Choosing and Working with a Co-Founder - What You Need to Know

Having a co-founder can be awesome. They share the responsibilities of running the business with you, stand by your side at investor meetings and are there for the emotional support you most definitely need from time to time.

Having a co-founder can also be a nightmare. If you disagree, they can block your decisions. If your values differ, they don’t represent the company as they should. They can drain you as opposed to being a source of support. 

Through my work with startups, I’ve inadvertently become somewhat of a co-founder relationship specialist. I’ve witnessed, mediated and/or resolved over 100 co-founder disputes, and here I share the most important points that anyone working with (or thinking of working with) one or more co-founders should know (and apply!)

1. Choose deliberately

These days, the whole world is in a rush. I suspect people are not even sure what they’re rushing for, but there are the usual arguments of ‘first to market’, ‘first to scale’ and all other sorts of nonsense. 

Chill.

If you are rushed in what you do and don’t give enough consideration to what needs to be considered, your venture will never achieve the success you want from it.

Take your time, especially when it comes to key decisions, such as who will run your business with you. 

Now, it’s all a matter of balance. Don’t languish either. Just move at your own pace. You get my point…

2. Know your patterns

The only way to know what you want is to first get to know yourself, your patterns and personality.

It really helps if you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, professionally and personally. 

As an example - professionally, I know I’m very good at building relationships, strategy, connecting the dots and reading a room. I know that I’m weak operationally. I can be organised if I want to, but it’s not something I love. 

Personally, I know people enjoy speaking with me because I don’t judge and have a calming presence. From the feedback I’ve gotten, I can be quite fun to be around and have the capacity to get people to open up in minutes. On the other hand, I can be a major pain because I follow my gut, and that changes often. I know that people get frustrated with me because they just don’t know what to expect.

There’s nothing right or wrong about me, it’s just the way I am, my personality. And the same applies to you. The more aware you are of yourself, the better.

3. Date before you marry

Time and time again, I see founders rush to make an offer to potential co-founders they haven’t even worked with yet.

Would you marry someone that you don’t know? In the large majority of cases, the answer to this question is no. (If you come from a culture of arranged marriages, I respect your traditions.)

Your co-founder is someone that you will spend A LOT of time with. In most cases, co-founders actually report spending more time with each other than they do with their spouses!

So, before entering into such an important commitment, try out working together first. More informally - but be clear that this is a test period.

4. The culture + values fit

Give as much importance to culture as you do to bringing on the right skills fit.

If you know yourself, what your assets and blind spots are, it becomes clear who you need. Find someone who complements your skillet. 

When you know what you stand for, what you love most and want to share with the world, it will be clear to you from speaking with people, who matches—and who doesn’t match—your vision and values. 

Do. Not. Settle. 

Find someone that matches you on both levels or it will not work in the long term. I have never seen a successful founding team that isn’t a match on both levels. Conversely, every broken founding team I’ve worked with had either mismatched skillets or values (or both). 

5. Set clear mutual expectations

During the process of getting to know your co-founder (and throughout the duration of your relationship), set clear expectations. Be as clear about what someone can expect of you as you are with what cannot be expected of you. 

I know my co-founder will never miss his kids’ school plays or birthdays and he knows traveling is a big part of my life. Had we not made those things clear from the start, I’m sure this would have engendered many frustrations and disputes. But as we know and accept that of each other, nothing of the sort happens. 

Equally, acknowledge that people and circumstances change over time. Some things may shift, and that’s okay. Just keep things open and allow both yourself and your co-founder(s) to continue to be open about expectations and priorities. 

6. Communicate, communicate, communicate

If you’ve followed all the steps until now and have, as a result, found one or more co-founders that match you, congratulations. 

You’ve built the right foundations, but it just starts here.

The real challenge comes with the day-to-day that is running a business. With the craziness of life that crops up in the most unexpected ways. With the successes, the failures. 

As your business grows, keep building on the same foundations of open, honest and direct communication. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

Seek to understand, prior to seeking to be understood.

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If you’ve read until now, you can probably gather that this set of pointers applies to all relationships, not just between co-founders. 

The more conscious we become of ourselves, the more conscious, connected and open we become to the world around us. 

The more we accept our shortcomings, the less we judge and the more we accept others as they are. 

And in case you’re wondering, yes, this is our approach to legal services with Linkilaw also. Honest, clear, to the point (and full of love!). Book a call and see for yourself :)