50 Co-founder Questions

Before Nina and I started Parlai, we created a questionnaire that helped us understand if we were on the same page regarding our goals and ways of working, but most importantly, it showed us the areas where we differed.

Knowing your discrepancies and making agreements beforehand helped us avoid plenty of headaches.

Nina and I

Here are the questions:

Vision and Passion

1. If this project were successful, what would that look like?
2. How big do you want this project to be? Multi-million dollar company or a small one with a steady income?
3. What does our company look like in 5 years?
4. Do you want to scale rapidly, or are you more inclined towards steady, organic growth?
5. How do you envision our expansion strategy, both in terms of product and geography?
6. 5 years from now, what’d your preferred role in a company?
7. From 0 to 10, how important is money for you?
8. Where does your preference stand between between being anonymous and being famous?

Personal Investment

1. How much time can you invest in a week?
2. How much money can you invest a month?
3. Is there a possibility for you to go full-time? If yes when or at what point?
4. How much of a priority is this project for you in your life?
5. How willing are you to sacrifice time with relatives, work time, or study time?

Exit Strategy

1. Do you have an exit strategy in mind for the business? If so, what is it?
2. How do you feel about acquisition offers? Under what circumstances would you consider them?
3. What are your thoughts on taking the company public?

Communication

1. How often should we communicate and how? WhatsApp? Calls? Asynchronously?
2. When don’t you want to be disturbed whatsoever?
3. What are your expectations regarding response times?
4. Would you feel comfortable using Notion for project management or do you have an alternative?

Decision-Making

1. How should we make decisions? Data-based, gut feeling, ownership-based?
2. How do you handle disagreements or conflicts when making decisions?
3. Are there certain areas or decisions where you’d want the final say, or vice versa?

Skills

1. What are the skills you can bring to the table?
2. What areas of the project you'd like to have ownership over?
3. What responsibilities do you expect from me?

Ethics

1. Are there any ethical principles or frameworks you adhere to in your work?
2. What is your work style?
3. How likely are you to take advantage of Gray areas in law?
4. How important is social and environmental impact?

Risk

1. How likely are you to take risks in business from 1 to 10? (being 10 the most risky)

Feedback

1. How do you prefer giving and receiving feedback?
2. How direct should feedback be?

Project

1. What should be the next step for the project?
2. Would you be open to entering into an incubation program?
3. Do you have any preferences for what the product should be in the end? What is your Dream Roadmap for the product?

Personal

1. Do you think we should be friends?
2. What are your boundaries?
3. How do you deal with frustration?
4. What would be a red flag for you working with me?
5. What are some of your weaknesses?
6. What do you think you shine at?
7. How comfortable are you using your social media to promote our project?
8. How important is recognition and positive feedback for you?
9. What mistakes did you learn from working with others?
10. How conflict-oriented are you?

Contractual Agreements

1. How much equity do you think you should have in the project, and how should it work?
2. What happens if you leave the project and under which conditions should that happen?
3. Do you want to set up a contract that fixes all agreements regarding leaves, equity, working hours, decision-making, exit strategy, etc.?
4. What type of company do you want to set up and when would be a suitable time to do so?

Funding

1. What’s your stance on bootstrapping vs seeking investment? At what stage should we consider this?
2. What's your stance on public subventions? At what stage should we consider this?
3. How do you prioritize spending in the early stages of a business?

Team

1. How would you feel about taking on more people to the team? When do you think that would be necessary?
2. Can you think of a use case where we would need additional help soon?