How to scale your co-founder relationship alongside your startup — Manu Sharma & Brian Rieger of Labelbox

 So I thought one place we could start is kind of going back in time to the founding story of the company. And I'm particularly curious how you two came together as co-founders. And was it idea first and then you came together or you two decided you wanted to start a company and then tried to find a mutual opportunity together.

 Yeah, Brian. And I know, uh, each other, since college times we first met in our, I believe it's was a junior or a senior year. And, uh, we both, uh, went to a school that was, uh, very aviation and aerospace focused. So the only.

 why it would somewhat be there is because of the love of airplanes and space travel and so forth.

And, um, Brian and I were actually in competing teams to design and build an airplane as part of our capstone pro project and, um, the

 and care and attention to the projects that we both were. Um, Uh, providing to, um, at that time, I believe is what captured our attention. Uh, and, and we became sort of friends, uh, by the end of that project.

And that was just a start of, uh, a number of projects that we would do over the course of 10 years until for founding label box. We, uh, worked on science projects together, uh, research projects, and then, uh, went on to starting, uh, small companies that we, uh, wish would become quite big. Uh, but, uh, they were really, um, an, an attempt, uh, in many ways, uh, in aerospace industry or, or renewable energy and, uh, in a way I think when I look back. I think we just had went through so many of these projects, um, and worked together for over 10 years, um, including sleeping in the same room as part of, you know, the dorms that we lived in, in the college that I think has, has a lot to do with, um,

 back again, uh, and, and building label box.

 Brian. Why do you think the co-founder relationship has worked so well for you all?

 Yeah. Now that we've really built a company with, you know, a hundred plus employees, nearly 200 employees, the thing that stands out to me beyond sort of what man you mentioned in terms of just having spiritual alignment and commitment is. A deep trust because when you're operating with, you know, another co-founder and you're trying to steer company sort of like a ship, there are many moments where you're speaking by yourself to other people.

And it's inevitable that you're gonna need to have a lot of margin, um, and deep trust with the other co-founders so that you can make decisions on the fly. And so that you can talk to people in a way that, um, works through their challenges and, all the while knowing that your co-founder will always align with you, even if from their perspective, it may be perceived as maybe I'm. Going in a different direction or slightly misaligned. You need your other co-founder to know that there's the best interest and spiritual alignment there.

And that there's never perfect information full and complete information. But knowing that the paths are going in the same place. And then at some point later, or maybe not, you get the full understanding is really important because that allows you to have a lot more, uh, latitude in what you can say and do.

 What do you think about skillset and values and how those two things for each of you fit together in the co-founding dynamic that you've developed?

 well, you know, we have very different skill sets. Um, Manu is a doer and a, product thinker, voraciously interested in what people need, you know, what people want. And he's very good at understanding the depths of the nuance around how technology should work or products should work generally. And he's able to understand that quickly and synthesize that into a tool, a product essentially.

Um, and he's always pushing and driving and, and, and holding the team to deliver every single day. My skill set is much more of a system builder in a, in an organizational. builder. And so I almost think of it as Manu sort of got his machete out and he's forging a path through the jungle and I'm sort of paving the road and creating the, the apparatus that allows that to keep happening.

 Manu, how would you describe it? And, and I'm curious, how, how would you describe your own values? Alignment? Like one is one is sort of this complimentary skillset, maybe systems versus sort of execution or, or product versus systems. But I, I'm also curious about, and it seems like it organically, you organically found values alignment in one another, because you spent so much time together, but if you were to pick it apart, how would you describe not necessarily just the company's values, but the compatibility of your own values?

 I think one of the core value that brings us together is craftmanship and understanding that there is this idea out, uh, in the world, about quality that there is something that can be better. And when you experience them, it is a transformational experience. It's almost, it's a spiritual experience when you interact with.

Things that are built with high intensity and high quality. And, I thought about this actually quite a lot, and it's a very recent realization that I can kind of, um, succinctly described like the core value that brings Brian and us together and has kept us working together for all this time.

And, I think there is something to learn from our past. Uh, so I grew up in India in a small town, in a family of artists and engineers. And everyday experience for me was to go to my grandfather's, uh, car painting shop. Uh, they were building furnitures and selling those things. My dad used to work in a textile factory.

I would go see machines interact with these machines that converted cotton to thread and, and, and, uh, and fabric. And I spent most of my, uh, time in school, just building things, uh, that UHS. Spurred my curiosity. And I actually learned that Brian's, uh, bringing upbringing has, uh, in, in many ways has been like that.

Uh, in da Davis, California, he grew up in a family of artists and engineers. Uh, his dad is a incredible builder. In fact, he's currently, uh, just built an airplane for himself that he is now starting to flight test and will have that life. Uh, he's a furniture builder. And so Brian grew up, uh, interacting with, uh, building things, machines, and so forth.

And, when you spend a lot of time with tools and, the act of creation, I think it's very fair to say that people. Build AI for, uh, quality, like what makes great tool versus a normal tool. And, uh, and a great tool will give you that delight. And, and there's something about it that it can do that other things cannot do.

And, and, and so all of these, uh, experiences, um, really shaped our view of the world. And in the 10 plus years of working together, we have seen the world and, learned from the world, uh, and validated our. Thesis like this is how quality and craftmanship and things are built.

And, and that has, I would say in, in, in this, in this whole time period, even brought us even together, even more closer than ever before. And, um, and these experiences have, you know, spanned across building things, obviously like we've built companies and products and different companies, but also experiencing art, um, music, um, and you know, other forms of creation, flying airplanes, et cetera.

And so I think, uh, it really is this core that has brought us together and has now transformed ourself into kind of a great team, uh, uh, through which, uh, we build the, in our building label box.

 That's really interesting. How about, in what ways would you say you are different from a values perspective, but it still seems to work and, and I'm, I'm potentially more interested in values than just skill sets.

 I don't know if patience is a value. So to say, um, maybe my values, maybe patience, isn't the right word, but it's, a way of affecting the world in some sense. So, Manu tends to go right at the thing and to directly kind of affect it, you know, very tactically directly. I think about affecting the world more as a set of incentives that exist. And so we approach problems differently and we value the solutions, I suppose, differently in that way.

And the, the, the strength, the power is to trust each other's judgment and have good conversations where we can determine which is the right approach or which is the right leaning for a particular, you know, thing we need to do or problem or opportunity that we want to go after.

 do you sort of name that explicitly when you two are discussing and debating things that you sort of come at it in different directions or it's just implicitly a part of the conversation? Or is there an example that comes to mind that can kind of illustrate the point?

 We do talk about it now. Um, and particularly label box has really helped us refine the words that describe this and the way that we've, you know, can identify and, and sort of act appropriately in this way. There are many examples where for exa for example, we have an part of our organization, let's say that it has all the people, it's the right size, or it has the right skill sets, but there's organizational challenges, there's system challenges.

So let's say, you know, the, the engineering team for example, is. Struggling to deliver or struggling to organize its leadership, or it's trying to align itself organizationally in, in, in the, that the organizational foundation is, is, is weaker. Let's say that's a really good opportunity. for my skillset to address, and that has happened, I have run engineering, uh, in the past, there are other organizational challenges, for example, our federal team, where we need to build it from scratch.

We need to go and exactly figure out what the core theme of that team is gonna look like, who those initial people are going to be. What the problem we're gonna really solve is understanding how we're gonna service our, federal United States, customer or customers. That's a really great, Opportunity for Manu.

And so we, you know, that's one example on our organizational side, we've done this as well on the product side, in other areas as well,

 I think one of the areas where, um, I've found distinction in our value system is where we find joy, uh, in building, 

 I tend to be more romantic in a sense that, um, I like the idea of building a solution that. Effective, in the context it's been designed for. 

 um, and that is the thrill for me to go build things that just works and it, the way users interact with it is what gets me, uh, very satisfied. Brian, on the other hand actually finds a lot of joy in the process, in the inner workings of how these things were built. And what was the creative process like? What were the things we had to go through and why is that user, um, interacting with our creation in a certain way and, and, and how that user is finding joy in that system.

And, um, and so in, in, in a way, like he takes a very rationalist approach, uh, to, um, understanding and admiring systems. Whereas I, um, I kind of skip all of that and I, I really come to the outcomes of it. Um, and I think these are very distinct value systems of, um, creation and admiration of, of tools, but I really admire, um, those, the way of, uh, thinking that Brian has, because it always takes me out of my natural thinking, and also look at the, uh, you know, smell the roses and look at the, the, the tea leaves, uh, or, or define a details that, uh, you know, I had overlooked in the past, 

 How does this all translate into more specifically how you run the company together, where you choose to align on decisions, where you choose to divide and conquer, how you approach disagreements, sort of things like that.

 You know, we, um, for many years had discussed that whoever cares about the thing more, in some sense, and we discuss amongst each other. Let me take this or I'm really interested in solving this or I think this is the right fit for, for me. And that always seemed very strange cuz we never interacted with others that sort of had that way of figuring out who's gonna focus or on, on running a particular team or focusing on particular problems or parts of the company.

And then I met the, uh, Stripe founders at a first round event and they said the same thing and everybody was just aghast about this and I was nodding along like, yeah, that's that's it. Um, so we kind of have that same, uh, it was fun to find another co-founder group that thought that way, but we do have a very direct rank conversation about.

I care about this more, or I think this is the right fit for me. We trust each other on that piece. Um, so over the course of label box, we've both run every part of the company at, at one point or another. We've both worked at on different parts of the product directly at one point or another. We've settled down a little more now, at that tactical level, just because we have an executive team now.

And so it has changed a little bit in how tactical we go after problems. Um, but we still do that same thing where we'll talk about areas or themes of the business that we need, that, that fit our skill sets and that we care kind of care about more and we trust each other and we hope, you know, the, the key element is to hold each other accountable to the outcomes of course, and that's sort of how we operate.

 Are there examples of situations where you both cared equally about the thing and had to navigate through that?

 There are a number of situations. One comes to my mind is in the early days of label box, basically this is first two years since 2018. We, um, we were experimenting with our pitch deck to present to prospects all the time. Like what would be the narrative and how would we make a compelling pitch? And I think that we went through a number of iterations where like, I would have a point of view and, and go with that pitch deck and, and go out there and find success with selling with that narrative.

And actually Brian will go out there with his own version of PitchTech and he'll also find success out there and we will come back and we'll still look at each other decks and Brian would say like, well, you know, you're too focused on features and you should need to have problem and solution and compelling value propositions.

And I would say, well, that's too broad. Uh, I wanna be very specific. And, uh, so that's kind of a, um, uh, conundrum that we would be in or sort of a debate we would be in. And, uh, and I think more often than not when we have the strong opinions, um, we continue making very compelling pitch against each other.

Like, I think Brian, I can do a better job at this because I have this vision or this, um, uh, this particular ways I would wanna improve this thing. And it's just an act of convincing one other. Um, so at some points, you know, one of us just gives up say, yep, Brian, just go ahead and do it. Um, I look forward to seeing the results and, and if, if that doesn't work that way, maybe I'll, I'll, I'll jump in and, and do that, do it in different way.

Um, That's one's come to mind. when you two align on the overlap of someone's skillset and who cares more about something, does it then sort of look like a DRI type of dynamic where that person. Owns the processor outcome end to end, and the other co-founder can provide feedback, but that person is driving it or, or, or what does it actually look like when you kind of divide things up in this, in this kind of simple 

 Yeah. So we have one of our operating principles at the company, which is the, racing matrix. So responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. And so we use that matrix. We have been using that matrix and we it's one of our main operating principles now for the, the company. And that matrix really helps define that exact thing, that the framework of accountability and, and work.

So we get the matrix out. We do an exercise, the matrix itself, like the end product. Isn't really where the value is. It's it's in the creation, the collaborative creation of it. So the rows of the matrix are the, the different parts of the work or, or the, you know, the outcome.

Um, so if it's a pitch deck, right, there's. There's the design elements. There's the narrative elements. There's the deck itself. There's the enablement of the deck. Let's say to the sales team. And there's the, you know, success of the deck in some sense. So we will decide who's accountable for those elements and who's consulted and who's informed about them and who's responsible.

And, and the, the, the really important parts are the accountable and the responsible, the accountable person is the one who's accountable. Ultimately the one who name is on the outcome and the responsible can be, um, anybody that's working on it, let's say, and then consulted are people that, you seek input from.

So we use that all the time and we get really tight around the accountable and responsible piece. And that allows us to align on, whose neck is on the line. So to, so to speak for getting it done,

 And actually that is, uh, how we now have brought this across the company. So as Brian mentioned, it's an operating principle. We, um, at crossing the Dunbar number, we find it incredibly useful to always have a single person that is accountable for an outcome. And, uh, I think that is 80% of the, uh, problem, in growth, um, is to, provide clarity to everyone, like who is the single person accountable for it and who gets to decide, um, one decision or the other about that certain topic?

 how else would you say either your relationship, the way in which you work or kind of co-run the company has changed over the past five plus years.

 we used to do a lot more in the open I would say is because we've known each other so long and we're very intense and passionate, but, but have a deep trust and alignment is we would get into very vigorous debates that looks, I think like arguments, serious arguments, but for us, it's just how we kind of elucidate the whole.

and figure out what to do. We realize that that can seem a little,

 odd to the employees and so forth. So we've, we've talked both about that more openly that this is, you know, we're having good faith arguments, at least that's our attempt. We're very passionate about them and we we've value that a lot, but we've, we've taken some of the more intense discussions and, and been mindful about where they occur and that's been good coaching for us from our coach.

 Um, but we've also brought that spirit and tried to bring that spirit to the company that the, the kernel of that, which is. we wanna be wrong for as little time as possible about anything. And we don't want any sort of group thing to be going on where people don't feel comfortable or they feel like there's some, you know, taboo topics or, or whatnot that, that can't be or asked about.

And that the culture of the company is one of intense debate and, you know, finding the best ideas through that and to be passionate about what you think and finding that best solution or best idea that is much more difficult in the remote setting. So we're really thinking about how we carry that forward.

Um, today and so forth. But I mean, when we look at great artists and great work in the past and know great, you know, product builders and engineers, they have this intensity. And so we are very keen on having that culture in the company. and so we try to exemplify that as much as we can.

 How do you think about excellence in each of your roles? 

 I see my role at the moment to, to produce very compelling products that AI community use every day for building their AI applications. And if you just get that right, everything else falls in its place. 

 such an exciting market, so much dynamicism and the rate of progress, frankly, seems to be accelerating.

 mission since the beginning has always been to build best in class products across the entire life cycle of AI development. And today we have three products, annotate model, and catalog, and it's just really exciting what customers are doing with these three products.

Um, uh, especially the second and third products, uh, as, as you probably know, Brett, you've been thinking about this a lot. And, and so a lot of my role is building teams and, and taking risks, iterating, and so forth, uh, to get these products right in my view, Brian's role is, um, to build organization systems, processes, and, um, and a culture that, uh, enables us to build these great products.

Um, and, and in perpetuity in, in a way, um, Brian is as, is really, really great in thinking of, uh, thinking in terms of systems and processes and incentives. And, uh, frankly, he has designed the entire organization, um, that, that exists today. And, uh, and there sometimes he has to, um, go build, uh, an organization and function and, and build and design its purpose.

Sometimes he has to, um, optimize that, um, uh, or refactor these teams. And, uh, sometimes he will, uh, work directly in special projects that are strategically important for label box company to endure for long time longer term. And, um, and so that's how I would describe it. Um, the two roles and, and in terms of excellence, it is about building the best in class products that the company, is, um, betting on. And it is about building an enduring culture and a place that people come and do their best work.

 One of the things that Brian, you mentioned it a couple of minutes ago is working with a coach and do you two work with the same coach and maybe what's the story there and what are some of the ways that that coaching relationship has impacted you? Both?

 We do work with the same coach today Um, we were lucky to have been told probably in the first six months of label box that we should get a coach. And we did at the time we had different coaches. the coach that we jointly have is one of the coaches that I had at the beginning, um, for the first few years of label box, the coach was really, at least speaking from my coaching was very impactful in rapid, skill set and, and leadership development for me because I have been in generally an engineer for my career.

and I just, you know, I didn't know a lot about how to be a leader, you know, manage or any of those sorts of things, even to the point of how do you feel good at the end of the day when, you're not writing code anymore, you're not designing of, you know, schematic for an airplane anymore.

 you're aligning and, and guiding and coaching other teams and, your reports. And so there's a whole skill set there. It seemed very scary at the beginning. It seemed like this dark art, this magic, but, you know, my coach really helped me. Put that into, you know, defined skills and, and measurable outcomes and, and it made it tangible.

 But nowadays we have the same coach and the most important thing, the thing that we spend almost all the time on is alignment. How do we get alignment together? You and I, when the company is so much larger, and we are spending a lot less time directly working on adjacent or, or the same thing. So we develop new systems and ways and, and cadences and conversation, starting points to ensure that happens.

 do you two, do the sessions together or separately,

we do both. We do sessions. Individually and together

 do you find that having the same coach kind of working in this way has been. critical to you both. I feel like the idea of, of as you begin scaling the business, or even early on having a coach has become sort of, I'd say more of a common best practice, but I think for co-founders having a coach work with you together is a little bit more atypical these days.

And so curious kind of what the impact has been for you all.

 the context that we are both operating under. So an example would be that, you know, Brian has a very methodical approach to understanding a problem and then coming up with a solution and it can take its to course and time, and he needs space to, Digest and work with the problem. Whereas my tendency would be that I will just attack it right away and, and come up with a couple of solutions and maybe even just go execute that.

And, these are very diverse, debate, different way of dealing with problems. And, if I'm expecting, um, Brian to solve problems in a constraint or, in a timeline that I'm projecting to it, obviously we will have, a disconnect and misalignment of expectations and, and so forth.

And so understanding how we, each make decisions, sense. Our involvement, um, has been one of the most, um, uh, impactful thing that I've learned from the joint coaching, because we, uh, in the joint coaching session, um, we're able to ask questions to each other, um, and, um, validate or invalidate our hypothesis about each other very quickly, uh, where our coach is mediating that and, and kind of going multiple layers, deeper into anything that we perceive of each other.

And, uh, in, in, in this way, like, I think, um, I'm not so sure that we would have been able to do so with, uh, any coach. Um, uh, and so I think it's, it is really kind of like a three person team and we got really lucky to have found, uh, the person we work with. Um, but I'm not so sure with the coaches that we were working independently before, uh, would be able to provide the impact that we are having now.

So we get together once a month with our coach and it is our time to bring the har problems that we are experiencing in a company that, um, that could be solved by, um, working together, um, and oftentimes working together and aligning on a solution and then going back to the company and then executing that, uh, is very effective, approach.

Manu Sharma and Brian Rieger are the co-founders of Labelbox and in this conversation, they take a microscope to their co-founder DNA and share tons of advice for other entrepreneurs looking for founding team magic.

How to scale your co-founder relationship alongside your startup

Manu Sharma and Brian Rieger are the co-founders of Labelbox and in this conversation, they take a microscope to their co-founder DNA and share tons of advice for other entrepreneurs looking for founding team magic. 