"Can one of us fire another?" Five years ago, before Datha, David, and I agreed to cofound Steadily, we spent several hours discussing fail-states. It morphed into this list as we cobbled together other peoples' question sets.

Suggested process:

• Each cofounder/partner should take the time to make a copy and type out their own answers to all the questions. It’s worth the time put into this because it allows you to think through all of these questions before discussion.
• Send each other your answers.
• Reach each other’s answers with an open mind. Circle or take notes on areas you’d like to really dig into together.
• Set aside 2–3 sessions to discuss. Discuss each section separately and try not to jump around too much. There is no need to review every single question. Give each person a chance to share the key things they wanted to explain in person to the other. Then, give each person a chance to ask for clarification or discussion around areas they circled.
• Know that this doesn’t promise a perfect resolution. There may be areas that are in question. You both need to decide whether those areas are deal breakers and need to be resolved before moving forward OR if they are areas to just be super intentional and aware of as you work together.

Mindset

1. What is the most attractive thing about this venture opportunity?
2. How would you define its ultimate success for YOU? (revenue, exit, personal pride, etc)
3. What is your biggest concern?
4. How would you define its ultimate failure for YOU? (financial loss, broken relationships, etc.)
5. How do you see this opportunity working in your overall career and personal path?
6. If this venture fails and we don’t achieve the vision and outcome we worked so hard for, what would be important for you to retain personally? (Pay severance, reputation, relationships, etc.)
7. How do you see yourself balancing work and personal life? Are there habits you’d like to change or repeat from previous work experiences?
8. What would be your reaction or approach if you felt burnt out? Has that happened to you before?
9. What are some of your life rules: the ones that structure your work/life + the ones that define your limits?
10. How do you envision the day to day work at this startup?
11. How does your family feel about you doing a startup?
12. What would happen if your family turns against this? Has that ever happened where your loved ones are discouraging to what you do? How did you react?
13. What are some key pressures in your life that would put pressure on the startup?
14. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a leader and co-founder?
15. What is your one thing that you ‘know’ has been the major issue in past partnerships?
16. What do people say is your “super power” or consistent contribution on the team?
17. What is something you’re currently working on in terms of improvement?
18. How would you characterize your work style?
19. How do you best process? (externally through discussions, quiet time alone, etc.)
20. How do you feel in high pressured and stressful situations? How do you like to process and handle those moments? Do you need time before you respond or do you like to dig in together?
21. Is your work flow generally uninterrupted or are you okay with starting and stopping things at moment’s notice?
22. What work environment do you work best in?
23. Describe your best/worst partner.
24. How are you most encouraged by someone both in professional and personal settings? Is it the same or different?
25. What is your ‘love language’ in the work space? In other words, what is your form of appreciation? Words of encouragement, public recognition, acts of service, gifts, etc.
26. Describe yourself as a leader. Describe yourself as a manager of people.
27. How do OTHERS describe you as a manager/leader?
28. How do you handle conflict or something you deeply disagree with?
29. How do you ‘fight’ or argue?
30. What makes you most proud?
31. What makes you feel most ashamed?
32. What would cause you to quit without question? Do you have some strong beliefs or philosophies that mean a lot to you?
33. What would cause you to fire someone without question?

Our partnership

34. What makes you most excited to work with me?
35. What is the ‘super power’ quality that you most value in me? Is that aligned with my own self-assessment?
36. What concerns do you have about working with me? Are there weaknesses I should be aware of?
37. What is the ‘pet peeve’ you have (or potentially could have) with me?
38. How do or how did we decide what roles/titles we would hold? Are there any concerns with how we are executing on that?
39. Is one person more of the front-facing person to the public or to investors? In situations where you had to have just one “face” of the company, who would that be?
40. What is missing between us in terms of skill set or expertise that you think we need to succeed?
41. Do the superpowers in the other person make me feel insecure? If so, why and how can we proactively manage this?
42. What’s the one thing I would NOT want to change in the way we’ve worked together?
43. What’s the one thing you DO want to change in the way we’ve worked together?
44. How are we splitting equity? Is this formalized through a legal document? (It should be!)
45. What if one of us put our own funds into the company and that gave that person more equity overall, is that okay? Or do we want to intentionally maintain the equity split we agree on. How will that play out in the future with our different roles? What are potential issues that could arise when those opportunities happen?
46. What if one of us leaves? What will happen to their equity? Is there a vesting period?
47. How will we determine compensation for each other as founders? Is it similar to the equity split or our role?
48. Can either of us fire the other?
49. What if we only had enough funds to pay one person. How would we decide that?
50. What if we didn’t have enough funds to pay salary for everyone for a while, how long would you or your family be able to survive? Would you need to get another job?
51. Do you feel responsible for the well-being of each other’s family? What should we worry about and what do we need to let go of?
52. What if an investor wanted to invest (or a vendor/partner would only work with us), but expressed that you weren’t the right person? How would we handle that assuming that the company really needed the money?
53. What are some 3 or 4 deal breakers in terms of working together? (Ex: super negative and attacking language, going behind the other person’s back, etc.)
54. What if we fundamentally disagreed on a key decision. How would we resolve it? Let’s think ahead about the process we would follow.
55. Is there someone we want to put in place to be our trusted person who could help us process this disagreement?
56. What if one of us caught the other doing something unethical? How would we handle it? Are there any examples from that past where this happened?
57. What do you consider ‘unethical’?
58. How have you been burned by another partner before? Based on that, what are some sensitive aspects that you want to be super intentional about?
59. What areas/decisions would you like to have the final say?
60. How are we going to handle decision-making with 3 partners? Do we each get our own area? Who makes the final call?
61. What would be our key communication rules for our partnership? (ex: never speak for the other person, never criticize/correct the other while in a pitch meeting, always be transparent with key conversations when the other person was not present, etc.)
62. Can we commit to an ongoing check-in to openly and honestly discuss our partnership on a weekly/monthly basis? The purpose is to discuss things before they become big problems.

Venture 

63. Things may totally evolve as we both know. Business models may shift, customer targets may change, and our whole business focus could be different. Are there certain types of models or aspects of the venture that you fundamentally would not do? Why?
64. What do you think our biggest risk is with this venture?
65. If we had to make a total pivot into a completely different industry, model, product, etc. to survive, what would be your reaction? (Pick a crazy different industry to test this out.)

Public vs Private

66. What types of conversations do we keep private between us? (Personal financial situation, personal struggles, etc.)
67. How do we make sure that we honor that privacy? Do we ask each other permission before sharing anything that are in specific buckets?
68. How do we talk about the other person in public? (even if we disagree with each other)
69. How do we want to present ourselves in public?
70. Who does most of the talking? Are there areas that we each will own? How do we prevent talking over each other?
71. How do we describe each other to others? Are there certain phrases that you’re sensitive to?
72. What is a key phrase or signal that we can agree on that communicates to the other that we should discuss privately first?