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What Are The 5 Problems That Will Kill Your Early Stage Startup?
Oh, the giddy early days. I remember them well.
The air is full of hope and promise. You and your cofounders are going to get along great. You’ll execute your vision effortlessly. And they’ll be so many customers that you will have trouble keeping up.
Think again.
I’ve worked with a lot of early stage startups over the past few years, and I see the same problems over and over again. If you can fix these problems or avoid these problem, then your chances of success go way up. Here are the five likeliest problems you will have and how you should fix them:
A. You have founder problems.
I did a count the other day. And over 60% of the startups I have worked with have had founder problems. That’s a huge number.
Making matters worse, many times the CEO is afraid to fire the cofounder and/or the cofounder’s whose equity is 100% vested. Now what do you do with someone who owns 30% or more of your company but has to go?
That’s a mistake.
You can fix this mistake by negotiating a fair agreement with your cofounder. The way to approach this is as if your cofounder’s equity vests over four years with a one year cliff. Remember, you have the leverage…
