What founders owe to their first ten employees
By André Lopes · 28 January 2026 · 6 min read
When you hire your first ten employees, you are making promises you may not realise you are making. They are choosing you over a dozen safer options. They are betting their next two or three years on a story you have told them — about the work, the company, and who they will become inside it.
Most founders fulfil these promises through sheer luck. They get the company right, and the people are carried along. But the founders we admire most treat the early team as a kind of covenant: a relationship of mutual obligation that outlasts any single role.
What does that look like in practice? It means honesty about the runway and the risks. It means equity that reflects the actual gamble. It means a willingness to have the hard conversation when someone has outgrown the role — and the integrity to help them land somewhere good when they go.
