I recently spoke to a group of entrepreneurs from the UK who were doing a tour of Silicon Valley. In the evening I attended a similar get together of entrepreneurs from Portugal. This is the first of a few common questions I jotted down. It seems trivial, but isn’t: “What job title should I use?”

In the UK and Australia it is common to call the leader of a company the managing director. The key technologist in a startup might call themselves the technical director. The problem with these titles in Silicon Valley is that a director is actually a mid-level role in a US corporation. A director title does not signify the leaders, founders or key entrepreneurs behind a company.

The most common titles for startups in Silicon Valley are going to be CEO and CTO. Note that CTO stands for chief technology officer, not chief technical officer. It really does not matter if your company is just two people, these titles are accepted and acceptable.

As Mark Suster suggests, avoid the title chief operating officer (COO) or president in your startup as it is unnecessary when you are small. It is confusing for staff and hampers decision making. If you are thinking of giving the COO title to a co-founder, it is probably an ego thing and Mark recommends getting more functional with their title. Make them VP Sales or VP Product and tack on a “& co-founder” to satisfy their ego.

Other C-level titles are also best avoided as they scream expensive overhead early in the lifecycle of a company. This is all very rough… but a CFO isn’t needed until you are >50 staff. A CMO isn’t needed until you are >100 staff. And a CIO probably isn’t needed until you are >200 staff. This isn’t to say that you don’t need a head of marketing, but their title would be marketing manager, marketing director or vice-president of marketing depending on their experience and your requirements. Job titles matter hugely when you are setting pay and your 22 year old “VP Marketing” is quickly going to be googling “VP Marketing salary” and wonder why they aren’t being paid what they deserve. Inflated job titles can also make it difficult to bring in more seasoned managers as you grow.

A side note is that occasionally I have seen finance types get involved early in startups. IMHO, unless a person can either build, market or sell a product they don’t belong in a founding team. If a startup is in the finance industry, yes a finance background makes sense…otherwise the supposed ability to raise capital is not a good enough reason to be a co-founder.

Finally a word on modesty. With the group from the UK, the question came that “we are only 5 people, isn’t a bit over the top to call myself the CEO?” This modesty is very typical for people not raised in brash American capitalism. You’re in America now, so in my opinion you should definitely call yourself the CEO. Being the CEO clearly states who is in charge and investors, staff, customers and partners like that. And, forget your modesty, as by some standards 5 people is actually quite big. A lot of YCombinator startups only have 2 or 3 founders. If you truly insist on being modest, you can stick with just “Founder.”

Another question might come as to whether it is acceptable to have co-CEOs. Intuitively I think it is a bad idea as there is no pig (see Chicken and Pig story.) However, the most successful startup I have witnessed grow first hand in the last 10 years is Atlassian. Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquar have been co-CEOs and done an outstanding job. Still, in your early days if you can’t figure out who the CEO is I would stick with just Founder and add the CEO bit later after it becomes clearer who the leader is.