"What they did effectively early on is bring other hugely talented people onto the team before they could afford to pay them their market worth. They did this by paying several of their early employees in sweat equity that they accrued at the same rate as the founders for time spent working on the business. "

But Buildium is quite a few decades in the making, does this attitude exist among the new startups of today? I doubt that.

Thank you for the article Geoff. Fantastic insight. And one that's very well written, I enjoy how much focus you put into the article around culture, especially one of your finishing paragraphs.

"If you have a high-functioning and aligned team that can respectfully disagree with each other yet still make decisions and execute, you can overcome just about any challenge in business. On the flip side you can have every market advantage in the world, but if your organization isn’t healthy it’s only a matter of time until you reach your demise. I believe this to be true."

I'll make sure I read 'The Advantage' at my earliest opportunity. Thanks again!