Co-founders need to resonate with the same set of values and understanding of quality. They have to believe the same that you because that's kind of it. We've had this big appetite for building bold ideas, being contrarian. And when you're in a room and everybody else is saying, I don't get it or it's not going to work, you only have your co-founders. That's your belief system. It's all right there, right in front of you, around one table.
Our guests are Manu Sharma and Brian Rieger, co-founders of Labelbox.
In this interview, we take a microscope to their co-founder DNA, exploring the ins and outs of how they’ve made the relationship work over the years. We discuss:
- How Manu and Brian came together as co-founders and landed on the idea for Labelbox.
- How they intentionally aligned their skillsets, values and responsibilities before writing a line of code.
- Their rituals for spending valuable time together as the company grows, including thought-starter questions for deep discussions and sharing an executive coach.
- How they run the executive team at scale and sketch out decision rights.
Manu and Brian both have extremely valuable advice to other founders, either those in the early stages of looking for a co-founder, or folks who want to add a little magic to an existing co-founding relationship.
You can follow Manu at @manuaero and Brian at @RiegerB on Twitter.
You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/firstround and twitter.com/brettberson