems, and change industries. That motivation is powerful and often leads to more sustainable companies, even if the path is slower.
But impact requires execution. And execution involves leadership.
That doesn’t mean every innovator needs to become a business expert overnight. But it does mean embracing the uncomfortable truth: if you want your innovation to matter outside the lab, you can’t outsource the journey entirely.
You need to lead. At least long enough to prove what’s possible. Ultimately, it is the innovator’s decision.
The Next Generation of Founders
As the lines blur between academia and entrepreneurship, we’ll see more innovators at these crossroads. Some will launch dual-career paths for researchers daily, and some will launch for founders by night. Others will go all in. Some will succeed as CEOs. Others will succeed by stepping aside after they’ve led the early phase.
The key is honesty about interests, skills, timelines, and motivations. And support building teams, systems, and ecosystems that don’t push innovators out but pull them up.
Because when innovators become entrepreneurs, we don’t just get new companies. We get more passionate leaders and better futures.
Curious if you have what it takes to go from discovery to impact? DM me.