Need help with founders agreement

One of the best things I've learned is that it's easy to define roles/equity/responsibilities/etc based on when things are going perfectly.

Thing is, that excitement you're talking about can and likely will wear off. The thing that most people DON'T do is decide, early on, how things will go if and when things aren't going well. Or worse, when things are going really poorly.

If you're trying to decide that after the shit hits the fan, the odds of getting out of it alive go way down.

Make sure part of your conversation includes an honest look at what it could look like when things aren't going perfectly, and decide upfront what your priorities are and how you're going to treat each other when things get shitty. Because, inevitably, they will.

I actually talked a bit about how I've navigated my business relationship on this recent Mixergy episode. One related excerpt:

Alex: We had sold like 150-some-odd seats to the semester long course. We had done a whole revamp on the course. And a few weeks in, I was totally drowning in a client projects. Amy was frankly pissed at me. And she’s like, “What’s going on over there?” And I had to be honest, I [said], “I’m overcommitted. I screwed up. I feel terrible about it. And I mean that in the most honest way possible. I want to make it right.”

…I was like, “If it makes sense, I’ll give my portion of the money back from this last version of the course.”

Andrew: And did you?

Alex: I did. I absolutely did. [I]n my mind it’s, “I value the friendship more than the money,” but also, “I value the potential to ever work together again.” You know, if and when I dig myself out of the problem I created for myself, which I was fairly confident that I would. So, yeah.

I think that that experience early on sort of established what me and Amy’s professional relationship was going to be like….

If you care about your friendship more than the business, decide what that means now.