Template
Founder Job Description
Write the founder's job for this stage — your zone of genius crossed with what the company needs — and rewrite it every six months.
Use it when you can't tell whether you're doing enough, when the calendar is full but the important things aren't moving, or at every half-year mark — because the job you were doing six months ago is not the job the company needs now.
How to write it
Work backwards from the next milestone
Usually the next funding round. What does the company need to be true by then — and what is your role in getting there?
Name the four ingredients
The founder job is a mixture: putting out fires, mitigating risks, planning for the future, and the things only you can do.
“Only-you work: speaking to investors, convincing a new executive to join.”
Find the happy medium
Your role sits between your zone of genius and what the company really needs. All genius and no need is a hobby; all need and no genius burns you out.
Put numbers on it
For each ingredient: how much time should it get — and how much does it actually get? Run the Energy Audit's role pass against your answer.
Rewrite it every six months
The company's needs change, so the role changes. Giving away pieces you love is how the company's capacity grows — give away your Legos.
At least once a quarter, zoom out and ask the two big questions: what does the company need, and what do I need to do to get there? Then plan the calendar and block the time. One founder I work with books a recurring half-day completely off phone and Slack purely for deep strategic thinking — invaluable, and it only happens because he fights for it. Unless you actively make the time, it's not going to happen.
Simple hacks carry the discipline: meetings only in the afternoons, one no-meeting day, the first two hours blocked for deep thinking. The "give away your Legos" framing is Molly Graham's — worth reading in full.
Source / credit
Outstride original
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Outstride OS is the system behind Ben's founder coaching — pre-seed to Series C. If this page names something you are living right now, start a conversation.