Miniblog: Choose your founding partners carefully

One rarely is enough, two is good but risky to break, three causes a fight, four and five: too many cooks

I have established many start-ups, drafted and signed many shareholder agreements, and unfortunately fought many fights with my fellow founders. In each of those start-ups, the more founders the company has had, the more fighting there has been. Based on more than 15 years of start-up founder experience, well working, skilled and determined founding team makes 2/3 of the success of a startup. It is essential to choose your founding partners carefully and evaluate how many founders there should be.

Rarely, one founder can build the company alone. It is tough job to do, and usually a pair of two founders is stronger than one.

Two founders is my favourite model. However, one should have clear lead role, as this is what your investors, employees and business partners expect. The weakness of two founder model is that it also breaks easily. People’s life situations change, and the probability that one of the founders leaves is high and such a situation often breaks the whole company.

Three founders can work well too. Especially if one of the founders is having a lead role and there are clear roles for founders, for example one being a CTO. Based on my experience, in three founder model, often two founders form a strong alliance leaving the third founder without real decision power.

I have not seen any start-up yet succeeding with four or five equal founders. Invite many founders to your start-up, expect continuous fighting.

What do you think what is an optimal founder model to a startup?