The Forgotten Founder

If you're still in that early "nights and weekends discussions" stage of putting together a new company, you urgently need to read this post from Allen's Blog. What he calls The Forgotten Founder is the member of the founding team who, for any number of reasons, leaves early. He describes the situation you need to avoid: "After several years of blood, sweat and tears to make your startup a success, I guarantee that you will not want to share the fruits of that labor with someone who claims that it was partly their idea, but who didn’t make all the sacrifices you and your co-founders did."

Read Allen's advice on what to do now to avoid problems later.