3 ms·

Agreed. To me, a co-founder is anyone pre-money. Anyone post-money is an employee.

konfusinomicon 4y ago
I'm a co-founder, with the current CEO and one other guy who retired, and have always been on the engineering side of the business. at first, the engineering department was me, and support. I was super green back then and was pretty lucky to be at the right place at the right time and as such, the company grew far faster than myself. I have many superiors now, which is cool with me as I've continued learning and growing professionally by observing them. going from me and 2 other guys to late series C has been a priceless experience, and it's nice to have the title. but oh my, the spam email and phone calls I get from having it on my LinkedIn profile is beyond annoying. many assumptions are made by companies advertising to co-founders, mainly that im C level and involved in sales. I struggle to calculate the total cost of all the sales guy time spent targeting me but I can safely say atleast a low end Lamborghini could have been procured if it was all pooled together.
- anakaine 4y ago
  How have you found it starting as a co-founder and now having to report to others? For me personally, I don't think I'd have grown as graciously as you seem to have articulated that you have. I'd like to ha e retained a strong semblance of direction and control in the company as a co-founder.
  - konfusinomicon 4y ago
    it has been extremely challenging at times, especially the times where my voice fell upon deaf ears and the wrong direction was taken. ultimately every mistake, your own or otherwise, is a learning experience, and every success is just the same. for the most part though, I am involved quite a bit in the technical direction we are taking, so i dont feel as if ive been completely pushed out. I've now lived through several leadership shakeups and kind of glad that the stress of knowing the board could axe me at any time is mostly not on me. my historical knowledge of the system and domain alone is enough to guarantee job security and my compensation remains competitive given that chances like this are extremely rare, I've committed to riding it out to liquidity or the ship sinks, and learning as much as I can until then.

I'm a co-founder, with the current CEO and one other guy who retired, and have always been on the engineering side of the business. at first, the engineering department was me, and support. I was super green back then and was pretty lucky to be at the right place at the right time and as such, the company grew far faster than myself. I have many superiors now, which is cool with me as I've continued learning and growing professionally by observing them. going from me and 2 other guys to late series C has been a priceless experience, and it's nice to have the title. but oh my, the spam email and phone calls I get from having it on my LinkedIn profile is beyond annoying. many assumptions are made by companies advertising to co-founders, mainly that im C level and involved in sales. I struggle to calculate the total cost of all the sales guy time spent targeting me but I can safely say atleast a low end Lamborghini could have been procured if it was all pooled together.

anakaine 4y ago
How have you found it starting as a co-founder and now having to report to others? For me personally, I don't think I'd have grown as graciously as you seem to have articulated that you have. I'd like to ha e retained a strong semblance of direction and control in the company as a co-founder.
- konfusinomicon 4y ago
  it has been extremely challenging at times, especially the times where my voice fell upon deaf ears and the wrong direction was taken. ultimately every mistake, your own or otherwise, is a learning experience, and every success is just the same. for the most part though, I am involved quite a bit in the technical direction we are taking, so i dont feel as if ive been completely pushed out. I've now lived through several leadership shakeups and kind of glad that the stress of knowing the board could axe me at any time is mostly not on me. my historical knowledge of the system and domain alone is enough to guarantee job security and my compensation remains competitive given that chances like this are extremely rare, I've committed to riding it out to liquidity or the ship sinks, and learning as much as I can until then.