Some people need to hear it spelled out that &quot;Failure to hit a milestone for the company will mean you are forced to go to people who you consider friends and say &#x27;I&#x27;m sorry.  You&#x27;re an excellent engineer and have done everything we&#x27;ve asked of you.  No company could have asked for better.  We appreciate the long nights and sacrificed weekends.  We hope you will think of these years fondly.  You&#x27;re fired.  Your last check will be paid immediately; there will be no more checks.  I hate doing this.  But that doesn&#x27;t change the math: you&#x27;re still fired.  Nothing either of us hope or say can change the fact that you&#x27;re fired, over what is potentially a screwup out of anyone&#x27;s control but, since I am a responsible businessman, I&#x27;m going to own the fact that no one is firing you but me.&#x27;&quot;<p>It&#x27;s easy in the intoxicating aroma of the Valley, particularly when you&#x27;re a first time founder who quite recently had <i>a million dollars in the bank</i>, to imagine that your second million dollars will come as easily as the first did.  But the first was raised on dreams, and when you&#x27;re coming up to your A round you have to replace dreams with metrics.  If you don&#x27;t have the metrics, you will not be offered an A round.  This means hard choices which all suck.<p>Founders need to be told this early and often.  Running out of money kills companies; practically speaking <i>only</i> running out of money or running out of will to continue can kill a company.  That will not be a pleasant experience under any circumstances.  Do not run out of money.