Co-founders, team & legal

Find a co-founder, split equity, hire your first people, and set up cleanly.

What founders use for co-founders, team & legal, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. This is the single doc your first hire should walk into. It is built for a founder without an HR team, splits the first three... FirstHR Template · downloadable DOCX, 15 min to adapt Free 30-60-90 Day Plan Template for Small Business FirstHR
  2. Section 8 (Flubbing the onboarding process) names the exact failure mode in the question: founders assume a strong hire is a... a16z Article · 18 min read 10 hiring mistakes early stage founders make (and how to avoid them) a16z crypto talent team
  3. Written for the Indian startup reality where most onboarding stops after day one and the hire quietly checks out in weeks two... Springworks Article · 14 min read Employee Onboarding Best Practices: What Actually Works for Growing Indian Startups Springworks
  4. A serial founder makes the exact call you should make for your first seats: hire generalists until product-market fit, because... Mean CEO (STARTUP POV) Essay · 14 min read Generalists vs. Specialists: Which Should You Hire First in Your Startup? Violetta Bonenkamp
  5. A ready-to-use question bank grouped by the traits that separate a generalist first hire from a specialist: adaptability,... DigitalOcean Article · 15 min read 40 Startup Interview Questions to Ask Potential Hires DigitalOcean
  6. Written for Indian founders hiring right after a seed round, it argues your first employees should be hustlers who can figure... Quartz (qz.com/india) Article · 8 min read A Guide for Early-Stage Indian Startups to Lure the Right Talent Quartz India
  7. Lemkin gives you the exact sequencing this question needs: close 10 to 20 customers yourself first, then hire two reps (not... SaaStr Article · 6 min read Dear SaaStr: When Should a Startup Hire its First Sales Person, and What Should Their Profile Look Like? Jason Lemkin
  8. Your early rep has to hunt cold, not coast on warm inbound, and this piece hands you the concrete tells: the true hunter chases... Peak Sales Recruiting Article · 9 min read Hunter vs. Farmer in Sales: Empowering Your Team for Long-Term Success Peak Sales Recruiting
  9. This is the honest-framing playbook the answer describes. It tells you to target people who want to learn and grow with a... First Round Review Article · 18 min read A Primer for Startups and Job Seekers to BOTH Win the Talent War First Round Review
  10. The discipline half of the answer. When cash is tight the reflex is to over-give equity to close the gap, and this piece pushes... First Round Review Article · 20 min read What Early Stage Founders Should Know About Comp: The Rules To Break (And A Few You Should Actually Follow) Kaitlyn Knopp (Pequity), via First Round Review
  11. This is the India-specific explainer you hand a candidate who has never held equity. It defines pool, vesting (typically 3 to 4... Razorpay Article · 15 min read ESOP for Startups in India: Benefits, Legal Framework, Costs, & Taxation Razorpay Learn
  12. The canonical answer to the sequencing question: do not hire a go-to-market specialist before you know what drives growth.... First Round Review Article · 15 min read When to Make Your First Sales Hire: Expert Guide for Startup Founders First Round Review
  13. The most concrete guide on the specific role our answer names: the founder's associate, the high-agency generalist you hire to... Jumpstart Article · 12 min read Startup Guide to Hiring a Founder's Associate Jumpstart
  14. This is the India proof of the answer's edge: great people in smaller cities are underpriced and overlooked, and hiring them is... Zoho Article · 15 min read Rural Revival: building world-class products from small towns Sridhar Vembu / Zoho
  15. This is the India-specific pre-day-one checklist you actually run down: it names the offer letter and employment contract (with... ClearTax Article · 10 min read Recruiting Your First Few Employees ClearTax
  16. Where the ClearTax piece is the hiring checklist, this Razorpay Rize guide gives you the whole compliance surface your first... Razorpay Rize Article · 15 min read Startup Compliance Guide: What Every Founder Should Know Razorpay Rize
  17. This is the direct answer to the 'can't I just run them as a consultant on invoices?' temptation. It lays out the control,... Deel Article · 12 min read India Employee Misclassification: Risks and Best Practices Deel
  18. Lopp ran People Ops at Palantir and Pinterest, and his one non-negotiable rule is the one that saves a five-person team: a... First Round Review Article · 18 min read The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: How to Fire Someone Michael Lopp (Rands)
  19. Dalgaard, who founded SuccessFactors and sold it to SAP for 3.7 billion dollars, makes the case you need to actually pull the... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · 12 min read It's Never Too Early to Fire Lars Dalgaard
  20. The canonical piece for avoiding exactly the vanity-title trap you warn against. It caps the role at about 20% admin work (so... a16z Article · 15 min read How to Hire a Chief of Staff Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
  21. This is the concrete, copy-paste artifact the other two essays lack: a real JD skeleton (summary, Who You Are, nine... vChief Template · 12 min read Chief of Staff Job Description, Duties & Interview Questions vChief
  22. This is the reference implementation of your thesis: the handbook IS the process, not a description of it. GitLab's rule that... GitLab Handbook Article · browse 30 min The GitLab Handbook (and the Handbook-First Approach) GitLab
  23. This is the lean counterweight to GitLab: a real, Creative-Commons handbook you can fork today, written as short human sections... GitHub (basecamp/handbook) Template · 30 min read The 37signals (Basecamp) Employee Handbook 37signals
  24. This is the 'why does nobody read our handbook' guide, and it names the real failure mode: fewer than 1 in 20 docs get updated... Slite Article · 15 min read Internal Documentation: How to Build Docs Your Team Actually Reads Slite

Show the next 24

The questions

Finding a co-founder 18

Pick a partner as carefully as a spouse.

Do I actually need a co-founder, or can I go solo? 3 → Where do I actually find a co-founder if I don't already know one? 2 → What should I look for in a co-founder, and what are red flags? 3 → Should I co-found with a friend or family member? 2 → How do I 'date' a potential co-founder before committing? 3 → All 18 questions in Finding a co-founder →
Co-founder agreements & equity 18

Split fairly, vest always, write it down.

How should co-founders split equity fairly? 2 → What is vesting and why do I need a vesting schedule? 2 → Should I use a dynamic equity split like Slicing Pie instead of fixed percentages? 2 → What must go into a co-founder / founders' agreement in India? 2 → How much equity should I set aside for an ESOP pool for employees? 2 → All 18 questions in Co-founder agreements & equity →
Hiring your first employees 18

Your first ten hires are your culture.

When should I make my first hire? 2 → How do I hire my first engineer when nobody's heard of my startup? 2 → What kind of people should my first ten hires be? 3 → Should I hire full-time employees, contractors, or an agency first? 2 → How do I compensate early employees with salary and equity in India? 3 → All 18 questions in Hiring your first employees →
Culture, remote & operations 18

Build how you work before it breaks.

How do I build company culture intentionally from day one? 3 → Should my startup be remote, hybrid, or in-office? 2 → How do I run a remote team without endless meetings and burnout? 3 → What operating cadence and rituals should an early team have? 3 → How do I avoid burning out my small team while still moving fast? 3 → All 18 questions in Culture, remote & operations →
Incorporation & legal setup 18

Set up the entity right (US & India).

When should I actually incorporate my startup? 3 → Should I incorporate as a Delaware C-corp or an Indian Pvt Ltd? 3 → How do I incorporate a Delaware C-corp as a non-US or first-time founder? 2 → How do I register a Private Limited Company in India? 2 → What is DPIIT / Startup India recognition and is it worth getting? 2 → All 18 questions in Incorporation & legal setup →
IP, licenses & regulatory 22

Protect your idea, stay legal to sell.

How do I protect my idea when I have to share it to get it built? 3 → Can I protect my idea with a patent or an NDA before I launch? 3 → When is an NDA actually worth it, and when is it just theatre? 2 → Trademark vs patent vs copyright, which one do I actually need? 3 → How do I check if my brand name is free, and how do I trademark it in India? 2 → All 22 questions in IP, licenses & regulatory →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →