In chess, nobody willingly sacrifices a king. The game ends the moment you do.
But in the startup world, founders sometimes make an even harsher mistake – they unknowingly trade away a king just to protect a pawn that was never worth the defence.
And the tragedy? They don’t even realise it until the board is empty.
Every founder faces moments where emotion disguises itself as loyalty.
A struggling product line.
A toxic partnership.
A narrative that once felt right but no longer fits the market.
Instead of stepping back and asking,
“What truly matters now?”,
they cling to the familiar, because letting go feels like betrayal.
So they double down.
They defend the wrong co-founder because of history.
They continue with a failing strategy because they announced it publicly.
They protect a fragile relationship within the company because walking away feels uncomfortable.
Slowly, quietly, the real king – trust, clarity, and the people who were actually building the future with them – slips away.
The pawn? It survives.
But the kingdom weakens.
Founders often assume loyalty means holding on. In reality, leadership sometimes demands the courage to recognise when attachment is blinding judgment.
Not every battle deserves protection.
Not every person deserves a seat at the table just because they arrived early.
The hardest part is this – the pawn rarely looks like a mistake in the beginning.
It looks like compassion.
It looks like patience.
It even looks like love for the past.
But strategy is not about preserving comfort; it is about protecting what allows growth.
Great founders learn to ask brutal questions:
Am I protecting potential or protecting habit?
Am I holding on because it’s right or because I’m afraid to lose what feels familiar?
And most importantly, what am I quietly sacrificing while I defend this one piece?
Because sometimes the king is not the startup itself.
It is a relationship that brings clarity.
A mentor who tells you the truth.
A voice that challenges you to grow when you’d rather stay safe.
Lose that, and you may still be standing on the board, but the game has already changed.
The irony is harsh: founders rarely lose because of competition.
They lose because they protect the wrong things for too long.
Strategy is not just about scaling products or raising capital.
It is about recognising when your loyalty is costing you your future.
And sometimes, the most dangerous move is not sacrificing a king knowingly…
it’s losing one slowly while believing you are saving the game.