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The Co-Founder Equity Script for Two Students Still in School
The conversation about how to split equity between two founders is one of the more consequential conversations of the early startup years, and it is one of the ones most often postponed until the postponement itself becomes the problem. Two students building together will often work for months without ever formally agreeing on how ownership of the company will be divided, and by the time they finally have the conversation they have already accumulated enough asymmetries betwe
How to Hire Your First Person When You Cannot Really Pay Them Yet
The most important shift in mindset is to stop thinking of the first hire as an employee and start thinking of them as someone who is joining a venture, since the person you can attract without much money is almost never the same kind of person who would take a paid role at a bigger company. Their motivation for joining you is different, and if you understand what that motivation actually is you can structure an arrangement that works for both of you.
Building Systems Before You Think You Need Them
There is a predictable moment in the life of an early company, usually somewhere between the twelfth and the eighteenth month, when the work that had been running smoothly on the founder memory begins to slip out of reach. Magnific.com Customer requests get answered late or not at all, important conversations are forgotten because no one wrote them down, decisions are made twice because the original decision was never recorded, and the founder, who had felt in control of the
Turning an Instagram DM into a First Sale, with the Actual Script
Most Nigerian student founders will sell something for the first time in a DM before they ever build anything resembling a proper checkout flow, and the DM sale is the honest beginning of most small businesses whether or not the founder ever admits it. The trouble is that the pattern for turning an Instagram DM into a sale is rarely written down anywhere, which means every founder has to figure it out for themselves, and most figure it out by making the same avoidable mistak
3 min read
How to Hire Your First Person When You Cannot Really Pay Them Yet
The most important shift in mindset is to stop thinking of the first hire as an employee and start thinking of them as someone who is joining a venture, since the person you can attract without much money is almost never the same kind of person who would take a paid role at a bigger company. Their motivation for joining you is different, and if you understand what that motivation actually is you can structure an arrangement that works for both of you.
4 min read
Building Systems Before You Think You Need Them
There is a predictable moment in the life of an early company, usually somewhere between the twelfth and the eighteenth month, when the work that had been running smoothly on the founder memory begins to slip out of reach. Magnific.com Customer requests get answered late or not at all, important conversations are forgotten because no one wrote them down, decisions are made twice because the original decision was never recorded, and the founder, who had felt in control of the
6 min read
Launching While Still in School Without Burning Out
Founders who launch their companies while still in school usually arrive at the launch in one of two states. Magnific.com The first state is rested, intentional, and ready to handle whatever comes next, and this state is rare. The second state is tired, overcommitted, and quietly worried that they will not survive the next semester, and this state is much more common, because most students who launch a company while in school have spent the months leading up to the launch car
5 min read
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