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In my experience, the founders are the folks who make the decision to turn an idea into a business, before day 1. The only cofounder-exclusive work is the prepa

In my experience, the founders are the folks who make the decision to turn an idea into a business, before day 1. The only cofounder-exclusive work is the preparation and work of actually defining the initial business, taking a risk on the idea, and being a part of the incorporation process (broadly defined). Anyone hired on after that point is an early employee, though they might be compensated with equity, or they may be very influential, or they might do more for the company than the founders did... but they were not the originators of the business.

biztos 6y ago
If I have an idea for autonomous robotic cat toys and you are a brilliant marketer, but neither of us knows anything about cats, are we really going to get very far by just hiring some cat people? I get that this actually happens a lot, but aren't companies more successful when their founders cover the core expertise needed to make smart business decisions? Or is that wishful nerd-thinking on my part?
- goopthink 6y ago
  Well, the question is in drawing the line between founder/co-founder and early employee, and that's pretty clear to me: technically speaking, a founder is someone/group who "founds" the company. That's it. That said, I've seen plenty of founders that have had minimal impact on the role and growth of the company, and are pushed out as the company grows. You don't need to know anything about the market to found a company, you could even totally misunderstand the opportunity and the company pivots down the line to something completely unrelated to the original intent. Sometimes the founders are recognized in the story, sometimes they're written out entirely in favor of the people who came in and actualized the company that we know/see today (i.e, McDonalds, Berkshire Hathaway come to mind). But to your points, I think the "being able to hire the right people" is the important part in early company success. You don't need to know the market as long the business opportunity you've identified has _some_ merit and you've brought on the right people. In fact, serial founders often work this way. The first employees that you hire will take on a disproportionate amount of work and will set the foundation for much of what will follow. So it's important to be able to (a) hire really well at the start, and (b) reward those employees with leadership, visibility, and equity/stake in the success of the company. At some point, it's worth being honest with that ideas are a dime a dozen and coming up with one and incorporating a company around it is meaningless unless you succeed, and success comes from being able to create a viable business. You'll need developers, you'll need operations people, you'll need marketers, you'll need sales and customer service folks, and experts in whatever industry you're playing in. No one person will be able to do that, unless you've got a founding party of 10 people with clearly delineated responsibilities (otherwise you'll have a ton of infighting over who owns what part of the company's vision/strategy and it will all collapse). So yeah, I think it comes down to hiring the right people, because no company can succeed or grow on the strength of just one or two people. You'll _always_ need to bring on outside expertise. The question is what expertise you need to bring on, in what order, and how you reward it when the company is just getting started.

biztos 6y ago

If I have an idea for autonomous robotic cat toys and you are a brilliant marketer, but neither of us knows anything about cats, are we really going to get very far by just hiring some cat people? I get that this actually happens a lot, but aren't companies more successful when their founders cover the core expertise needed to make smart business decisions? Or is that wishful nerd-thinking on my part?

goopthink 6y ago
Well, the question is in drawing the line between founder/co-founder and early employee, and that's pretty clear to me: technically speaking, a founder is someone/group who "founds" the company. That's it. That said, I've seen plenty of founders that have had minimal impact on the role and growth of the company, and are pushed out as the company grows. You don't need to know anything about the market to found a company, you could even totally misunderstand the opportunity and the company pivots down the line to something completely unrelated to the original intent. Sometimes the founders are recognized in the story, sometimes they're written out entirely in favor of the people who came in and actualized the company that we know/see today (i.e, McDonalds, Berkshire Hathaway come to mind). But to your points, I think the "being able to hire the right people" is the important part in early company success. You don't need to know the market as long the business opportunity you've identified has _some_ merit and you've brought on the right people. In fact, serial founders often work this way. The first employees that you hire will take on a disproportionate amount of work and will set the foundation for much of what will follow. So it's important to be able to (a) hire really well at the start, and (b) reward those employees with leadership, visibility, and equity/stake in the success of the company. At some point, it's worth being honest with that ideas are a dime a dozen and coming up with one and incorporating a company around it is meaningless unless you succeed, and success comes from being able to create a viable business. You'll need developers, you'll need operations people, you'll need marketers, you'll need sales and customer service folks, and experts in whatever industry you're playing in. No one person will be able to do that, unless you've got a founding party of 10 people with clearly delineated responsibilities (otherwise you'll have a ton of infighting over who owns what part of the company's vision/strategy and it will all collapse). So yeah, I think it comes down to hiring the right people, because no company can succeed or grow on the strength of just one or two people. You'll _always_ need to bring on outside expertise. The question is what expertise you need to bring on, in what order, and how you reward it when the company is just getting started.