The Unspoken Pain of Cofounder Relationships

Cofounder relationships are at the heart of most startup stories. But like most marriages, there’s as much pain and struggle as joy and collaboration. Often more. Why is no one talking about this?

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One freezing, rainy day in Paris

I remembering walking around Paris in the freezing rain. It was March of 2010 and Paris was just turning the corner out of winter. I was shivering as I chatted into my earpods about the California dream.

Todd and I had been talking for months about starting something again. Our first attempt at working together had been wildly fun but short-lived. We had started a car-comparison website out of my apartment in Ann Arbor, MI, when we were both 23 years old.

The plan had been to move to Seattle and build the business there, but Todd fell in love with a beautiful girl named Katie and decided a move out of Michigan wasn’t in the cards for him. It was all very Garden State. To his credit, he did marry that girl and they now have two adorable kids. So that worked out in glowing fashion.