Building the Business

Co-founder conflict is one of the main reasons that startups fail. How do you identify and choose the right person? What can you do to ensure co-founder fit? Leading entrepreneurs share what they learned in their searches for a co-founder.

Founders are twice as likely to struggle with depression and 3x to 10x more likely to experience other disorders—most commonly ADHD, substance abuse, and bipolar disorder—than the general population. Despite the sobering statistics, unhealthy behaviors—bragging about working 24/7, doing everything yourself, skipping sleep, and sacrificing a personal life—persist in startup culture.   In a series of interviews with entrepreneurs, we delve into the emotional side of the challenges that founders and early teams face. Learn how others dealt with intense pressure, public failure, social isolation, burn out, and even serious clinical depression. Hear practical tactics for building resilience during normal periods of intense pressure. Discover how to recognize signs that you or a colleague may need help. Learn how to apply to simple techniques to enhance your well-being and create a healthy company culture.

The journey of founding and leading a startup is inherently lonely. And bearing responsibility for decisions—large and small—that affect a startup's future places leaders under intense and chronic pressure. How can you stay motivated? How can you maintain confidence and resilience during times of deep uncertainty? Founders and CEOs from all stages share tips and tactics for leading your team through the challenges that startup leaders commonly encounter as well as more extreme situations.

Companies spend more on hiring today than ever before. Research shows that hiring the wrong employee carries astronomical costs in time, money, and productivity, leading some experts to claim that a poor hiring decision is the most costly mistake a business can make. Hundreds of resources advise founders to “spend more time on hiring” and provide tips on adapting interview questions and expanding the interviewing process. But interviewing alone doesn’t guarantee a good hire. We examine talent acquisition in 4 stages—Strategizing & Sourcing, Interviewing, Onboarding, and Assessing—and include insights from CEOs who learned to navigate the recruiting process to build stronger, more productive and cohesive teams. Discover some surprising approaches to finding talent, get advice on retaining the best people, and learn tactics for firing underperformers.

The board of directors is one of a startup's greatest assets but often founders don't use them effectively. This series identifies common mistakes many founders make when interacting with their boards. Gain strategic advice and tips from other entrepreneurs on how to cultivate a better relationship with your board and leverage their expertise to benefit your business.

Culture can create a sense of cohesiveness for your team. Founders play  a critical part in establishing and modeling culture.

Considering joining an early-stage startup? Often, people cite mission and culture as the top reasons for joining a startup. How can you determine whether those benefits outweigh the financial risks and uncertainties?  We review factors that anyone joining an early-stage startup should consider, including how to understand the value of receiving equity shares as an employee. Hear from co-founders, advisors, and others who decided to take the leap and join an early-stage startup.

How do you shape your idea into a product that customers love and will pay for? It’s easy to find resources designed to help you start building right away. Despite the wide availability of tools, like the lean startup method, “no market need” remains the No. 1 cause of failure. How can you ensure that your product addresses a need that matters to customers enough to move them to pay for a solution? Developing and iterating on hypotheses about the problem and target audience requires customer research, such as surveys, interviews, ethnography, and low-fi prototype testing. Each approach has a different cost, time and effort. Which is most helpful when? Faculty and serial entrepreneurs share their product insights and provide useful tips on problem identification, customer discovery, and market research.