Quantum Ventures Studio

Founderitis is when a founder of a company becomes value destructive.

Take whatever measures you can now, to put rules in place protecting the company, the investors, and yourselves from one of the founders becoming destructive. No matter how impossible that may seem at the moment.

There are many signs of founderities even in the earliest days of creating a company. 

For example;

If a person has a lofty title such as Ceo, President, Chief technology officer, or Vice president of anything, watch how they respond if an investor or a board discusses bringing in a more experienced person in that role to take over that title and all associated work.

If they start fighting over their title, they are less interested in value creation and value capture for the company and more interested in a job title.

This is value destructive.

A way to deal with this would be to have a founders agreement from the beginning, that all of you agreed to that any title or position is subject for review by competent authority. Such as a board of directors or an independent third party arbitrator.

If the founder refuses to sign this type of document, or after the fact starts attacking the board or independent arbitrator, that is also a bad sign.

When you start a company together, you are in principle happy and in agreement with each other.

If you are already fighting and disagreeing on details and the path forward then you might have founderitis, destroying value in your venture before it even has a chance to succeed.