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

What is a co-founder/manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

Jason Aldrich

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a co-founder/manager. For example, did you know that they make an average of $31.58 an hour? That's $65,687 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 189,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a co-founder/manager?

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-Founder/ManagerUS Average

Salary

5.1

Avg. Salary $65,687

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.6

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.47%

Asian 6.33%

Black or African American 6.14%

Hispanic or Latino 15.06%

Unknown 4.33%

White 67.67%

Gender

female 33.73%

male 66.27%

Age - 44

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 - 44

Stress level

9.6

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.2

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.6

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a co-founder/manager

Explore co-founder/manager education requirements

Most common co-founder/manager degrees

Bachelor's

70.0 %

Master's

14.8 %

Associate

8.5 %

Start to develop specific co-founder/manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Financial Statements	12.69%
Business Plan	8.15%
Payroll	6.75%
R	5.27%
Facebook	5.06%

Complete relevant co-founder/manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New co-founder/managers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a co-founder/manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real co-founder/manager resumes.

Research co-founder/manager duties and responsibilities

Manage regular administrative tasks including updating CRM software, tracking ROI, and submitting monthly expenses.
Manage production, oversee international shipping and coordinate between Guatemala and NYC office and international retailers.
Founded a podcasting and entertainment network LLC.
Work with legacy CodeIgniter PHP framework to extend content management system, including internationalization.

Apply for co-founder/manager jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a co-founder/manager 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-founder/managers rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Co-founder/manager 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.