At most startups today, there are two groups of early team members. There is the one who can go unpaid and without benefits for an extended period of time, with friends who can do the same. From this group come founders, with company ownership often simply 100% divided by the number of founders at the start, as it was at my last startup. Then there is the “early employee” group, who too often receive a desultory salary and benefit package, and less than 1% company ownership.
Do we truly believe these ownership percentages and titles reflect the respective risk and contributions of these groups?
At FundBoard, we don’t believe they do. We see too many exceptional cofounders excluded from meaningful ownership and cofounder recognition because they need a salary and benefits. We believe team member #5 and #8 are often not taking an order of magnitude less risk than team member #1 and #3.
The thing that binds founders together everywhere, that defines a founder, is a leap of faith. I don’t know where the line crosses, but I know that “employee #1” and “employee #2” are founders, in my eyes, at most startups. Many get to a team size of 8 or 10 before they reach an “island of stability” with more reasonable salaries and some certainty of a multiyear existence.
All of these team members are taking a cofounder leap, and at FundBoard will be named cofounders for it.
Finally, we believe that exceptional cofounders come from all places, and have all types of demands on their time and in their lives. A single Mom coding in the middle of South Dakota, a high school dropout with a self-taught genius for design, and a 40 year old disabled vet that can make any organization run like a well-oiled machine have the same if not more potential to build an incredible team. At FundBoard we believe we’re more likely to succeed when we can attract exceptional team members in any (U.S. time zone) hometown, provide the flexibility inherent to remote teams, and include amongst our cofounders those who need salary and benefits from the start.
How are we doing things differently at FundBoard?
While we believe that the most valuable opportunities often come from unexpected sources, we do have a few roles to fill on the team today.
President & Cofounder - FundBoard’s source of truth on fundraising for the founders we’re enabling through the process. Our voice to and with that community. Comfortable with the media, and with coordinating all marketing efforts. A previous founder and seasoned fundraiser who shines on a stage in the morning and leads a high-functioning team in the afternoon.
Chief of Staff & Cofounder - FundBoard’s driver of all things operational. Working alongside me, we will make sure our amazing team can focus on what they’re amazing at, and all the things they and the business need simply get done. You’ve been in a 15-balls-in-the-air-and-you-can-only-juggle-8 fire before, and you know how to operate successfully in that chaos. You deeply enjoy checking boxes off to-do lists.
If building a better fundraising future strikes a heart string, and you want to be on the kind of team we’re building at FundBoard, please say hello.
Bryan
CEO & Cofounder
