Building a founding team that works
A founding team is a bet on how people handle conflict. A series on equity splits, co-founder breakups, early hiring, and knowing when the team itself is the risk.
A founding team is a bet on how people handle conflict
Founding teams get chosen mostly for complementary skills. What actually determines whether a team survives is how its members handle real disagreement.
Splitting equity fairly is harder than it sounds on paper
An equal equity split feels like the fair, conflict-avoiding choice at the start. It can quietly become a source of resentment once contributions diverge.
The co-founder breakup nobody saw coming
Co-founder splits often look sudden from the outside. Nearly all of them were visible, in hindsight, for months before anyone acted on the warning signs.
Hiring the first ten employees changes the company forever
The first ten hires set norms that persist long after those specific people have moved on, whether or not founders are deliberate about shaping them.
Recognizing when the team, not the product, is the risk
Founders default to diagnosing struggles as product or market problems. Sometimes the actual constraint is the founding team itself, and that is harder to admit.
