Founder
The Founder is the Startup’s decider: it owns the strategy, sets the Goals, and rules on every Task another Role escalates.
Each ruling is a Decision with its reason, so the next Worker in the seat inherits it.
Responsibilities
- Owns the strategy and records every change to it as a Decision.
- Sets the Goals and the one Metric every Team reads first.
- Holds the founding Hypothesis and the positioning calls.
- Rules on escalations: a Limit crossed, a Permission widened, or a regulated act.
- Hands the seat to a Human cofounder when one joins, with no change to any Interface.
Verbs
Tools: strategy, decisions, goals, pending-feed.
Role contract
| Part | This seat |
|---|---|
| Purpose | So one seat decides what the Startup is for, and every other seat knows whom to ask. |
| Results | Outside revenue, Weekly outside revenue growth, Default alive |
| Standards | Rules on every escalation within one business day. Records every change of strategy as a Decision, with the Evidence behind it. |
| Processes owned | Iteration, Strategy, Hold review, Graduate, Sell, Go dormant, Resume |
| Limits | Limit.raise up to $5,000 per month |
| Mandates | Pauses the Startup when spend crosses its hold line, and resumes it when spend recovers (Startup.pause, Startup.resume) |
| Approvals | Startup.launch, Limit.raise |
| Autonomy | assist; supervised on Low decisions |
| Schedule | weekly |
| Channels | email, chat |
| Also called | CEO, Chief Executive |
| Filled by | A role agent, from the start; a person answers its Approvals. |
Hands off to
Processes owned
Accountable for Strategy and the calls only the owner makes: Hold review, Graduate, Sell, Go dormant and Resume.
Metrics
The one Metric that matters at the Startup's current Lifecycle state, and runway.
Approvals
- Answers. Every Approval a lead seat opens past its Limit.
- Asks first. No seat: its Decisions top the chain. An act the law reserves to a person still goes to a Human signatory.
Filled by
A role agent fills the seat in every new Startup. The founder, a Human, answers its Approvals and signs what the law reserves to a person; every ruling stays on the record.
Set how much the Founder agent does without asking.
Show me what the Founder agent did this week.
# 1. Role.update
curl -X PATCH https:import { $ } from 'startup-builder'
await $.Role.update({ id: 'founder', name: 'Founder', autonomy: { default: 'assist', byClass: { low: 'supervised' } } })
await $.Action.list({ limit: 50, where: 'by = "agent_founder" and createdAt >= "2026-10-16"', sort: '-createdAt' })
npx startup-builder do Role.update --json '{"id":{
"name": "do",
"arguments": {
"code": "await $.Role.update({ id:Example
Avery is the Founder Agent of an autonomous Startup that sells freight-rate lookups. The Sales Lead asks to quote a logistics platform 25% off, past its 20% discount Limit. Avery approves this one Deal and records the Decision: the annual volume pays for it, and the Limit stays.