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| 1 | + |
| 2 | +https://docs.google.com/document/d/16cDX5kEWaTImZEIDO9oAyyS8-PAF7lj4GUdPD8MA6CU/edit |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +** |
| 5 | + |
| 6 | +What matters between co-founders - |
| 7 | + |
| 8 | +A few questions to ask them and yourself before you get started |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +Skills |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +- What skills does each co-founder bring to the table? |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +- Are these skills complementary? |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +- Do you want to distribute functions and teams based on existing skills? Do people want to take over an area they are not expert in (ex., a marketer wants to be the finance lead)? What happens if, after a while, they don’t like it/ don’t perform in this area? |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +- How proficient is each co-founder in their area of expertise? Are you able to assess that they are as good as they say? If not, have you talked to their former co-workers? Can you ask someone you trust that knows enough about their expertise to meet them and assess them? |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +- Will there be a CEO? Who will it be? |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +- How will decisions be made? Who will make which decisions? How will we resolve disagreements? Will the CEO always have the final say? |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +Values |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +- What drives you in life? |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +- How trusting are you when you don’t know someone? |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +- What matters the most to you: customer satisfaction or profitability? |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +- Have you slept with former co-workers? What happened? |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +- Who is your best friend? Why do you love them? |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +Aspirations |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +Personal |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +- Why are you starting a business? |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +- What keeps you up at night? |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +- What is the best outcome with this business for you? How ambitious are you? |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +- How much money do you want to make in the first few years / when it starts to scale / at exit if any? |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +- How much money can you invest in the business? How long can you live without a salary? |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +- Do you have a life partner? Do you want one? |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +- Do you have kids? Do you plan to have kids in the next few years? How will it change your involvement in the business? |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +- What do you want your role to be in the first year? After a few years when it scales? |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +- What is a perfect work day for you? What is the worst work day? How do you imagine your daily life if we start this company together? |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +Business |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | +- Which metrics should the business achieve in the first year? In the first two years? |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +- Do you want to bootstrap or raise money with investors? How many rounds would you like to raise? Do you know what a cap table is? |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +- What do you prefer: non-profitable high-growth or high profitability with smaller topline? |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | +- How will we split equity at foundation? |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | +- How do you define failure? What will it take for you to stop working on this business? What is the initial timeline for you to give it a go? |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | +- What happens if one of the cofounders wants to stop and the other one wants to continue? |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | + |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +Age matters: people who are more than 5-10 years apart are usually in different life cycles and have different aspirations in terms of money / exit / lifestyles. |
| 94 | + |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +Personality |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | + |
| 101 | +- Tell me about your biggest business failure. What did you learn? |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | +- How extroverted are you? If introverted, how will it affect you as a co-founder when you will become a public figure? Are you willing to take on public-facing activities such as sales, recruitment, PR and investor relationships? |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +- Do you focus on the big picture or are you detail-oriented? How does this fit with the role you will have in the business ? (e.g., a very high-level person probably shouldn’t run ops) |
| 106 | + |
| 107 | +- If you have to choose between risk and safety, where do you go? |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | +- How do you set goals for yourself? How much in advance do you plan each week? |
| 110 | + |
| 111 | +- Do you believe in inbox zero? How do you organize your tasks and prioritize? |
| 112 | + |
| 113 | +- How do you learn on the role? How do you follow industry trends? What are the tech trends you are deeply interested in? |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | +- Tell me the last time you didn’t know how to do something but had to do it anyway. |
| 116 | + |
| 117 | +- What are your weaknesses and strengths? How are you improving on them? |
| 118 | + |
| 119 | +- How do you deal with anxiety? Do you have habits/ a toolbox to deal with hard times? |
| 120 | + |
| 121 | +- Do you prefer to be an individual contributor or a team leader? |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | +- What has been your best work experience? Your worse? |
| 124 | + |
| 125 | +- Are you optimistic or realistic? |
| 126 | + |
| 127 | + |
| 128 | + |
| 129 | + |
| 130 | +You need to get a sense of where your potential co-founders are on the main areas of the MBTI and be able to deal with differences. There is no perfect personality to be a founder at an early-stage start-up but you definitely want to have people who have a growth mindset. They need to be equipped to deal with uncertainty and anxiety. |
| 131 | + |
| 132 | + |
| 133 | + |
| 134 | +Lifestyle |
| 135 | + |
| 136 | + |
| 137 | + |
| 138 | +- How much do you work? |
| 139 | + |
| 140 | +- Are you a morning or an evening person? |
| 141 | + |
| 142 | +- Do you work on the weekends? |
| 143 | + |
| 144 | +- Do you want to be in touch with your co-founders on the weekend? |
| 145 | + |
| 146 | +- Do you prefer to work remotely or in person? Do you plan to be based in the same city all the time? Do you want to work in the office? |
| 147 | + |
| 148 | +- What happens if one of us wants to work fully remotely in the future? |
| 149 | + |
| 150 | +- Do you party? Do you exercise? What are your hobbies outside of work? |
| 151 | + |
| 152 | +- Do you often plan holidays? Is it something you need / that matters to you? |
| 153 | + |
| 154 | +- How do you see the first two years of the company in terms of lifestyle? |
| 155 | + |
| 156 | +- Will you prioritize the company over everything else including your spouse/family/private life? |
| 157 | + |
| 158 | +- What is your daily routine outside of work? |
| 159 | + |
| 160 | +- What kind of boundaries would you like to establish? |
| 161 | + |
| 162 | + |
| 163 | + |
| 164 | + |
| 165 | +Compatibility is key here, otherwise it will lead to fights and resentment, some co-founders will feel that their needs are not being met, that they work more than the others etc... |
| 166 | + |
| 167 | + |
| 168 | + |
| 169 | +Culture |
| 170 | + |
| 171 | + |
| 172 | + |
| 173 | +- Have you worked in an early-stage company before? In a startup, in a scale up? |
| 174 | + |
| 175 | +- Should there be an office? What will be our remote policy? |
| 176 | + |
| 177 | +- What will employee compensation be based on? |
| 178 | + |
| 179 | +- How will we hire people? What kind of people do we want to hire? |
| 180 | + |
| 181 | +- What is a company culture for you? |
| 182 | + |
| 183 | +- What do you want our company culture to be like? |
| 184 | + |
| 185 | +- Will we implement processes to have a diverse workforce? Which ones? |
| 186 | + |
| 187 | +- Can you share 3 values that we should base our culture on? Explain concretely what they mean for you. |
| 188 | + |
| 189 | + |
| 190 | + |
| 191 | + |
| 192 | +Management |
| 193 | + |
| 194 | + |
| 195 | + |
| 196 | +- How do you manage people? |
| 197 | + |
| 198 | +- What does it take for you to trust them? |
| 199 | + |
| 200 | +- How many people have you managed in the past? Can I talk to someone you have managed? |
| 201 | + |
| 202 | +- How do you hire people? Walk me through the process. |
| 203 | + |
| 204 | +- What happens if two people in your team don’t get along? How do you deal with it? |
| 205 | + |
| 206 | +- How do you give feedback to people? Have you established a process to give feedback? What is good feedback? |
| 207 | + |
| 208 | +- Would you rather micromanage or let people run wild on their own? |
| 209 | + |
| 210 | +- What is the ideal organization? How many direct reports would you have? |
| 211 | + |
| 212 | +- Do you implement weekly meetings with your team? If not, how do you ensure knowledge is shared? |
| 213 | + |
| 214 | +- Should we allow meetings? How should we brainstorm on new ideas? |
| 215 | + |
| 216 | +- How should reporting be done? |
| 217 | + |
| 218 | + |
| 219 | + |
| 220 | + |
| 221 | +If it all works out, your co-founder will become a manager. Hiring and managing a team will be one of their main tasks. |
| 222 | + |
| 223 | + |
| 224 | + |
| 225 | +Fit to company |
| 226 | + |
| 227 | + |
| 228 | + |
| 229 | +- Are the skills each co-founder brings aligned with the company purpose? If not, how do you plan to cover for missing skills? |
| 230 | + |
| 231 | +- What are the key skills that are required in the specific industry/type of business you have chosen to be successful? (e.g., a consulting business requires amazing sales skills, an AI company requires advanced ML/data skills etc…) |
| 232 | + |
| 233 | +- Are you good enough in that line of work to make a difference? |
| 234 | + |
| 235 | +- Why you, why now, why this business? |
| 236 | + |
| 237 | +- Do you really care or are you excited by rational factors (e.g., size of industry, profitability levels,...)? |
| 238 | + |
| 239 | +- Would you do it if you had EUR10mn on your bank account? What would change? |
| 240 | + |
| 241 | +- What activities/tasks make you feel in the flow? Are these key to succeeding in the company you plan to build? |
| 242 | + |
| 243 | + |
| 244 | + |
| 245 | + |
| 246 | + |
| 247 | +Communication / feedback |
| 248 | + |
| 249 | + |
| 250 | + |
| 251 | +- What processes do we want to establish to make sure we share feedback between co-founders? |
| 252 | + |
| 253 | +- What kind of interactions do we want to have? Do we need daily / weekly / monthly touch points? |
| 254 | + |
| 255 | +- How do we share progress, problems and plans? How do we give transparency on what each team member is working on? |
| 256 | + |
| 257 | +- What is the best piece of feedback you have received? Can you share a moment when someone shared negative feedback about your work performance? |
| 258 | + |
| 259 | +- How will we share the workload? How will we share tasks that are at the border between two teams/co-founders? |
| 260 | + |
| 261 | + |
| 262 | + |
| 263 | + |
| 264 | + |
| 265 | +Key to-dos |
| 266 | + |
| 267 | + |
| 268 | + |
| 269 | +- Have these hard and honest conversations before you get started |
| 270 | + |
| 271 | +- Don’t be afraid to disagree, disagreements only get worse when they are not discussed in the open air |
| 272 | + |
| 273 | +- Get reference checks on your co-founder(s) |
| 274 | + |
| 275 | + |
| 276 | +** |
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