Founded on Friendship: it's time we viewed friendship as a strategic advantage

Great friendships can be like great love affairs, but without the complications of sex. 

Trena White remembers the first time she met Jesse Finkelstein, the woman who ten years later would become her business partner and co-founder of Page Two Books. Trena was a student in the Masters in Publishing program at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and Jesse was a guest speaker who evaluated students’ imaginary book pitches.

I remember her kindness...

“I remember her kindness,” Trena says, recalling how Jesse stayed behind to encourage students, saying she wished she could have been able to market the books they had pitched.

A few years later, Trena encountered Jesse again, this time as a colleague at the publisher Douglas & MacIntyre. Trena was hired as editor and Jesse was in charge of e-books. Soon the two women were promoted into co-leadership positions and tasked with guiding the company through creditor protection. Trena observed Jesse behaving like a “diplomacy Ninja,” expertly navigating a variety of personalities in a high-stress situation, and admired how she was always thinking strategically. 

We started to dream...

“We started to dream,” Trena recalls, as their leadership roles and the direness of the situation called for some drastic thinking. D&M couldn’t be saved, but dreaming created Page Two, a company that Jesse and Trena founded based on the idea that a publisher could be a meaningful partner for entrepreneurial authors.

Trena and Jesse were friends but not close friends when they joined together to form Page Two. As they built their company and it flourished, their relationship also flourished and grew into love. But if you ask a management consultant (or Google), most will say that shared leadership almost never works. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Woz) were close friends until they founded Apple together: “The day we started Apple he changed,” says the easygoing Woz who continued to be easygoing as Jobs became more and more serious about Apple. Woz left Apple in 1986. After co-founding Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Savarin had a falling out that landed in court. It seems that growing apart with one founder overshadowing the other is a more common narrative than two founders developing a bond of love as a result of their shared leadership.

Trena attributes Page Two’s successful partnership to friendship rooted in mutual respect, shared values and a natural evolution in roles where, as a result of growth and geographical necessity, (Trena lives in Roberts Creek and Jesse in Vancouver) Jesse focuses on operational issues and Trena on market development, although their responsibilities overlap when setting the strategic direction for their company. Trena’s observation about why her co-partnership with Jesse works is backed by research at George Washington University that found successful co-leadership is most likely when those involved are close-knit, driven by values, and have trust and respect for each other. 

Rather than seeking to outshine each other, Trena and Jesse choose to follow the north star of the greater good, the why of their business. The vision of Page Two is an expression of publishing as the ultimate collaboration, and its founders are the model of collaboration grounded in friendship. Although they never sought the spotlight, the spotlight recently found Trena and Jesse who were finalists for the Women of Influence Trailblazer Award.

Can a company run on the love between friends? A better question perhaps is how can a company run without it?

About the Author: Lynne Everatt is the co-author (with two of her closest friends Deb Mangolt and Julie Smethurst) of the upcoming Acts of Friendship: 47 ways to recharge your life, make real connections, and deepen your relationships to be launched February 3, 2020. She wrote another book, The 5-Minute Recharge, with her friend and soul sister Addie Greco-Sanchez.