4 Principles for Fostering a Strong Co-Founder Relationship

Many business founders and leaders choose to start and run a company with a partner. And having a partner can come with a lot of great advantages, but it can also add additional stressors if the co-founders haven’t nurtured their relationship.

I’ve met with several co-founders over the years whose start-ups were struggling. And often they didn’t see that the root cause of their problems wasn’t a weak product or bad marketing, but an unhealthy co-founder relationship.

Whether it’s poor communication, lack of trust, or unequal responsibility, there’s likely something under the surface that’s being buried or ignored between the partners. And when it’s finally pointed out, it usually comes as a complete surprise to them.

It’s not easy to come to terms with the fact that you and your co-founder are having relationship troubles. And the unique challenges that have risen with the pandemic can further exacerbate underlying issues and be enough to erode or even end well-established business partnerships.

And nobody wants that.

That’s why now might be a good time to reflect on your partnership relationship and face any problems that might affect your ability to work together and build a successful business.

Even though every co-founder relationship is different, here’s what my co-founder Roy Mann and I have learned and done to build and strengthen our relationship over the many years we’ve co-run our company, monday.com.

Whether you’ve been co-running a company for many years or just decided to partner up with someone, you might gain valuable insights from some of our healthy relationship-building experiences and strategies.

Talk about everything (yes, everything) before committing

If you’re someone who has recently decided to start a business, I think that’s really commendable! Choosing to start a business is a huge decision, especially in these times. And deciding to join forces with someone else to do it can be just as significant.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but choosing a business partner is like choosing a life partner.

You want to make sure that you are genuinely compatible with this person before committing to spending what could be the rest of your business life with them.

Set aside time to discuss your vision, roles, professional aspirations, leadership styles, strengths and weaknesses, personal and financial goals, fears, hopes, dreams, and anything else that’s important to you or your potential partner.

You also want to make sure you set expectations on these two key fronts:

1. Degree of commitment — Discuss what kind of absolute commitment you and your partner expect to put into the business. If you’re prepared to fully invest your time, effort, and financial resources into your start-up, your partner should be doing the same, and if they’re not then you have to understand what that means for you and the business, and vice versa.
2. Equity differences — Equal commitment doesn’t have to mean equal equity. You don’t necessarily have to share an equal split, but you both have to be comfortable with whatever that share difference is, otherwise it can become a bigger issue later on.

It’s important to discuss everything right from the get-go so it’s all out on the table and there are no surprises down the road.

And this suggestion isn’t just for those of you who’ve decided to team up with someone you may not know that well. It also goes for anyone you choose to partner in business with, including your best friend, life partner, and/or family member.

Roy and I already knew each other for a few years before deciding to start a company together. Coming into the partnership with similar experiences, interests, and beliefs certainly helped because we knew we had chemistry. But we still had several meetings and many hours of discussions before we felt confident that we could commit to each other and the business.

Engaging in these discussions lets you both know you share the same goals, values, work ethic, and vision, and it also provides a solid foundation for building trust in one another.

Put the business before ego and share responsibility

Oftentimes, co-founders will prefer to divide and conquer so they can better manage different aspects of the business and avoid stepping on each other’s toes. And that’s fine as long as you are both prepared and willing to equally share the responsibility for your company’s successes and failures despite having distinct roles.

One of the downsides to having distinct and separate roles is that you can lose the shared responsibility as joint partners of the company as a whole. And this often happens when things go sideways. If your sales and revenue are falling or your latest product or service offering is a bust, that’s when the finger-pointing can start, which can quickly erode your relationship if not addressed and resolved.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who’s to blame. You both own the company, and you and your co-founder are a team, which means sharing both praise and blame equally.

And that’s how Roy and I look at things.

Although we have different titles and are more individually focused on some areas of the company than others, nothing is set in stone. There are no real boundaries or lines drawn between us regarding who and what we can or do manage.

While this overlap of roles might cause either one of us to feel redundant at times, it ensures that we always understand what’s going on in our company overall, and we both bear full responsibility for our business in both good and bad times.

It also allows each of us to substitute for one another and be interchangeable if need be. We each can make a lot of decisions without feeling obligated to check in with the other, which allows us to move twice as fast. We also know and trust that either of us can confidently run the company on our own should that be necessary because we both have developed first-hand experience and understanding of all aspects of our business.

And this shared responsibility and deep trust are not only reassuring to each of us as co-leaders but it’s also reassuring to our investors, clients, employees, and suppliers.

Engage in ongoing honest and open communication

The importance of frequent communication with your co-founder cannot be overstated. Especially now when you must act fast, adapt, and make tough decisions as the current situation around you both continues to evolve and change.

While Roy and I haven’t had massive disagreements, we have had our share of heated discussions and strong differences of opinions. We think about things very differently and will approach a problem or opportunity from different perspectives, which can be healthy and valuable to the business if harnessed correctly. We respect our differences and use them as sources of strength.

Say what’s on your mind

And for the times when we don’t see eye-to-eye or something isn’t working for one of us, we always try to put aside our egos and say what’s on our minds and in our hearts. Ultimately we want our company to succeed, so we usually resolve conflicts quickly.

In the beginning, having honest and open conversations can be uncomfortable. But as you probably already know, anything that’s buried or unspoken will eventually find its way to the surface, for better or worse.

Make time to speak openly and honestly with your partner, even about the small stuff. It becomes easier and more natural with time. Just be sure to acknowledge your partner’s successes and the things you admire and appreciate about them too.

Maintain alignment and present a unified front

Sharing management and ownership means that you always need to be on the same page. And it can be tough to do so, especially when you run a large organization or are working remotely.

But it’s still important to find ways to make it work not only for you as partners but also for the benefit and interest of internal and external company stakeholders and influencers.

Internal stakeholders: Co-founder misalignment can send people and teams on different or contradictory paths, which becomes detrimental to employee productivity and morale. Roy and I manage many VPs and will usually meet with our executives together, but on occasion, we’ll meet with them separately so we make sure to always align beforehand.

Investors and the media: Both pay close attention to co-founder dynamics and how you interact with each other, which can either be harmful or beneficial to how they view your company and leadership. We always speak with both investors and the media together with a united voice.

Stay connected while working remotely

Before the pandemic hit, Roy and I would spend most of our workday together in the office, which naturally gave us many opportunities to speak and connect throughout the day. And we’d gotten so used to spending all our time together that we hadn’t thought too much about how we managed to almost always align well.

It wasn’t until the recent shift to remote working that we realized it was a real challenge to stay synced because our work and life rhythms and routines had drastically changed. With jam-packed schedules and new responsibilities to manage with our kids at home, it didn’t take much for Roy and me to feel like we were suddenly falling out of sync.

During the months that we were forced to work from home, we each had to make a real effort to stay in touch, and for us, that meant texting and calling each other throughout the day to keep each other informed and in the loop.

We’ve found that speaking for at least three hours throughout the day has really helped us stay in sync and feel connected over the last few months.

Continue to build and strengthen your bond

Roy and I have been through a lot together as we’ve rapidly scaled our start-up to become an internationally recognized company with 600+ employees and more than 100,000 customers worldwide. And I credit a lot of our success to how we co-run the business and invest in nurturing our relationship.

Life and business will always unexpectedly throw us for a loop, as COVID-19 has proven, we can never be certain about the road ahead. But we can all continuously improve and build on our co-founder relationships to be in the best position to go after bigger opportunities and tackle any hurdles that may come our way down the road.