Founder Leadership

Build a sustainable approach to founder leadership that protects your focus and well-being.

Compensation, Equity, & Incentives
Conflict & Change
Culture & Values
Employee Experience
Founders & Co-Founders
Hiring & Recruiting
Management & Leadership
Office Leadership & Politics
Onboarding & Enablement
Org Design
Organizational Decision-Making
People & Leadership Decisions
Performance Management
Remote & Hybrid Teams
Talent Quality
Headshot of Judy Thelen and Eliot Frost
Founder Leadership

Beli’s married co-founders on how their partnership is their company’s ‘superpower’

“The fact that I can work with someone that I completely trust makes making decisions a lot easier, and we can be very honest.”

Ava Manson
Carylyne Chan and Emily Hurd
Founder Leadership

Why Good Instincts rejected the “move fast” startup mentality

Carylyne Chan and Emily Hurd spent six years and 100+ iterations learning why “move fast and break things” can backfire in consumer health products.

Jamila Huxtable
Group photo of the founders of Dad Gang, from left to right Ejay O'Donnell, Bart Szaniewski, and Grant Eastey, all white men wearing t-shirts and baseball hats.
Founder Leadership

Dad Gang’s founders on building a company while strengthening their community

How three close friends turned an encouraging phrase into a business—and why they decided to invite in a new partner.

Megan McCarthy
Collage showing 4 founder headshots alongside photos from their time in the military. Starting from center top and moving clockwise, we see Kimberly Shenk, a white woman with long wavy blonde hair and bangs, seen next to a photo of her in a blue service dress uniform. Below her is John Doyle, a white man with short brown hair wearing a blue button-down shirt, next to a photo of him wearing a camouflage combat uniform and gear. Next is Daniel Castillo, a Black man with curly black hair on top of his head but closely shaved on the sides with a black goatee wearing a black suit, white dress shirt, and black tie, next to a photo of him in a U.S. Marine Corps blue dress uniform. Above is a headshot of Adam Harder, a man with short curly hair and stubble wearing a white t-shirt and blue blazer, alongside a photo of him wearing a flight uniform and helmet.
Founder Leadership

Startup founders on the lessons they learned from military life

Veteran founders draw on military training to build companies rooted in structure, discipline, and speed.

Jamila Huxtable
A robot Customer Service AI Assistant typing on laptop
Founder Leadership

Making the case for fractional and AI employees

At New York Tech Week, a panel focused on how startups can benefit from workers—agentic or otherwise—who aren’t on the full-time payroll.

Tricia Crimmins
Photo collage of a woman leaning over a table slightly to roll out clay with a rolling pin, with a number of stylized arrows raining down on her shoulders to imply pressure or weight.
Founder Leadership

The pressure female founders carry

Burnout among female founders is often normalized—until it isn’t.

Jamila Huxtable
Headshot of Vanessa Barboni Hallik, a woman with side-parted long blond hair wearing a black turtleneck, smiling gently while holding her hand to her chin.
Founder Leadership

What it takes to build an ethical supply chain at scale

Another Tomorrow founder Vanessa Barboni Hallik on the real cost of transparency—from sourcing and supplier relationships to the trade-offs that come with growth.

Jamila Huxtable

Every company is built on hard choices.

Founder Brew is our twice-weekly newsletter covering how great ideas and entrepreneurial spirit grow into real businesses. We examine what it takes to build, the tradeoffs founders face, and what keeps them going.

By subscribing, you accept our Terms & Privacy Policy.

A mobile phone scrolling a newsletter issue of Founder Brew