Your daily LinkedIn post idea, by The Content Lab

Question: Who was the first person you disappointed as a founder?

Post Template:

Hook:
The first person I truly disappointed as a founder was my co-founder.

We were six weeks in. Things were messy but promising. Then, on a quiet Saturday morning Zoom, I blindsided him.

Tease:
We had agreed early on that every hire would be a joint decision.

We were bootstrapping and barely paying ourselves enough to live a relatively normal life.

I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and convinced we really needed help ASAP.

So I moved fast.

I interviewed someone to be a quasi-assistant and customer support lead. I made them an offer and brought them on without mentioning a word to him.

When I brought it up during a check-in, I said it casually, like I was updating him on a software subscription.

He paused, then said with a disappointed look, “Wait… we hired someone?”

Value:

He wasn’t angry, but our dynamic shifted.

For weeks, there was tension, and he started second-guessing decisions we used to make together.

The hire made things easier for sure, but I’m still not sure it was worth the strain.

By acting alone, I stopped treating the company like a shared effort.

It would have been harder to talk it through, but skipping that conversation made everything worse for quite some time.

CTA:
What’s a fuck up you made early on in your startup journey?

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