How to define cofounders' milestones

Defining cofounders’ milestones is very important for many reasons. The two most crucial once are:

It gives clarity of all parties what is expected from them during the cooperation so they can deliver.
They are a necessary condition to be able to evaluate the (potential) cofounder performance, which is very important for implementation of good / bad leaver framework in the scenario of a cofounder underperforming. For the fairness and protection of both, the company and the cofounders, you need to define what is the expected cofounder performance. Without this clarity, it is very difficult to argue that a cofounder is not performing.

The devil being in the detail, it is a fine balancing between being specific enough to evaluate the performance and being flexible enough to accommodate the typical dynamic character of early stage projects.

Setting it right is best done together as a team and linked to your business plan and timeline.

For starters, check that all the milestones are defined SMART