FounderFallout

What's In It

A Field Manual, Not a Business Book

Founder Fallout is a working document. It is meant to sit on the table between two people who are about to sign an operating agreement, not on a nightstand as a Sunday read. Every question was earned. Most cost me money, time, or a friendship, and a few cost me all three.

The book is organized into ten sections that map to the real order in which partnership disputes actually detonate. Trust before terms. Terms before signatures. Signatures before the first hire. First hire before the first hard month. And so on, until you reach the section nobody wants to write, which is what to do when you already ignored the first nine.

Who this is for. Founders considering a co-founder. Existing partners who never wrote real terms. Investors trying to diligence a two-founder cap table. Attorneys drafting the boilerplate that will actually get invoked in the fight. Anyone who has ever said the words we will figure it out later.

Who this is not for. Solo founders with no plans to bring anyone in. People looking for equity split percentages by industry. Anyone who wants the story of a partnership that worked. This book is about the ones that did not.