You never want to be in a place where an employee has vested 3 out of the 4 years of stock and they start thinking about leaving.
Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.
Share results (financial and key metrics) with the company every month.
If you don't love and believe in what you're building, you're likely to give up at some point along the way.
You should be able to describe any employee as an animal at what they do.
A winning team feels good and keeps winning. A team that hasn't won in a while gets demotivated and keeps losing.