Last week, I was in San Francisco with my PWV partners Tom Preston-Werner and David Price for meetings with prospective LPs in our Fund I.

Tom noted that PWV is an outlier in his experience. We’re a trio. But, he’s used to a quartet. His startups (GitHub, RedwoodJS, etc.) have typically been four people.

I realized that when I wrote about Startups as a Band back in 2020, I never considered the quartet as a startup as a band model.

Let’s fix that. I’ve added the prior slides below with notes and its update.

You have ⚪ solo startups where one person tries to fill all roles and play all instruments.

You have ▬ duos where one person does the business and the other the technology.

You have core founder ▲ groups where each have their function, but together deliver the vision.

With a 🔲 quartet, your startup already has the capacity to scale. You can balance more responsibilities, ideate more products or features simultaneously, or engage with customers and investors in more ways so strategic growth becomes more feasible.

“Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer. Well, can you put your hands in your head? Oh no!”

“Damage destructor / Crowd disruptor”

CEO’s living the dream.

This prototype is C Suite (so sweet?).

Startups are hard and you can’t do it alone. But finding the right team and having clear roles and responsibilities is key to success.

Still cannot do it alone. At least with a team of four, you can find your Ringo. The End.