The Founder
A freshly minted founder decides to get into the oven business. He can’t bake a cake or knead bread, but he knows the kitchen appliance market inside and out. He’s analyzed every business in Spain and reached a conclusion: if he sells a new oven to the country’s pizza makers, pastry chefs, and bakers, he only needs to capture 10% of the market to become a billionaire.
10% always looks small when you type it into an Excel spreadsheet.
The founder is very good. He builds a plan that, on paper, is flawless and airtight: manufacture a more efficient oven using new technology. Selling it is easy. Want to work more efficiently? Buy our oven. End of pitch. The founder has experience talking to investors and raises enough money to build an MVP.
The Engineer
The founder looks for someone who knows how to build ovens and finds an engineer from a prestigious school. The engineer has spent 10 years building ovens and knows how to make one. More than that: he’s the kind of person who spends all day talking and arguing about ovens. He goes to oven conferences. When he gets home at night, he argues for hours on Italian forums about which type of oven is best. The Italian forums are, to him, the ultimate source of oven-truth.
He’s tired of building ovens at Corporate Oven. Ten years making the same oven he’s told to make. He wants the freedom to build his own.
The founder offers him 20% of the company and total freedom to build the perfect oven. The salary isn’t great, but there’s the promise: if things go well, someday he could be a millionaire. And something more important than money: he’ll finally get to build the oven of his dreams.
He signs.
The MVP
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