As a solo founder, I had promoted one of my early employees to be on the board. He was an excellent Chief of Staff. But looking back you’re right he went off th

As a solo founder, I had promoted one of my early employees to be on the board. He was an excellent Chief of Staff. But looking back you’re right he went off the board when a VC came in. But still was an important member in board meetings. He really scaled personally, became indispensable to the company, I trusted him completely and employees liked the idea. I even made employees 20% shareholders apart from an open 7% esop pool just before the VC round. Unfortunately the firm shut in the lockdown since it was ops heavy, but today he works on several things including an M&A firm, apart from his own startup. In fact I feel proud that post the 4 year journey, during the acqhire core team employees made 20x their first month salary, and today are all doing well, some even Angel investing themselves.