[jdauriemma]

Truly a useful question and a great answer. A nit I’d pick with the respondent regards the so-called force-multiplier of the five-or-so founders. Productive founders are a typical feature of funded startups but their productivity can be attributed not just to their hustle but, crucially, to the nature of greenfield development. It’s way faster for anyone, regardless of how many “x’s” they have, to grind out an MVP from scratch than it is to ship features while maintaining a product that is used by real customers in production. Series A+ startups must necessarily slow down their pace-per-person, it’s an eventuality. This need not have anything to do with hiring “bozos” (eyeroll) or some of the other dismissively-mentioned roles.