Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.
Decision on whether you need a co-founder
Plenty of good companies start with one founder, and plenty of bad partnerships start because someone heard investors prefer teams. Writing down what a co-founder would actually change, in skills, speed, money and morale, and setting that against hiring, contracting or advisers, tells you whether to search at all and what kind of person to look for.
First tasks
- List the five hardest problems the company faces in the next eighteen months
- Mark each problem as owner, employee, contractor or adviser work
- Write what going solo would cost you in time and lost work
- Record your decision and the date you will revisit it
Founder self-inventory of skills and gaps
It is natural to look for someone like yourself, then discover months later that nobody owns selling, shipping or the money. An honest inventory of what you are strong at, what you can learn in six months and what you will never enjoy shows which gaps a co-founder must fill and which ones you can cover another way.
First tasks
- Score yourself from one to five across six company functions
- Ask three former colleagues to score you on the same functions
- Compare the scores and mark any gap of two points or more
- Write the two gaps a co-founder must cover
Co-founder role profile on one page
A search without a profile turns into meeting interesting people indefinitely. One page that names the role, the first year's outcomes they would own, the experience that would make them credible and the traits that matter in a small team lets you say no quickly and explain to others exactly who to introduce.
First tasks
- Write the three outcomes this co-founder would own in year one
- Split the experience you want into must-have and nice-to-have
- Describe each working trait as a behaviour you could watch for
- Ask the agent to tighten the profile into a two-sentence summary
- Revisit the role profile against what the search has taught you @recurring(quarterly)
