This week, a co-founder relationship expert shares five practices founding teams can adopt to build a partnership that grows with the business.
Renew Your Co-Founder Vows — and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup
There’s an often-touted stat that 65% of startups fail because of founder splits. Yet when companies hit a rough patch, founders blame everything but their relationship with their co-founder.
“Most founders will admit to challenges with vision or growth, or even their co-founder’s skillset, but rarely call out the relationship itself,” says Rachel Lockett, an executive coach who specializes in co-founder relationships. “They’ll blame it on lack of product-market fit, when in reality the partnership is what’s keeping them up at night — and what’s slowing them and the business down.”
The same dynamics that throttle marriages can sneak into co-founder relationships. The chaos of a growing startup pulls once-inseparable founders in different directions, creating room for resentments to fester.
“A lot of people get married and put the relationship on autopilot. The same is true with co-founders, and that doesn't work,” says Lockett. “You don’t run a business that way. You're actively managing it every single day. You have to do the same for your co-founder relationship.”
She’s seen firsthand how the co-founders’ relationship can shape a startup, for better or worse. While running people strategy at Pinterest and Stripe, she witnessed how a strong founding duo at the top rippled throughout the whole company. And as an executive coach, she’s seen co-founder friction show up in every corner of the business.
Lockett has pulled a few co-founders back from the brink of a breakup — and helped many more find their spark again. On The Review, she shares tested strategies for building a resilient relationship from the start.
Here’s what’s inside:
- The “diamond” of co-founder dynamics. Lockett says there are three relationship inputs that each can make — or break — your equilibrium. “Whenever I have an intake call with two co-founders to ask what they want out of coaching, their goals typically boil down to figuring out the misalignment in one of three buckets: shared vision and strategy, personal growth and the relationship itself,” she says.
- Real-life scenarios of co-founder fights — and how to recognize the root of the issue well before things get confrontational. “People think if they don’t argue, they have a healthy relationship. That just means there’s a lot going unsaid and resentment is building,” says Lockett.
- Five practices to add to your relationship rhythms. From writing (and renewing) your co-founder vows to using the Nonviolent Communication framework to work through disagreements, Lockett outlines concrete actions co-founders can take to invest in their relationship on a weekly, quarterly and annual basis.
Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing!
-The Review Editors