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QuestionsYour AnswersPotential Cofounder's Answers
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Via First Round's 50 Questions for Cofounders (except in sheets format which has row numbers and can be edited instead of PDF which is useless)
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What are your strengths and superpowers (beyond functional expertise)?
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What are your weaknesses? How do you compensate for them?
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What words would your co-workers use to describe you? What would they want me to know about what it’s like to work with you?
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How do you deal with conflict? Describe a time you dealt with it well — and a time you didn’t
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What’s the *worst* interpersonal conflict you’ve dealt with? How did you handle it?
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How do you cope with stress? Depression? Are there any red flags I can help watch out for?
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How do you arrive at your convictions? What are some key mental models you use to be creative, solve problems, or make decisions?
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Describe your work style
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How many hours/week are you willing to work? For how long? What sounds good? What sounds like hell? Do you have different expectations for different phases of the company’s lifespan? (i
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# Part I: Roles
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What would you want your role to be *before* we reach product/market fit? What would you want your role to be *after* we reach product/market fit?
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How do you see your role changing as the company starts to scale? (Read this article [giving away your Legos](https://firstround
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If your role becomes unavailable entirely (e.g. the board hires a professional CEO or an experienced executive), what would you want your new role to be?
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Areas of Responsibility (AoR) Exercise. Rank yourself in these
areas (both as an individual contributor, and as a leader) on a
scale of 1-10. Then rate your passion in each of the above areas
on a scale of none to high. (e.g. “I’m an 8 in sales,
but hate it so none”):

SALES
MARKETING
PRODUCT
STRATEGY
DESIGN
ENGINEERING
OPERATIONS
FUNDRAISING
LEADERSHIP
COMPANY BUILDING
RECRUITING
LEGAL
DOMAIN SPECIFIC SKILLS#

A. Cluster AORs based on rank and discuss how they could
be assigned to individuals. (E.g. John is a 10 in product,
so he gets that AOR).

B. Break ties using the passion rating. (E.g. Nick is a 7 in sales with
medium passion and Gloria is a 7 in Sales with high passion, so
Gloria will take on sales).

C. Discuss: Do these clusters align with everyone’s expectations,
skills, and desires? Do we all agree on the areas of responsibility for the CEO, CTO, COO, etc?
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# Part II. Corporate Structure and Funding
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Where should our startup be based? How do you feel about remote or distributed teams?
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Is there anything I should know that may affect materially affect your time or legal status as a founder? (e
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How should founder equity be set? What’s your philosophy on the employee equity pool?
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What should our approach to employee compensation be, including cash and equity?
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How much money should we raise? (i
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What matters most in a funder? If you were doing reference checks on a VC or potential board member, what traits would you be looking for?
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What does an ideal company exit look like to you? (i
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How do you think about the timeframe and pace of success? Are you willing to take the longer path? How long is *too* long?
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What number would you sell at? How would that change if you got extra liquidity from your existing positions?
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What do we do if we find product/market fit, yet none of the founders are excited about that product?
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Can one co-founder fire another co-founder? Can someone else fire a founder?
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# Part III. Personal Motivation
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Why do you want to start a company — in general, and in particular right now?
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What is success to you? What motivates you personally?
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What impact do you want to have? Is your startup objective “getting rich” or “changing the world”? Is control or success more important? (i
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What makes you gritty?
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Who do you admire most in your organization/family/friends and why?
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What are you most proud of in your work career or life to date?
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When have you taken a chance when others did not? Or when have you been willing to take an unpopular stance?
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What are some of the products and companies you love, and why?
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Is it possible to build a wildly successful company without burning out or damaging other parts of your life (family, health, etc
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# Part IV. Commitment & Finances
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Will this company be your primary activity? Do you have any other time commitments?
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What is your expected time commitment right now? How do you see that changing in the next 6 months? 2 years?
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What is your personal runway? Current burn rate? Would you invest your own money (ideally retaining higher equity in return)?
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What is the minimum monthly salary you need to survive? To be comfortable? To feel like you’ve “made it?”
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What should the policy of co-founders advising/consulting with other companies be?
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# Part V. Team Culture
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Complete the sentence: It would make you proud to hear people describe this company’s culture as _________________
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What’s your philosophy on how to attract and retain great people? Tactically, how would we make this happen at our company?
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What processes or techniques would you use to get the most out of your team? For example, how would you help them become better managers or achieve their goals?
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How much of your time do you hope to spend either working or socializing with coworkers?
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How important is diversity & inclusion? Concretely, how would you put that into action?
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# Part VI. Co-Founder Relationship
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Specifically, how are we going to prioritize and make time for our co-founder relationship as we get increasingly busy with company building?
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How would we resolve personal conflict between ourselves? How about stalemates?
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In case this becomes part of our partnership’s evolution, how would you go about handling a startup divorce?
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What happens in the scenario where we aren’t growing? How would we diagnose the problem? How have each of our capabilities and approach contributed to growth failures in our pasts?
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In every partnership, there are times when a partner might breed resentment if certain dissatisfactions don’t change over time
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How would you think about bringing on a third (or N+1) cofounder?
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Wrap up question: Now we know each other's weaknesses, passions, needs and constraints––how are we going to make each other successful? What would it take to feel truly partnered in this adventure?
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