Founder Decision Making SOP.
A decision protocol that stops co-founders from relitigating the same issue, hiding disagreement, or waiting for consensus that never arrives.
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Operating standard
Control without the corporate sludge.
Owner
The founder assigned as decision owner for the relevant function.
Response
Reversible decisions within two working days. Irreversible decisions within five working days unless a legal or financing deadline requires faster action.
Metric
At least 90 percent of decisions close by the stated deadline and are not reopened without new evidence.
If nobody owns the process, the founder owns every emergency.
Purpose
Make important company decisions quickly while preserving clear ownership, dissent, evidence, and accountability.
When it applies
Use for reversible operating decisions with meaningful cross-team impact and for irreversible decisions involving equity, financing, senior hiring, legal exposure, or company strategy.
Do not start blind.
Trigger to outcome. No meeting required.
- 01
Write the decision as one question with a deadline.
- 02
Assign one decision owner before discussing solutions.
- 03
Classify the decision as reversible or irreversible and set the evidence threshold accordingly.
- 04
Collect written input from affected owners with a fixed response deadline.
- 05
Record the options, key assumptions, downside, and recommendation.
- 06
Obtain required approval and record dissent without forcing artificial agreement.
- 07
Publish the decision, owner, effective date, and review trigger.
- 08
Review the outcome against the original assumptions instead of judging with hindsight.
Authority must be explicit.
Know when to stop.
If founders remain deadlocked at the deadline, use the authority defined in the founders agreement or escalate to the board or named independent adviser. Do not leave the decision owner undefined.
If it is not recorded, it did not happen.
Make the generic parts real.
How teams break the process.
Confusing consultation with unanimous consent
Making decisions in disappearing chat threads
Reopening a decision because someone dislikes the outcome
Related startup SOPs.
Make the process executable.
Download it, assign the real owners, set the thresholds, and test it with someone who did not write it.