4 The founding team: Who’s in and who’s not?
This chapter covers
In the nine startups I either founded or ran, or both, I have had one, two, three, five, and six founders. How that is determined is not a science but a very important art that sets the stage for how the company culture will materialize.
I came into my first startup, MasPar, as employee number 12; but because of my research at Duke, they made me honorary founder number 6, which had no substance to it, such as stock or title. Four key leaders from Open Environment and I became the five founders of Webspective. At FactPoint, the Chief Marketing Officer and I were the two founders (also meaningless because this was a turnaround). At GeoTrust, the CEO and I (the COO) were a founding team of two. Later, almost the same group of four from Webspective recruited me to be a cofounder with them of Service Integrity. Aguru had a founding team of three. Mogility had a founding team of two. Ambric also had two formal founders, but they added me later as a founder in name only of the software division. At Dover, I recruited a core team of a VP of Engineering, a CTO, Chief Scientist, and two senior engineers to join me, and the six of us became the founding team. My nonprofit, The Who Says I Can’t Foundation, is the sole example of me being a solitary founder.