Co-Founder Questions - : Personalities and Incentives Personalities and Incentives

Co-Founder Questions - Master List.
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Co-Founder Questions -…
Co-Founder Questions
Personalities and Incentives

● Reason: Why do you want to start a company
(in general and in particular, right now)?
● Motivation: What motivates you (e.g. a
technical challenge, an overall problem, helping
the world, etc.)
● Goals: What are our respective personal
goals for the startup (e.g. a sustainable business
that is spinning off cash and running it forever or
high growth and some type of liquidity event?)
Ability
● Capabilities: What are you awesome at?
● Suckyness: What are your absolute
weaknesses or things you hate to do? It’s best to
be able to complement each other.
● Learning: What do we need to learn ASAP?
How will we address these?
● Match: Why do you think we’ll be good
together?
Attitude
● Work ethic: Do you work 100 hour weeks, or
40 hours? How many hours a week could you
see yourself committing to this project?
● Work Style: Describe your working style to
me in a few words?
● Handling stress: How are we going to be
able to handle stress and stressful situations?
● Decompressing: How do we unwind? How
do we make this sustainable?
● Change of heart: "If either one of us loses
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● Exit goal. Where do you see yourself in 5 or
10 years? Are you swinging for the fence with
high likelihood of failure, or more modest in your
goals?
● Exit?: Are you setting up to sell, or is this a
lifestyle business to live off long-term? Both are
fine, you just need to be aligned.
● Sell out price: If someone made an offer in a
year, what would you sell for? Is there a price
you are both ok to ‘sell out’ at? Say $1m in the
first year, $5m in year two? Or maybe if you get
to $50m you’re out of there one way or the other!
● Press. [If not the CEO] How motivated are you
by celebrity? Are you ok that as the CEO I’ll do
the interviews? People can get weird and bitter
about things and I’ve experienced arguments
about press.
Commitment
● Pay. Can you afford low pay or do you expect
6 figure salaries the moment you can? Money
should be spent on growing the startup not
having a comfortable life
● Piggy bank: How much have you saved?
How many months can you go without cash in
the bank?
● Full time: Are we both going full time on this,
or are we going to keep applying to jobs until a
certain point?
● Commitment duration. Are you in for 3 years
or 10+?
● Family: What happens when someone gets
married and does the kid thing…? What
commitment is still expected? [Don’t laugh. 10
years is a long time]
● Test period. How long do you think it will take
to figure out if this has legs? Are you going to
‘give it a go’ for 3 months and see how it goes,
or do whatever it takes for as long as it takes?
● Missionary or mercenary: What gets you out
of the bed in the morning? Are you doing this out
of passion or a better financial outcome?
● Primary focus or side-hustle: Are you doing
this 100% full time with no distraction? You will
lose their mind if they start losing focus and
doing side-hustles for ‘fun’
● Other shizzle: What if anything can we do on
the side? Can we be mentors at accelerators?
Can we do advisory roles of other
startups? What is ok to do that is non YOUR
startup
Decision making
● CEO: Who is the CEO?
● Decisions: How will decisions get
made? Where do you trust one another to just
do things and when do you talk things out?
○ Can you outvote me?
○ Can either of us fire the other?
○ If one of us gets fired, what do we
leave with?
● When shit happens: What do we do when
one of us needs to get fired?
Equity
● Splits: What is the equity split and is it even? I
recommend 50/50. Watch out if someone thinks
they should have 80% or even 10%
● Investment: If we put in cash, how is it dealt
with? Debt repayable from investment,
convertible debt, sunk cost as an equity
investment? Are you putting in the same
amount?
● Vesting: Are we both committing to founder
reverse vesting so that we’re both committed
and even a one year cliff?
Execution
● Feedback: How are going to provide feedback
to each other?
● The short-term: Who is going to be
accountable for what in the first 6
months (before you have staff etc)? There is
going to be so much to do, and people will need
to deliver
● Funding. Is this a VC funded approach or a
bootstrapped? You don’t want to find out your
cofounder doesn’t want to raise money, or that
they do…
● Pivoting: If things aren’t working, are we both
OK to keep testing new things? You better both
be
● Prioritisation: What are the three things you
could be working on right now and what are you
working on- how are you making it happen? You
need to know you are not going to be messing
about chasing the wrong goals at the wrong
time. Will your cofounder make logical,
prioritized plans and execute on them?
● Location: Where do we want the business to
be located?
Culture
● Culture: If you had to come up with 3 words to
describe the culture you want to create, what
would they be (e.g. open, hard-working,
eccentric)?
● Staff trust: Do you have a view of trust and
openness? What kind of person will succeed
here? Do you want to hire amazing people and
let them fly or are you a B player worried they
suck and will lose control?
● ESOP (employee stock ownership plan):
What are your views around giving staff proper
equity to incentivise them to kick ass? You don’t
want to be super cheap with equity. What are
you OK giving the staff? What about the first 5
staff?
● Value: What would be our top 5 values? What
company do you admire? You can learn a lot
from someone by what they value and articulate.
● Tech vs Business: Do you think this should
be a tech or product focused company?
● Developing staff: How do you help people
grow to the next level and be their best?

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Co-Founder Questions - Master List.

Personalities and Incentives

Aspiration NO THANKS GET THE APP

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