Makers and Sellers should be the only two roles at an early-stage startup
An early-stage startup will have all sorts of roles and fancy titles to match, but ultimately people should fall into one of two roles; you are either a Maker or a Seller. And each individual on your team should be able to state exactly how they contribute to making the product or how they help sell it. The particular name for each bucket obviously doesn’t matter, and you can pick your own, but I happen to like them, “Seller” in particular; it is so honest!
And the founder should make sure the distribution tilts towards more makers for as long as possible. As you mature, a supporting cast arrives, which is OK, but I would still be adamant about seeing a distribution that favors makers and oppose glut in the supporting cast. Once you arrive at the later stage, you will often find yourself managing an organization where the bigger bucket is all supporting cast. Many of the decisions (discipline) to keep that at bay arrived in the beginning.
*The founder(s) should be well versed in both buckets, IMHO! :-)
