On Founder Dating
A few takeaways from the front lines:
Where is the power in the relationship? Cofounder dynamics are often not black and white. What if someone put in more money and owns a lot more shares? What if there is an odd number of co-founders, skewing the voting balance? It pays to be realistic about the dynamics.
I once came in as business co-founder, but my partners had difficulties delegating the sales motion. If you are accountable make sure you are the explicit owner.
How do we hit our milestones? I had buyers for a variation of the existing mvp. My co-founders didn’t want to follow the money. They wanted to test the narrow application for the existing recommender (total of 3 potential Enterprise partners). While, it’s a totally fair strategy, it’s still requires buy-in from the start.
What does success look like? My partners were coming from a (very) big exit. They weren’t willing to jump through walls to prove the project. They were testing for early scalePMF quickly (100k+ users, large, 6 figure deals ). Ask yourself whether you are willing to commit up to 2 years getting the first $2M in ARR. If the answer is “No”, the strategy and the team should reflect that.