🗺️Co-founder Responsibility Map

A free tool for co-founders and solo founders looking for one. Map who should own what, expose overlaps and gaps, and build a more efficient team with fewer avoidable conflicts.

Start with responsibilities

Most new founding teams start with two questions: who should lead, and how should responsibilities be divided? Solo founders looking for a co-founder face the same questions.

It makes sense to agree early. But even founders with relevant backgrounds, strong motivation, or experience working together have limited evidence of how they will operate this specific startup.

Early stage roles are broad. Each founder covers several functions, and responsibilities move as the company changes. Titles do not tell you enough about the work.

This map changes the order. Start with responsibilities. Decide who wants each area and who can handle it today. Surface overlaps, gaps, learning bets, and burnout risks. Then assign ownership and define when each decision should be reviewed.

A three month trial is a practical first review point. Review the map again after one year, or when a funding round, major hire, pivot, or another company event changes the work.

👉 Open and copy the Co-founder Responsibility Self-Assessment v1 TEMPLATE

Co-founder Responsibility Self-Assessment v1 TEMPLATE

What it is

A starting list of 49 responsibilities common to early stage tech startups, grouped into seven functional areas. An eighth open group lets you extend the map for your business model. These are not job descriptions or titles. They are the work that needs an owner.

Each founder answers two independent questions per row, alone:

1. Want: do you want to own this?

2. Can: can you do it today, with evidence of having done it before?

Those two axes stay separate on purpose. Wanting work you cannot do is a learning bet. Being able to do work you do not want is a burnout risk. One score would hide both.

You then merge the sheets into one map. It shows where you agree, where you overlap, and what none of you covers.

Before you start

1. Allow 10 to 30 minutes for each founder to work alone.

2. Allow 60 to 90 minutes to work together, on a call or in a room.

3. Use it with two, three, or more founders. A solo founder can use it to define what a future co-founder needs to cover.

How to run it

1

Each founder makes their own copy

Open and copy the self-assessment template. Use your own Google account. Do not share one file.

2

Fill it alone

Put your name in cell A1:

Answer Want and Can for every row. If Can equals Yes, write what you have actually done in the Evidence column. Leave a cell blank if you do not know. Do not tidy your answers later.

3

Do not compare answers yet

No screenshots or summaries over lunch. Once one founder sees another founder's sheet, both start negotiating instead of answering. The overlaps this tool should surface can disappear.

4

Export each sheet to CSV

Select File, Download, then Comma Separated Values.

Demo CSVs: Marek, Nina

5

Upload all CSV files

Upload them to an AI model that can create spreadsheets (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc), together with the merge prompt below. Do this live, with all founders present.

6

Open the spreadsheet it returns

It contains a short guide, the merged map, and one protected tab per founder with answers exactly as submitted.

Demo Co-founder Responsibilities Map

7

Fill the three empty columns together

That conversation is the point. Everything before it was preparation.

What the merge tells you

Every row gets one of six classes. The class comes only from your answers. It decides nothing.

Class	What it means	What to do
Clear	One founder wants it and can do it.	Confirm it and move on.
Overlap	More than one founder wants it and can do it.	Discuss the trade. Someone must give up work they want and can do.
Stretch	Someone wants it, but nobody can do it yet.	Treat it as a learning bet. Decide who supports it and set a deadline.
Reluctant	Nobody wants it, but someone can do it.	Assign it if needed, but treat it as debt and set an end date.
Gap	Nobody wants it and nobody can do it.	Buy it, hire for it, or accept the risk on purpose.
Missing	Someone left an answer blank.	Answer it together before anything else. It may change the class.

Two patterns are worth finding by eye. A Stretch row where more than one founder says Want only can hide a conflict over strategic leadership. You both want work that neither of you can do yet. A Reluctant row where more than one founder says Can only is a trading chip. Nobody wants it, either founder could take it, and it may help settle an Overlap row.

What you decide, and the model does not

The merged file has three empty columns. The model never fills them. Neither should it.

1. Owner: who does the work. Use a founder's name, New co-founder, Hire, Outsource, or Nobody. Nobody is a valid answer. It means you accept the risk on purpose. New co-founder is not a hire. If the map shows you need another co-founder, that is a useful finding.

2. Status: Agreed, Parked, or Needs data. Parked matters. Without it, founders make rushed decisions just to fill the column.

3. Condition: what makes this ownership expire. Assume every owner is temporary. This prevents ownership from becoming permanent by default.

Rules that make it work

1. Fill independently. Use separate files, not hidden tabs or filtered views.

2. Blank is not No. An unanswered cell and a refusal are different answers. One blank makes the whole row Missing, whatever anyone else answered.

3. Can requires evidence. A capability claim with no track record is a hypothesis. The merged file flags Can equals Yes with no evidence in red. It never judges the evidence or compares founders.

4. Nothing is scored. No totals, percentages, or counts per founder. Totals distract from the decisions you need to make row by row.

5. Overlap is a finding, not an error. Discuss contested rows. Never allocate them automatically.

6. The output starts the argument. It is not a verdict.

Group 8, and why divergence is useful

The first seven groups cover responsibilities common to most tech startups. Group 8 is open. Extend it for your model, whether that is hardware, a marketplace, regulated data, field operations, or something else.

When you merge, group 8 rows are matched by text, not number. If founders added different rows, that is a finding. Founders describing different companies often write different group 8s.

After the map

1. In the same session: fill Owner, Status, and Condition together.

2. Optional follow up: upload the filled file again for help resolving contested rows and covering gaps.

3. After three months: review the map based on real work. Review it again after one year, or when a funding round, major hire, pivot, or another company event changes the work.

The merge prompt, v1.0

Paste everything below into your model, then attach both CSV files. Tested on Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.7 Flash.

# Co-founder Responsibility Map — Merge Prompt v1.0

## Delivery

Build the file with Python, then emit it as a downloadable attachment in the same reply that reports the checks. Never say a file "should be available" without attaching it. You cannot upload to Google Drive — do not offer it. If your Google Sheets tool accepts only flat data, do not use it; deliver the XLSX and say it opens in Sheets with formatting intact.

## Role

You are merging co-founder responsibility maps. You are a merge tool, not an advisor. You do not decide who owns anything.

## Input

One or more CSV files, one per founder, exported from the Co-founder Responsibility Map v1.0. One file means a solo founder mapping what they need to find. Two or more means co-founders. Handle any number.

## Output

One XLSX spreadsheet, built with whatever tools you have. The spec below describes the artifact, not the method.

Produce a Google Sheet instead only if the user asks AND you can natively create a multi-tab sheet with cell fills. If your only sheet tool takes flat data, do not attempt it and do not offer to upload anywhere: deliver the XLSX and tell the user to open it in Google Sheets, where the formatting is preserved.

If any single feature cannot be applied, apply the fallback below, deliver the file anyway, and name the substitution in your reply. A file with a missing feature always beats no file. Never withhold the artifact over one feature.

| Feature | Fallback |
| --- | --- |
| Evidence in cell comments | an "Evidence" tab, one row per founder per responsibility |
| Dropdowns on Owner / Status | list allowed values in Read me |
| Sheet protection | the "do not edit" header alone |

If you cannot produce a file at all, say so in your FIRST reply, before building anything.

## Step 0 — Identify founders

The founder's name is in cell A1 (row 1, first column).

Cell B1 holds the fixed label "← Founder name" — a printed instruction pointing at A1, never a person. Ignore it. Ignore D1 (version and copyright).

- If A1 is empty, or still holds the arrow label, STOP and ask the user for that founder's name. Do not invent one and do not use the filename.
- If two files resolve to the same name, stop and ask.
- Founder column order = the order the files were given to you; if that is ambiguous, alphabetical by founder name. State the order in your reply.

## Step 1 — Locate the table

Row 1 is the name and version banner. Row 2 is the instruction sentence. Neither holds data.

Find the header row: the first row whose first cell is exactly "Responsibility". Do not assume it is row 3 — a founder may have inserted a line.

Read the four columns by POSITION, not by header text:

| Position | Column |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | Responsibility |
| 2 | Want |
| 3 | Can |
| 4 | Evidence |

The Evidence header is long and contains an em dash; do not match on it.

Files are UTF-8, CRLF, and may carry a BOM. Strip it.

## Step 2 — Read rows

Each responsibility cell holds ID and text together: "1.1 Vision and strategy". Split on the first space. The ID is the leading token matching ^\d+\.\d+$ ; the rest is the responsibility text, trimmed.

A first cell like "1. Executive" or "8. Triggered by this business (optional, edit for your case)" is a GROUP HEADER — no answers. Carry it into the Map tab as a full-width band, never classify it.

Skip empty rows and trailing blank rows.

## Step 3 — Integrity check (before any analysis)

Every ID from 1.1 to 7.8 must be present, in order, with the same responsibility text in every file. Group 8 is exempt — it is meant to differ.

If a core row is missing, renumbered, reordered or reworded: STOP. Build nothing. Report which IDs differ in which file and ask the user to fix the source sheet. A shifted row produces a silently wrong merge.

## Step 4 — Read answers

Want and Can accept exactly three values: Yes, No, empty.

Empty means unanswered. NEVER convert empty to No — blank and No are different answers and must stay different.

Any other content is a broken sheet: treat that cell as unanswered and list it in your reply so it gets asked out loud.

Evidence is free text. Copy it verbatim. Never edit, tidy, summarise or translate.

## Step 5 — Classify each row

Apply mechanically to every row. Count only founders who have the row on their sheet.

Let **count** = the number of founders with Want = Yes AND Can = Yes.

Take the FIRST rule that matches, in this order:

1. Any founder has Want blank or Can blank → "Missing"
2. count >= 2 → "Overlap"
3. count == 1 → "Clear"
4. Any founder has Want = Yes → "Stretch"
5. Any founder has Can = Yes → "Reluctant"
6. Otherwise → "Gap"

Founder state label per row:

| Answers | Label |
| --- | --- |
| Want=Yes, Can=Yes | "Want + Can" |
| Want=Yes, Can=No | "Want only" |
| Want=No, Can=Yes | "Can only" |
| Want=No, Can=No | "Neither" |
| either blank | leave the cell empty |
| row absent from that founder's sheet | "not on sheet" |

## Step 6 — Merge group 8

Group 8 numbers mean different things in different files. Match on responsibility TEXT, case-insensitive and trimmed — never on number.

Keep rows appearing in only one file, with "not on sheet" for the others. Renumber sequentially: 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and so on.

If two rows look like the same responsibility but are not written identically, keep both and flag the pair in your reply. Do not merge them yourself.

## Step 7 — Build the file

### Font

Arial everywhere. Do BOTH of these, not one:

- **(a)** set the Normal named style's font to Arial as the very first operation, before creating or touching any sheet or cell, and
- **(b)** apply an explicit Arial Font object to EVERY cell you write — including header cells, group band cells, class cells, empty Owner/Status/Condition cells, and every cell on every founder tab.

Setting only the default is not sufficient: unstyled cells resolve to whatever font sits at index 0 of the styles table, which is Calibri.

No formulas anywhere.

### Literal values

Everything in quotes below is a literal cell value. Copy it exactly. Do not copy any heading, label or instruction word from this prompt into the file — only the quoted values.

ANGLE BRACKETS ARE PLACEHOLDER NOTATION IN THIS PROMPT. They must never appear in the file. Wherever a founder's name goes, write the bare name — never brackets of any kind, never "Founder 1".

### Tab 1 — named "Read me"

| Column | Width |
| --- | --- |
| A | 16 |
| B | 74 |
| C to H | 18 |

Wrap text ON for the whole of column B.

| Cell | Value | Fill | Format |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A1 | "How to use this file" | | Arial 14 bold |
| B3 | "Two founder sheets were merged. Class is calculated from both answers. Nothing here decides anything — the three yellow columns are filled by you, together, on the call." | | |
| A5 | "WHAT CLASS MEANS" | | bold |
| A6 | "Clear" | #E8F5E9 | |
| B6 | "One founder wants it and can do it. Confirm and move on." | | |
| A7 | "Overlap" | #EF9A9A | |
| B7 | "More than one of you wants it and can do it. This is the trade: someone gives up work they want and can do." | | |
| A8 | "Stretch" | #D1C4E9 | |
| B8 | "Someone wants it, nobody can do it yet. Learning bet: who supports it, and by when." | | |
| A9 | "Reluctant" | #FFCC80 | |
| B9 | "Nobody wants it, someone can. Assignable, but it is a debt. Give it an end date." | | |
| A10 | "Gap" | #B0BEC5 | |
| B10 | "Nobody wants it, nobody can. Buy it, hire it, or accept the risk on purpose." | | |
| A11 | "Missing" | #E0E0E0 | |
| B11 | "Someone left it blank. Answer it out loud before anything else — it may change the class." | | |
| A13 | "WATCH FOR" | | bold |
| B14 | "A Stretch row where more than one of you says Want only — you want a job none of you can do yet. In group 1 this is the CEO argument in disguise." | | |
| B15 | "A Reluctant row where more than one of you says Can only — nobody wants it, any of you could take it. These are your trading chips for settling Overlap rows." | | |
| B16 | "Red text in a founder column means Can = Yes with no evidence written. Ask what they have actually done." | | |
| B17 | "Hover any founder cell to read the evidence they wrote." | | |
| A19 | "WHAT YOU FILL IN" | | bold |
| A20 | "Owner" | | |
| B20 | "Who does the work: a founder name, New co-founder, Hire, Outsource, or Nobody (a risk you accept on purpose)." | | |
| A21 | "Status" | | |
| B21 | "Agreed — settled. Parked — discussed, deliberately not decided. Needs data — cannot decide yet. Blank means not discussed." | | |
| A22 | "Condition" | | |
| B22 | "What makes this ownership expire. Assume every owner is temporary." | | |
| A24 | "EXAMPLE OF A FILLED ROW" | | bold |
| A29 | "Map v1.0  © Alex Samson  https://saalse.com" | | Arial 9 italic #90A4AE |

**Rows 26 and 27.** Row 26 is white bold on #263238. Build row 26 as a LIST, then write it left to right starting at A26:

["ID", "Responsibility", each founder's name in column order, "Class", "Owner", "Status", "Condition"]

With two founders this is exactly 8 cells: A26 through H26, and D26 must hold the SECOND founder's name. With three founders it is 9 cells, A26 through I26. Row 26 and row 27 must contain the same number of values, and every row-27 value must sit directly under its own header.

The two-founder case, cell by cell:

| Column | Row 26 | Row 27 | Row 27 fill |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A | "ID" | "3.3" | |
| B | "Responsibility" | "Infrastructure, deployment, reliability" | |
| C | first founder's name | "Neither" | |
| D | second founder's name | "Can only" | |
| E | "Class" | "Reluctant" | #FFCC80 |
| F | "Owner" | the second founder's actual NAME, no brackets | #FFFDE7 |
| G | "Status" | "Agreed" | #FFFDE7 |
| H | "Condition" | "Until first DevOps hire — review at 3 months" | #FFFDE7 |

**If there is only one founder file:** omit rows 7, 14 and 15, close the gaps, and insert as the last WATCH FOR line: "Clear is what you keep. Stretch, Reluctant and Gap are the specification for the people you still need to find." Row 26/27 then carry one founder column only.

### Tab 2 — named "Map"

| Cell | Value | Format |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A1 | "Co-founder Responsibility Map — merged" | Arial 14 bold |
| A2 | founder names joined by " + ", then " — Class is calculated, do not edit. Owner, Status and Condition are yours to fill on the call." | Arial 10 italic #546E7A |

Row 3 empty.

Row 4 headers, white bold on #263238:

"ID" | "Responsibility" | one column per founder, headed with that founder's actual name | "Class" | "Owner" | "Status" | "Condition"

Row 5 onward: every row in original map order. Group headers as full-width bands, fill #37474F, white bold, text in column A, no class.

| Column | Width |
| --- | --- |
| ID | 7 |
| Responsibility | 56 |
| Each founder | 15 |
| Class | 12 |
| Owner | 16 |
| Status | 13 |
| Condition | 34 |

Class fills:

| Class | Fill | Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| "Overlap" | #EF9A9A | bold |
| "Stretch" | #D1C4E9 | |
| "Reluctant" | #FFCC80 | |
| "Clear" | #E8F5E9 | |
| "Gap" | #B0BEC5 | |
| "Missing" | #E0E0E0 | bold |

Class column centred.

Owner, Status, Condition: fill #FFFDE7, left EMPTY. You never fill these.

Evidence goes in a cell comment on that founder's state cell, never in the grid.

- If Can=Yes and evidence is empty: state text bold red #C62828 plus the comment "Can = Yes but no evidence given."
- "not on sheet" cells: italic grey #90A4AE.

Dropdowns, on data rows only, not on group band rows:

- Owner: every founder name, then New co-founder, Hire, Outsource, Nobody.
- Status: Agreed, Parked, Needs data.

Freeze panes below the header row and to the right of Responsibility. Autofilter on the header row. Gridlines off.

### Tabs 3 onward — one per founder, named after the founder

A1 = that founder's name followed by " — answers as submitted. Do not edit."

Row 2 headers, with widths:

| Header | Width |
| --- | --- |
| "Responsibility" | 56 |
| "Want" | 8 |
| "Can" | 8 |
| "Evidence" | 62 |

Row 3 onward: their answers exactly as submitted, group headers as bands. Freeze below the header. Sheet protection on, no password.

Do not correct, reword or tidy anything they wrote.

### Filename

"Responsibility_Map_" followed by every founder name in column order, separated by underscores, then ".xlsx". For Marek and Nina that is exactly Responsibility_Map_Marek_Nina.xlsx. Never substitute "Merged", "Final", "Export" or any other word.

## Step 8 — Verify by reading values, not by asserting

Reopen the saved file and report the ACTUAL VALUE you find at each address. Never write "pass" or "correct" — write what is in the file.

1. Tab names found: ...
2. Font name at Map!B6: ...
   Font name at Map!A4: ...
   Font name at cell A4 of each founder tab: ...
   All must read Arial. If any reads Calibri, fix and re-verify.
3. Class fill hex codes found, one per class: ...
4. Number of cell comments on Map: ...
5. Dropdown formulas found on Map: ...
6. Count of non-empty cells in Owner, Status, Condition: ... (must be 0)
7. Read me A1 value: ...
   Read me B3 first six words: ...
   Row 26 values in order: ...
   Row 27 values in order: ...
   Both rows must have the same count, and the founder names in row 26 must match the founder columns on Map row 4.
8. Count of cells anywhere containing an angle bracket: ... (must be 0)
9. Map: last row with data: ...   autofilter range: ...
10. Saved filename: ...

## Step 9 — Your reply

Under 15 lines. Only: file-to-founder mapping and column order, integrity result, unreadable cells, group 8 differences between founders, rows per class, result of each of the ten checks, any fallback used. Then stop.

## Never

- Suggest, imply or pre-fill an owner for any row.
- Suggest job titles. Never write CEO, CTO, CPO, COO or "you look like".
- Mention equity, shares, splits or contribution.
- Count or total anything per founder — no row counts, percentages, ratios, strengths, or "X covers more of the map". Class totals are allowed; per-founder totals are not.
- Judge whether evidence is good enough, or compare founders' evidence. Present it, never assess it.
- Infer a blank cell from nearby answers.
- Add, remove, reorder or reword any responsibility.
- Write a summary, recommendation or conclusion of any kind.

The file is where the argument starts, not a verdict. Build it and stop.

Version and reuse

Map v1.0, merge prompt v1.0. Free to use and adapt with attribution. If you run it with your own founding team or inside a program, I would like to hear what broke.

👉 Get in touch