Building strong co-founding teams from scratch - EF’s secret recipe
This is a write up of the last talk Entrepreneur First hosted at Station F on “Building strong co-founding teams”. Discover valuable lessons and tips shared by our founders.
Have you ever made the connection between looking for a co-founder to build a startup and dating? Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford did when founding Entrepreneur First.
The two co-founders assumed that the transactional costs involved in finding a partner in life (see below) are the same present when looking for a co-founder. More on this here: When finding a cofounder becomes like online dating.
In fact, today, online dating platforms are more powerful than ever to help people find a life partner by removing these costs, and so is Entrepreneur First as a Talent Investor company.
Entrepreneur First, created in 2011 in London, brings in a new early stage in the journey of building a startup, called talent investing. EF made the strategic choice to invest in talented individuals, pre-team and pre-ideas, helping them to find the right co-founder and create a strong business idea.
By doing so, Entrepreneur First addresses common issues met by startup founders when building their company.
Why finding the right co-founder is hard
Today people tend to meet and work with people who have a similar profile, meaning comparable background, same skills and very likely, a close network.
Therefore, it is very hard for individuals who want to build a startup, (especially in deep tech), to find a co-founder who comes from a very different background and has complementary skills.
So, if you want to find a co-founder outside of your circle, what will you do?
You will probably look for other individuals willing to be entrepreneurs, through founder dating sites, groups and meetups. But this method does not give any guarantee regarding the commitment and the skills of individuals you will meet. You only have a common goal which is to be an entrepreneur, the rest of it is yet to be sorted out.
Accelerating the search is one thing, ensuring information accuracy, commitment and the quality of a profile is another and demands a level of expertise purposely developed by Entrepreneur First.
Regarding this specific point, Timothy Bouley (Paris 3rd cohort), CEO of Biofeyn, shared his view on the value added by EF: “Entrepreneur First has a whole team dedicated to sourcing and selecting the best talents to join the programme. They also do a “safety check” assuring information accuracy which makes the search for a co-founder way easier”.
Thus, Entrepreneur First as a Talent Investor company, consecrates time and energy at not only erasing the search cost, but also at evaluating profiles and finding talented individuals you would have never met on your own. Entrepreneur First builds teams that wouldn’t exist otherwise.
For more information on what is and does specifically a Talent Investor, I would recommend to read this article written by Alice Bentinck on Funding individuals, before they’ve founded a company — meet the Talent Investors.
A question some might ask at this point is: At the end if it is this hard to find a co-founder, do you really need to have one when you already have the perfect business idea?
When we asked this question to our panel, the answer was pretty clear: you need a partner in your startup journey as much as you need a partner in life. As Hardik Thakkar (Paris 1st cohort), CEO of PacketAI mentioned: “Starting a company is hard, and you need resources, you need a co-founder. (…) Moreover, if you cannot convince a partner to work with you on your project, how will you convince customers, investors and new recruits to come onboard?”.
What a strong co-founding team looks like
When it comes to matchmaking, at EF we have a pretty clear view on what a strong co-founding team looks like. However, the panel helped us to redefine more specifically the basics of a strong co-founding team:
- Complementary skills: This is directly related to what we call an Edge, also known as your unfair competitive advantage. Individuals who join EF programme come in with their very own experience, that differentiates themself from the others and makes them so special. When looking for a co-founder, it is very important to make clear what you expect from your partner. As our speakers mentioned, it implies two different things:
- Establish a shortlist of what you expect from the other
- Identify what are your strengths and your weaknesses, based on a personal screening you have done on yourself. How will your co-founder complement these?
2. Human appreciation: Even if you find the perfect fit regarding the synergy of skills, if you cannot bear this person there is an issue. As Hardik Thakkar said, “you will end-up spending more time with your co-founder than with your family and friends”. It makes it very important to be able to measure your ability to work together and get along. It also means working and learning how to manage your relationship properly, one point we will cover later in the article.
3. Align on ambition: A point that came back several times from the experience of our co-founders is the necessity to have the talk that really matters: what is your ambition? What are your plans for the future? Founders might have different ambitions regarding their startup project, depending on money or career issues. Therefore, asking your partner about their expectations for the future and aligning on the mission you want to give to your startup is an important thing to do.
One thing Entrepreneur First makes very clear when building a strong co-founding team, is the equal responsibility and share of equity, meaning doing 50/50 with your co-founder, whether you are the CEO or the CTO or from whom the business idea came from. As Maria Silvia Scetta (Paris 1st cohort), CEO of DeltaBlock said: “If you are not willing to share equally with your co-founder, it might not be the right co-founder”.
Indeed, you definitely want to choose someone who is worth giving 50% and ultimately the same share as you.
How to manage the relationship with your co-founder
Managing the relationship with your co-founder on the long term is hard. As our speakers noticed, you commit with your partner in the long run after only working 3 months on the project during the programme. It is like getting married after having met someone 3 months ago.
But the EF Team has developed some useful tools and skills when it comes to managing the variations of a relationship. Firstly when choosing their co-founder during EF programme, participants go through 2 teams on average before finding the right partner. As Timothy Bouley explains: “Entrepreneur First has a bunch of methods to make matchmaking and break-ups easier for the participants”, knowing that it is not an easy process to handle.
Moreover, in the long run open communication is key. The idea is not to avoid conflict and agree on everything as Jonny Everett, Entrepreneur in Residence at EF, mentioned: “You need to push hard enough to have a working team”.
Indeed confrontation is part of the relationship, but the important thing for Maria is to manage emotions: “You always need to measure your talk, you need to be professional”.
Ultimately Entrepreneur First will help all along during the programme to manage the relationship with supervised team check-ins dedicated to discussing openly what works and does not work individually and in the relationship. As Timothy mentioned, the EF Team acts like “mentors and advisors to give insights and tips to better manage the co-founder relationship”.
For more tips on how to work with your cofounder, you will find here another interesting article dedicated to “Team norms” from EF’s experience.
Come find your co-founder at Entrepreneur First!
Willing to start a new venture? Entrepreneur First might be the perfect fit for you. Among the many amazing individuals you will meet during EF programme, you may find one who will become your future co-founder.
Our programme runs in 6 different cities around the world: Paris, London, Berlin, Singapore, Bangalore and Toronto. Check out here the deadlines to apply and join the next cohort and stay tuned here to meet us at our next event!
