Important Questions Startup Co-Founders Should Ask Each Other

One thing I have learned in my experience with startups is that if you are not careful, you are as likely to experience as many challenges with your co-founder(s) as you are with the business itself.

The following are some of the most important questions that should be resolved as early in the process as possible. In most cases, these issues only get more difficult over time.

Top 10 Critical Startup Co-Founder Questions

1. How should we divide the shares? There are actually multiple parts to this. Here, I’m primarily interested in the economic impact. Basically, the question is really simple: Who gets what percentage of the company? This question is often the most difficult to answer (and the right answer is rarely “divide them equally amongst the co-founders”).

2. How will decisions get made? This is often tied to the number of shares (from #1 above), but not necessarily. You can have voting and non-voting shares. You can setup a board. You’ll need to decide what kinds of decisions get made by the board, and which ones don’t. Common areas to address are decisions around capitalization, executing hiring/firing, share issuance (dilution) and M&A.

Full article:
http://onstartups.com/Home/tabid/3339/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1010/Default.aspx

(Submitted by John Masterson of http://www.modwest.com and http://www.grupthink.com )