The Founder 360 is built for startup and scale-up founders who carry both product and company-building responsibility — leaders still close to the work, but whose behavior increasingly shapes the organization more than their individual output does.
Generic leadership 360s assume stable org charts, formal management layers, and well-defined roles. Founders live in the opposite world: incomplete information, blurred responsibilities, and a company that changes shape under them every few months. This instrument focuses on the transition that breaks most founders — the shift from doing the work to building the company that does the work — and the places where it tends to fail: the hiring bar slipping as the team grows, decisions slowing as information gets noisier, urgency fading as the organization adds layers, and founders holding on to roles they should have handed off.
The assessment measures seven competencies:
- Vision & Focus — setting direction, choosing what not to do, and killing what isn't working.
- Customer Insight — staying close to customers and letting evidence overrule assumptions.
- Hiring & Talent Bar — keeping standards high under growth pressure, promoting from within, and acting on mis-fits.
- Scaling Themselves — adjusting their own role, delegating real ownership, and developing people through feedback.
- Decision-Making — making timely calls with incomplete information, with clear ownership and transparent reasoning.
- Pace & Accountability — acting as the organization's constituency for speed and following through on commitments.
- Self-Awareness & Resilience — inviting honest feedback, owning mistakes, and staying steady under pressure.
Use this 360 when a founder wants structured feedback beyond their inner circle: during rapid growth, around a funding round, when co-founders are redefining roles, or when the board wants a clearer view of the founder's strengths and blind spots. It works especially well inside coaching engagements or founder development programs, where results become a small number of concrete growth commitments.
