How long does it take to become a Co-Founder?

It takes 3 years of professional experience to become a co-founder. That is the time it takes to learn specific co-founder skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education. If you include the normal education requirements to complete a college degree, then it takes 6 to 8 years years to become a co-founder.

How To Become A Co-Founder: What It Is and Career Path

What is a co-founder and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted Expert

Jason Aldrich

Co-founders are responsible for developing financial estimates and setting milestones and timelines. As a co-founder, you are expected to estimate the cost to bring a product to the market, make financial plans that determine break-even points, and also ensure long-term solvency. You are also responsible for setting financial budgets for the company to grow.

Your job is an important role in an organization; hence, it must be done effectively. To do this, you need to identify market opportunities and products that can fill a specific niche, develop business plans and forecasts, and participate in early marketing activities to create excitement for the company and awareness of the brand.

You also need to develop and implement product development, determine product specifications, and bring them into the production stage. For product sales, you need to do direct marketing and facilitate product promotion. Knowledge of financial planning and critical thinking are the skills required for a co-founder. With this, you will earn an average salary of $52,922 annually. A bachelor's degree in business or other related fields significantly increases your chance of employment.

What general advice would you give to a Co-Founder?

Jason Aldrich

Assistant Dean, Strategic Partnerships and Career Advancement, Georgia State University

JA – New graduates seeking careers in entrepreneurial environments should take a strategic approach to their career search by identifying high growth sectors in the economy that align with their competencies and passions. Too often, we see graduates spread their search efforts too broadly. We recommend identifying 2-3 industry sectors and no more than 3-4 geographic areas to focus on. Using this framework, the next step is to use a combination of sources to surface no more than 5-10 opportunities to apply to at a time. Sources should include personal networking, referrals, in-person events, and technology platforms such as LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, or others. While it’s ‘easy’ to focus most of your search efforts on these platforms to find and apply to multiple job openings, we find it’s not nearly as effective. The challenge is to take a disciplined approach to identifying specific opportunities that are a great fit for your interests, skills, and geographic preferences, and then leverage all of your sources to pursue opportunities.

ScoreCo-FounderUS Average

Salary

7.7

Avg. Salary $105,022

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

10.0

Growth Rate 6%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.64%

Asian 7.54%

Black or African American 3.70%

Hispanic or Latino 7.64%

Unknown 3.89%

White 76.58%

Gender

female 34.03%

male 65.97%

Age - 52

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 52

Stress Level

10.0

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

10.0

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

3.0

Work Life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a co-founder

Explore co-founder education requirements

Most common co-founder degrees

Bachelor's

73.0 %

Master's

15.4 %

Associate

5.3 %

Start to develop specific co-founder skills

Skills	Percentages
Financial Statements	7.69%
Business Strategy	7.35%
Business Plan	6.18%
Non-Profit Organization	5.42%
R	5.27%

Research co-founder duties and responsibilities

Manage cross functional teams through all phases of B2C campaign development.
Manage social media connect to the site (20k+ twitter impressions).
Manage and schedule production for assembly, machining, molding and QC departments.
Design and manage user web experience and social media marketing campaign, leveraging 'celebrity' Instagram dogs

Prepare your co-founder resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your co-founder resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a co-founder resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Co-Founder Resume templates

Build a professional Co-Founder resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Co-Founder resume.

Apply for co-founder jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a co-founder job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do co-founders rate their job?

-/5

5 Stars

4 Stars

3 Stars

2 Stars

1 Star

Co-Founder reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Nov 2019

Pros

I enjoy being able to use my creative experience along with my social and cultural Anthropology background to help other businesses and start ups with their goals and objectives to create a successful company or product. I also like having the freedom to work for myself and have a better carrer direction and flexible scheduling.

Cons

It can be difficult to navigate through the ever changing market and competition as an independently owned business. I also have to spend a lot of time learning/teaching myself things that I need to know but could be spending my time on what i do best if I worked for another company such as web development and coding.

What is a co-founder and how to become one

What general advice would you give to a Co-Founder?

Co-Founder career paths

Key steps to become a co-founder

Explore co-founder education requirements

Most common co-founder degrees

Start to develop specific co-founder skills

Research co-founder duties and responsibilities

Prepare your co-founder resume

Choose From 10+ Customizable Co-Founder Resume templates

Apply for co-founder jobs

How Did You Land Your First Co-Founder Job

Average co-founder salary

How do co-founders rate their job?

Co-Founder reviews

Co-Founder FAQs

How long does it take to become a Co-Founder?

Search for co-founder jobs

Co-Founder jobs by state