It’s about Trust

Recently enlisted Charlie Bathgate, a mentor of mine, to prompt me with one topic a week that he would want my thoughts on. First up:

“What do you think is the most important quality to have for a partner in a startup?”

There are countless qualities that are indicators for a successful entrepreneur. You can pick up any pop-psych book and find the “keys to success.” Tenacity. Growth Mindset. Resourcefulness. Grit. Empathy.

But you can have the two smartest and most well connected individuals but if they’re personalities don’t compliment each other, progress will be painful. Water is useful, and so is oil. But when you only have the two and add a flame, it’s often more damaging than helpful.

From my experience the most important quality to have for a business partner isn’t an individual’s quality. It’s actually the qualities that the relationship between co-founders accentuates. To me, it comes down to if the working relationship you’re building can reliably bring out the best in each other.

I believe that this stems for trust. This trust ripples through every part of your relationship and the organization you hope to build.

Can you trust your partners will challenge you to take risks when you’re playing it safe. To make you double check when you are being reckless. To never be afraid to give you their perspective. Can you trust that they are self aware enough to acknowledge their own biases.

Do you trust that when they wake up in the morning they are thinking about improving the product, driving growth, providing more value to customers and growing the team? And to have the trust that your partner is willing to tell you on the days this vigor is wavering and try to explain why.

Almost every company will go through the Gartner Hype Cycle. Do you trust that they have enough self awareness to handle the emotional rollercoaster of a startup?

Can you and your cofounders not get caught up with the euphoria of the highs and the depression of the troughs?

Do what you say you’ll do

It’s often said that finding a cofounder is like getting married. Just like there’s no formula for finding love, you have to be willing to put yourself out there and risk it all.

But there are tips for you quickly build and maintain a high level of trust. From personal experience it can be simplified to:

• Do you practice over communication. 
  (Are they honest and transparent with you?)
• Can you rely on each other without becoming codependent?
• Do you do the things you say you’re going to do

The last one seems simple but is perhaps the hardest. We live in a world that wants us to overpromise and overdeliver. To take on 5 things at once and hope to nail all of them. Instead be able to set expectations and provide the space to let your cofounders shine.