Co-founder setup
If you have co-founders, set them up properly. This is the only setup in thola where the role isn't just a permission — it unlocks a whole module (Co-Founder Fit) and changes how the Founder agent talks to you.
Add the co-founder
- Settings → Members → Invite
- Enter name + email or WhatsApp
- Choose Co-founder as the role
- Pick which modules they have write access to in addition to the defaults (often: all)
- Send the invite
When they accept, the Founder dashboard gains a Co-Founder Fit panel that didn't exist before.
Record the equity split
Open Profile → Equity (visible only to co-founders and the Owner). Enter:
- Each co-founder's equity %
- Vesting schedule (cliff + total, in months)
- Any board/observer rights
This is filled once. Updates trigger an audit-log entry; both co-founders must approve.
The equity record is used by the Founder agent to weigh the equity health signal — splits significantly out of line with contribution (as measured by hours, modules owned, sales credit) get a gentle flag.
Co-Founder Fit panel
The panel measures four things:
- Complementarity — overlap vs. coverage of skills
- Equity health — distribution and vesting alignment
- Communication frequency — # of internal messages per week between co-founders
- Friction signals — tone vector trends in shared chats (opt-in)
Each metric is shown with a 90-day trend.
Friction signals (opt-in)
This is the most sensitive feature in thola. It is off by default and requires both co-founders to opt in.
When enabled, the Founder agent looks at the tone vector on messages exchanged between co-founders in shared workspace chats. It does not look at the message content. The tone vector captures urgency, frustration, formality, warmth.
The output is a single friction signal (0–100) trending over time. A sustained rise in friction triggers a Medium Red Flag on the Founder dashboard with a soft prompt:
"Tone signals between co-founders have shifted toward formal/short over the last 14 days. Want to schedule a 1:1?"
We do not show the underlying messages. The signal is about patterns, not individual exchanges. Either co-founder can disable the signal at any time.
Shared chats
By default, every chat is private to its creator. A chat can be made shared with the co-founder explicitly:
- Click Share with co-founder in the chat header
- The other co-founder gets read access plus the ability to comment
Shared chats are the input to the friction signal. Private chats are not.
Co-founder dashboards
A co-founder sees:
- All the modules the Owner sees (in read mode by default; write on opt-in)
- Their own Founder dashboard for their personal Founder Fit
- The Co-Founder Fit panel (shared with their co-founder)
- Their own weekly check-in (private)
The weekly check-in is always private — never shared, even between co-founders. Compatibility metrics are derived from aggregates only.
Common questions
What if my co-founder leaves? Open Settings → Members → [co-founder] → Mark as departed. The Co-Founder Fit module retains historical data but stops collecting new signals. The Founder agent rebalances back to single-founder mode.
Can three or more co-founders work? Yes — up to five. Beyond that, the relationship dynamics get noisy enough that we recommend separate Founder roles instead of co-founder for the long tail.
Is anything in the Co-Founder Fit module shared outside our workspace? No. Nothing. The data is never used for training, never shown to other workspaces, never aggregated into peer benchmarks. The Founder module is the most private one in the product.
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