co-founder, ceoI am asking for advise about what my role in a new company should be. I have just discussed my role with the Founder and it seems he did not consider me as a co-founder, as I had thought. Any advice is appreciated as I negotiate my position in the next few days.
Background:
Just graduating from buisness school, I met someone to co-found my business plan with through mutual friends. I was looking for someone in IT to partner with me and build on the business plan I had built over the past year in graduate school. He (the Founder) had a business plan that created products in several industries across several countries, all of which industries I had expertise and experience in but the most profitable one was the industry that I had built my business plan in. When we both realised we were working on building in the same industry and in my home country, it was a no brainer. Upon our second meeting, he immediatley asked me about equity and salary. We never really discussed anything, instead I took my time to get to know him and his busienss plans. He showed me that he was just in the start-up phase of one of his products and in one country (not my home country) and promised me that we could start immediately on building my business plan. I decited not to invest money, he had already invested over $100k into his start-up. I was told that he had low level staff working for him already and that he had plans to hire more admin staff. I asked him to pay me the same salary as the admin staff, since everything was out of his pocket.
Fast forward to month 3 and I have been receiving salary and contributing to the business as a product developer, website design, website user experience, business plan and development, research and development, photographer, investor pitches (as a founder does)… but development for the products that I did not have in my business plan, but expertise in. The product for my business plan will be built within the next month.
He has not given any employee contracts yet, as he has said he will write everythig up when we move into our new and bigger office in 2 weeks. When the other employees saw that my email signature said “co-founder” they sat him down and asked why they were not considered co-founders too. These two employees do Sales and Customer Service (one even has plans to move soon!). This is when the Founder and I discussed that he couldn’t consider me co-founder because then he would have to give the other two employees co-founders as well since they were “hired” before me. He said I will be appointed CEO of the industry and country I am in and that titles aren’t important. he added I will be compensated with shares immediately, unlike them. Therefore, the business credit will go all to him whereas, I believe I should be the one given credit for the founding of the business idea that I have plans to build in the next month.
I believe I should at least get the title late co-founder or co-founder of the industry and country I’m in (if that’s possible). I don’t want to risk losing this business opportunity over a title, but establishing my important contribution to the business as a whole is very important to me. Would I get just as much credit as a CEO- what are people’s experiences with this?
Thanks.
There is no strict definition of what co-founder means. It gets complicated when a company launches a first product that fails, then pivots with a slightly different product and team. Are the new team members co-founders? Of the new product, possibly. Another definition that has been used is: anyone who joined without salary and for equity only is a co-founder. But you are getting a salary.
Also, be careful about the CEO title. Unlike co-founder, it has a legal meaning, so you can’t be a pretend CEO of a country, unless you are the CEO of a subsidiary.
In the end, titles are not that important. They mostly matter when time comes to hire more people as the business grows. Will those new people come above or below you? If you are the GM or CEO, clearly they’ll come below. If you are the country director, you can be saying welcome to the new worldwide VP, your new boss…
The company existed before you came on board so you are not a co-founder and should not have a co-founder title. Whether you founded a company or not is a fact, and you didn’t found the company so taking such a title would be misrepresenting the facts.
The tite “late co-founder” sounds like an oxymoron. It also doesn’t make sense to refer to yourself as a “founder” of a product or an office in a new country. Even if you create a new corporate entity in your country, I wouldn’t call you a founder of that corporate entity since it basically a sub of another corporate entity. These things are not founded the way a company is founded.
It sounds like you are doing a great job. I suggest focusing on results and not worrying about your title so much. Being an EVP of a successful company is much better than being a late-cofounder of an unsuccessful company.
If you joined an existing organization you aren’t really a founder. The term founder pertains to an organization rather than an idea. Bringing your idea to an existing organization makes you a very important member of the team, I am sure you can settle on an appropriate title that conveys that meaning without incorrectly using the term founder.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.