11 ms·

Co-founder Conflict

366 points by garry 10y ago

ericjang 10y ago
Thanks for sharing this, Garry. In hindsight, would you have preferred to run your startup as a solo founder, or do you believe that a solo founder startup presents a greater operational/execution risk than co-founder conflict?
- garry 10y ago
  The product we made caught lightning in a bottle because of the joint choices Sachin and I made together. It is impossible to know if the product would have come together without the talents of both of us. I would frankly guess not. I think the outcome would have been better if I knew the things I wrote in this blog post now, 10 years later!
- zillionize 10y ago
  Like marriage, it is worse to marry a wrong person than stay single. Therefore, if you do not really trust your cofounder, don't let her become your cofounder because a wrong cofounder is worse than a solo founder. As a seed round investor, I do not view a solo founder as a negative sign since I am personally a solo founder so I know a solo founder can work well. However, the ideal founding team shall be two cofounders - The product guy looks after products and the business guy looks after customers. Then the startup life can be much easier for both cofounders.
jacquesm 10y ago
Great to see this, thank you Garry for laying bare one of the most common causes of start-up failure. And make no mistake: almost every start-up will sooner or later face this in one form or another. Simply because goals may be in alignment at the start of a start-up but they rarely if ever remain in alignment over the longer term. I've counseled/mediated in quite a few companies facing these kind of issues and it is always surprising in some way or another to everybody involved when the root cause of the conflict is finally laid bare.
sagivo 10y ago
My last startup failed simply because my co-founder and I couldn't stop arguing. There's a fine line between compromising on an idea in order not to clash with the other partner to over arguing and defending your idea. We couldn't find this line and decided to stop. From talking with other friends in startups seams like that's a main reason why most of them failed, yet no one like to admit it or openly talk about it. I wish there was a way to due-diligent co-founders like you can do with business plan.
- bitL 10y ago
  Happened to me as well on a profitable startup that was just in exponential growth phase; now I do only solo startups and hire persons (even if part-time or contract) if I need some skill or save my time. Works much better.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  The key to this is to realize that a road today is probably better than your road next week. Start-ups can't afford to lose time or momentum, arguing about which one of two nearly identical forks in the road should be taken is a sure-fire way to miss the boat. Such arguments should be reserved for really strategic decisions only and only a handful of those will ever occur in the life of a start-up.
- kartickv 10y ago
  When we were considering starting a startup, I explained my potential co-founder my vision, what we should prioritise, and what we shouldn't do. He took a few weeks and came back with his vision, and we realised that we have diverging visions, so we didn't do the startup (among other reasons). We remain friends, and he advises me on my business, and vice-versa.
DelaneyM 10y ago
We hear about co-founder dynamics a lot in the startup community, and I wonder if the traditional business/technical dyad exacerbates conflict? I am a technical co-founder, and that means I build things. In a conventional co-founding relationship, I am be expected to give my business-oriented partner the final word with respect to strategy or direction, and he defer to me on how to build the product. At the outset, this puts all the power in technology. Nothing is more important than getting the right product built and shipping on schedule, execution is everything. Unfortunately, at any significant scale it's all strategy. Technology increasingly becomes a cost centre; either it works or it doesn't, either it ships or it sinks. Strategic decisions begin to lead technology choices, and the CTO drifts away from the locus of power. Even if she's explicitly invited to participate in strategy, the buck stops somewhere she is not. Influence, and with it ownership and personal investment, whipsaws from one founder to the other with neither realizing it explicitly. Ultimately, technical founders almost always drift away (as we've seen most recently at Buffer) when the company hits scale and they're fully vested. And that sucks - any new blood won't be as naturally invested in the product without further dilution, will lack history with the team, won't know where the skeletons are buried, etc. I hypothesize that balanced founding teams - two business, two technical, sales & business, etc. would have more staying power in the long run. Cases where there is no default division of labour and influence. I believe I've seen this pattern, but without a neutral data set I can't trust my biases. YCombinator has enough data now to figure it out... (\nudge nudge\)
- mstachowiak 10y ago
  Interesting hypothesis. A quick look at YC's top companies by market cap seems to back it up: Airbnb: 3 design centric cofounders DropBox: 2 tech cofounders Stripe: 2 tech cofounders
  - sagivo 10y ago
    the professional skill-sets are secondary to personal chemistry. if the founders can't communicate it doesn't matter that they complete each-other's skills.
  - argonaut 10y ago
leesalminen 10y ago
One thing I'll share is that finding a co founder in a similar financial state as yourself can be an important factor. Money > Contracts
cyberferret 10y ago
This should be required reading for anyone thinking of starting a business, of any sort. Personally, I have been through a couple of co-founder business startups over the past 30 years, and can agree with everything that Garry has pointed out in the article. Communication is key. No doubting that a co-founder can make a big difference to the gargantuan task of getting a business to build momentum. It is one of those times when 1 + 1 = 4. But it is vitally important that both (or more) co-founders keep the same vision and goals at the forefront of their minds. In both my previous cases of co-founded businesses I ended up with the case where each of my co-founders had massive life changing things happen to them personally (My first co-founder had his wife end up in a wheelchair for life). I look back now and think that things could have been handled very differently and perhaps the business could have made it through. I am not naive enough to think I was completely blameless in those situations, but every time I look back on the events, I can see that clear communication could have solved things, as well as taking emotion out of the equation so things could have been examined in a more rational manner. Really wish we had someone step in as a moderator back then. As an aside, I was an early adopter of Posterous, and loved the platform. I was sad to see it go, and I wonder 'what if' Garry and his co-founder had resolved their differences - would the company ever have continued for far longer that it had?
finid 10y ago
I had reached a point where I couldn’t agree with my co-founder over the future of the company. That's the real problem. When looking for a co-founder, I think it's very important to choose one who shares the same vision about whatever you intend to build. If a potential co-founder doesn't agree with the direction you wish to go, keep looking.
- garry 10y ago
  We started with very similar plans for the business, but as you get farther along in the war, the fog of war engulfs you and in the middle of running the startup can result in two very smart people with different views of the battlefield.
rsp1984 10y ago
Great post and thanks for sharing. However I don't see the most important point covered: Before anything, set up a written agreement with your co-founder(s) containing * Founder roles and responsibilities * Expected time commitments * Testable performance metrics or at least testable cases of non-performance This may be part of the company operating agreement (containing the company ownership structure) or a separate document that any co-founder has to sign. Unfortunately I learned this the hard way and once ended up with a co-founder that wasn't really committed to the company up to the point where we got acquired (up to which point I've invested about 3x the time as compared to my co-founder). Trust me, getting acquired in that situation did not feel good, not at all.
zxcvvcxz 10y ago
Haha joke's on you, I don't have a Co-Founder! ...I'll go back to being miserable and lonely now.
tedmiston 10y ago
In college I was an RA. Somewhat surprisingly, this is really similar to the communication advice we give to new roommates, most of which are first-time roommates, and a good portion are even total strangers on move-in day. The most common conflicts we had were around cleaning and who would take out the trash with disparity between the norms of the roommates pre living together. An interesting data point is that disputes over responsibility were roughly an order of magnitude more common in triples or quads than doubles.
paulcole 10y ago
Where can I learn more about the services of executive coach, Cameron Yarbrough?
contravariant 10y ago
Some category theorists are now probably wondering what an n-flict is.
alain94040 10y ago
If you're interested in famous co-founder issues, I maintain a list here: http://thestartupconference.com/2016/05/13/famous-co-founder-issues http://thestartupconference.com/2016/05/13/famous-co-founder.... Snap, uBeam, Cruise. Let me know if you know of more to add to the list. I could probably write a book about co-founder issues (I gave presentations on that topic in the past, that's something :-). The best co-founder is someone you worked with before. You know them. Starting something with a co-founder you don't know? It goes downhill very fast. There is a very fine balance that is hard to achieve. You want to have complementary skills, but still be on the same page. You need to trust the other co-founder and not micro-manage, and get the same trust in return. If you have no shared history, it's extremely hard.
cyberferret 10y ago
If I can throw in a bit of advice in this thread - here is something that worked well in the two businesses I've founded with someone else in the past. It doesn't matter the type of business, or the relative skill sets of each founder, but it is something that I learned from "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. (Highly recommended reading from anyone thinking of starting a business.) The tip is to draw up a company organisational chart, as if you were a 20 or 30 person company. Starting from the top, a box for CEO, then break down the other managerial roles, such as Operations Manager, Finance Manager, Technical Manager etc., then under those, further boxes for the sub-roles. E.g. for 'Finance Manager', you might have Debtors Controller, Creditors Controller, Payroll Manager etc. Under 'Technical Manager' you might have 'Lead Programmer', 'Graphic Designer', 'Database Administrator' etc. as you see fit. Then, it is a case of filling in the boxes with the name of the co-founder who will be responsible for each of those areas. Sure you may get one name placed more than others, but the idea is to work out the exact separation of duties and who will be responsible for what. It is also a great technique for working out each others weaknesses - for instance I personally hate accounting related tasks, so I could never be the finance manager, but I am content doing some rote work like invoicing or bank reconciliations from time to time, so I would put my name lower in the order, but be supervised by someone with more knowledge. In the business startups where I have done that, things have worked out well while we continually referred to it and used it as we grew. As we hired, we removed our own names in the boxes and replaced them with the employee names. The point is, that this whole concept helps with the communications angle that we are talking about in this thread. Knowing what each person is responsible for, and knowing who is accountable for what really helps with the reduction in animosity between the founders. But as with most things - constant vigilance is due. Things started to fall apart when we deviated from these simple principles. Human nature I know, but I hope the lessons learned here will help others.
- logicallee 10y ago
  is there any chance you could share that original org chart (with just the 2 or 3 of you, but all the different roles and their relationships)? It's hard for me to picture. Thank you.
rixrax 10y ago
It's just like marriage: choose your partner carefully. In bad times, and in good times, you should remember to be true to each other and honor each other. And in the end, it still may not work out.
TuringNYC 10y ago
From the article "One concrete thing before you start to work through conflict is to always remind yourselves: You’re on the same team." ...yet, this is actually not obvious to many co-founders. I angel invest and see this problem over and over -- situations where co-founders are not on the same team but rather on either multiple teams or have misaligned incentives. before any of what is discussed in the article, co-founders need to ensure -- in writing -- not only their roles/responsibilities but outside commitments, especially paid outside commitments. Companies where one partner takes undue risk (e.g., giving up a job while the other has not) are incredibly fragile, yet this is often not discussed by many. In such situations, the co-founders are not actually on the same team entirely. EDIT: Another bad situation -- one where one founder has a much longer tolerable horizon (perhaps they are rich, perhaps they have side incomes) and another founder seeks a quick exit at a lower figure (perhaps because they cant stay on a founder's salary for too long.)
rock57 10y ago
My friend and CEO of fido.ai Michal Wroczynski reposted this article with an IMHO important clarification "Conflict is something to embrace. Narcistic Assholes don't have conflict with you - they are just lying all the time. No asshole rule is the most important advice for startups." Based on my personal experience I couldn't agree more!
acremades 10y ago
Cofounder issues is one of the main reasons why startups fail. Structuring things the right way at the beginning is critical. Below is a threat with great recommendations when there are cofounder issues. https://cofounderslab.com/discuss/how-do-you-deal-with-a-cofounder-that-leaves-the-company-with-a-good-amount-of-equity https://cofounderslab.com/discuss/how-do-you-deal-with-a-cof...
popironi 10y ago
We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures and Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us raphaelnunezhacks@gmail.com
popironi 10y ago
We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures and Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us raphaelnunezhacks@gmail.com

366 points by garry 10y ago

Thanks for sharing this, Garry. In hindsight, would you have preferred to run your startup as a solo founder, or do you believe that a solo founder startup presents a greater operational/execution risk than co-founder conflict?

garry 10y ago
The product we made caught lightning in a bottle because of the joint choices Sachin and I made together. It is impossible to know if the product would have come together without the talents of both of us. I would frankly guess not. I think the outcome would have been better if I knew the things I wrote in this blog post now, 10 years later!
zillionize 10y ago
Like marriage, it is worse to marry a wrong person than stay single. Therefore, if you do not really trust your cofounder, don't let her become your cofounder because a wrong cofounder is worse than a solo founder. As a seed round investor, I do not view a solo founder as a negative sign since I am personally a solo founder so I know a solo founder can work well. However, the ideal founding team shall be two cofounders - The product guy looks after products and the business guy looks after customers. Then the startup life can be much easier for both cofounders.

jacquesm 10y ago

Great to see this, thank you Garry for laying bare one of the most common causes of start-up failure. And make no mistake: almost every start-up will sooner or later face this in one form or another. Simply because goals may be in alignment at the start of a start-up but they rarely if ever remain in alignment over the longer term. I've counseled/mediated in quite a few companies facing these kind of issues and it is always surprising in some way or another to everybody involved when the root cause of the conflict is finally laid bare.

sagivo 10y ago

My last startup failed simply because my co-founder and I couldn't stop arguing. There's a fine line between compromising on an idea in order not to clash with the other partner to over arguing and defending your idea. We couldn't find this line and decided to stop. From talking with other friends in startups seams like that's a main reason why most of them failed, yet no one like to admit it or openly talk about it. I wish there was a way to due-diligent co-founders like you can do with business plan.

bitL 10y ago
Happened to me as well on a profitable startup that was just in exponential growth phase; now I do only solo startups and hire persons (even if part-time or contract) if I need some skill or save my time. Works much better.
jacquesm 10y ago
The key to this is to realize that a road today is probably better than your road next week. Start-ups can't afford to lose time or momentum, arguing about which one of two nearly identical forks in the road should be taken is a sure-fire way to miss the boat. Such arguments should be reserved for really strategic decisions only and only a handful of those will ever occur in the life of a start-up.
kartickv 10y ago
When we were considering starting a startup, I explained my potential co-founder my vision, what we should prioritise, and what we shouldn't do. He took a few weeks and came back with his vision, and we realised that we have diverging visions, so we didn't do the startup (among other reasons). We remain friends, and he advises me on my business, and vice-versa.

DelaneyM 10y ago

We hear about co-founder dynamics a lot in the startup community, and I wonder if the traditional business/technical dyad exacerbates conflict? I am a technical co-founder, and that means I build things. In a conventional co-founding relationship, I am be expected to give my business-oriented partner the final word with respect to strategy or direction, and he defer to me on how to build the product. At the outset, this puts all the power in technology. Nothing is more important than getting the right product built and shipping on schedule, execution is everything. Unfortunately, at any significant scale it's all strategy. Technology increasingly becomes a cost centre; either it works or it doesn't, either it ships or it sinks. Strategic decisions begin to lead technology choices, and the CTO drifts away from the locus of power. Even if she's explicitly invited to participate in strategy, the buck stops somewhere she is not. Influence, and with it ownership and personal investment, whipsaws from one founder to the other with neither realizing it explicitly. Ultimately, technical founders almost always drift away (as we've seen most recently at Buffer) when the company hits scale and they're fully vested. And that sucks - any new blood won't be as naturally invested in the product without further dilution, will lack history with the team, won't know where the skeletons are buried, etc. I hypothesize that balanced founding teams - two business, two technical, sales & business, etc. would have more staying power in the long run. Cases where there is no default division of labour and influence. I believe I've seen this pattern, but without a neutral data set I can't trust my biases. YCombinator has enough data now to figure it out... (\nudge nudge\)

mstachowiak 10y ago
Interesting hypothesis. A quick look at YC's top companies by market cap seems to back it up: Airbnb: 3 design centric cofounders DropBox: 2 tech cofounders Stripe: 2 tech cofounders
- sagivo 10y ago
  the professional skill-sets are secondary to personal chemistry. if the founders can't communicate it doesn't matter that they complete each-other's skills.
- argonaut 10y ago

leesalminen 10y ago

One thing I'll share is that finding a co founder in a similar financial state as yourself can be an important factor. Money > Contracts

cyberferret 10y ago

This should be required reading for anyone thinking of starting a business, of any sort. Personally, I have been through a couple of co-founder business startups over the past 30 years, and can agree with everything that Garry has pointed out in the article. Communication is key. No doubting that a co-founder can make a big difference to the gargantuan task of getting a business to build momentum. It is one of those times when 1 + 1 = 4. But it is vitally important that both (or more) co-founders keep the same vision and goals at the forefront of their minds. In both my previous cases of co-founded businesses I ended up with the case where each of my co-founders had massive life changing things happen to them personally (My first co-founder had his wife end up in a wheelchair for life). I look back now and think that things could have been handled very differently and perhaps the business could have made it through. I am not naive enough to think I was completely blameless in those situations, but every time I look back on the events, I can see that clear communication could have solved things, as well as taking emotion out of the equation so things could have been examined in a more rational manner. Really wish we had someone step in as a moderator back then. As an aside, I was an early adopter of Posterous, and loved the platform. I was sad to see it go, and I wonder 'what if' Garry and his co-founder had resolved their differences - would the company ever have continued for far longer that it had?

finid 10y ago

I had reached a point where I couldn’t agree with my co-founder over the future of the company. That's the real problem. When looking for a co-founder, I think it's very important to choose one who shares the same vision about whatever you intend to build. If a potential co-founder doesn't agree with the direction you wish to go, keep looking.

garry 10y ago
We started with very similar plans for the business, but as you get farther along in the war, the fog of war engulfs you and in the middle of running the startup can result in two very smart people with different views of the battlefield.

rsp1984 10y ago

Great post and thanks for sharing. However I don't see the most important point covered: Before anything, set up a written agreement with your co-founder(s) containing * Founder roles and responsibilities * Expected time commitments * Testable performance metrics or at least testable cases of non-performance This may be part of the company operating agreement (containing the company ownership structure) or a separate document that any co-founder has to sign. Unfortunately I learned this the hard way and once ended up with a co-founder that wasn't really committed to the company up to the point where we got acquired (up to which point I've invested about 3x the time as compared to my co-founder). Trust me, getting acquired in that situation did not feel good, not at all.

zxcvvcxz 10y ago

Haha joke's on you, I don't have a Co-Founder! ...I'll go back to being miserable and lonely now.

tedmiston 10y ago

In college I was an RA. Somewhat surprisingly, this is really similar to the communication advice we give to new roommates, most of which are first-time roommates, and a good portion are even total strangers on move-in day. The most common conflicts we had were around cleaning and who would take out the trash with disparity between the norms of the roommates pre living together. An interesting data point is that disputes over responsibility were roughly an order of magnitude more common in triples or quads than doubles.

paulcole 10y ago

Where can I learn more about the services of executive coach, Cameron Yarbrough?

contravariant 10y ago

Some category theorists are now probably wondering what an n-flict is.

alain94040 10y ago

If you're interested in famous co-founder issues, I maintain a list here: http://thestartupconference.com/2016/05/13/famous-co-founder-issues http://thestartupconference.com/2016/05/13/famous-co-founder.... Snap, uBeam, Cruise. Let me know if you know of more to add to the list. I could probably write a book about co-founder issues (I gave presentations on that topic in the past, that's something :-). The best co-founder is someone you worked with before. You know them. Starting something with a co-founder you don't know? It goes downhill very fast. There is a very fine balance that is hard to achieve. You want to have complementary skills, but still be on the same page. You need to trust the other co-founder and not micro-manage, and get the same trust in return. If you have no shared history, it's extremely hard.

cyberferret 10y ago

If I can throw in a bit of advice in this thread - here is something that worked well in the two businesses I've founded with someone else in the past. It doesn't matter the type of business, or the relative skill sets of each founder, but it is something that I learned from "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. (Highly recommended reading from anyone thinking of starting a business.) The tip is to draw up a company organisational chart, as if you were a 20 or 30 person company. Starting from the top, a box for CEO, then break down the other managerial roles, such as Operations Manager, Finance Manager, Technical Manager etc., then under those, further boxes for the sub-roles. E.g. for 'Finance Manager', you might have Debtors Controller, Creditors Controller, Payroll Manager etc. Under 'Technical Manager' you might have 'Lead Programmer', 'Graphic Designer', 'Database Administrator' etc. as you see fit. Then, it is a case of filling in the boxes with the name of the co-founder who will be responsible for each of those areas. Sure you may get one name placed more than others, but the idea is to work out the exact separation of duties and who will be responsible for what. It is also a great technique for working out each others weaknesses - for instance I personally hate accounting related tasks, so I could never be the finance manager, but I am content doing some rote work like invoicing or bank reconciliations from time to time, so I would put my name lower in the order, but be supervised by someone with more knowledge. In the business startups where I have done that, things have worked out well while we continually referred to it and used it as we grew. As we hired, we removed our own names in the boxes and replaced them with the employee names. The point is, that this whole concept helps with the communications angle that we are talking about in this thread. Knowing what each person is responsible for, and knowing who is accountable for what really helps with the reduction in animosity between the founders. But as with most things - constant vigilance is due. Things started to fall apart when we deviated from these simple principles. Human nature I know, but I hope the lessons learned here will help others.

logicallee 10y ago
is there any chance you could share that original org chart (with just the 2 or 3 of you, but all the different roles and their relationships)? It's hard for me to picture. Thank you.

rixrax 10y ago

It's just like marriage: choose your partner carefully. In bad times, and in good times, you should remember to be true to each other and honor each other. And in the end, it still may not work out.

TuringNYC 10y ago

From the article "One concrete thing before you start to work through conflict is to always remind yourselves: You’re on the same team." ...yet, this is actually not obvious to many co-founders. I angel invest and see this problem over and over -- situations where co-founders are not on the same team but rather on either multiple teams or have misaligned incentives. before any of what is discussed in the article, co-founders need to ensure -- in writing -- not only their roles/responsibilities but outside commitments, especially paid outside commitments. Companies where one partner takes undue risk (e.g., giving up a job while the other has not) are incredibly fragile, yet this is often not discussed by many. In such situations, the co-founders are not actually on the same team entirely. EDIT: Another bad situation -- one where one founder has a much longer tolerable horizon (perhaps they are rich, perhaps they have side incomes) and another founder seeks a quick exit at a lower figure (perhaps because they cant stay on a founder's salary for too long.)

rock57 10y ago

My friend and CEO of fido.ai Michal Wroczynski reposted this article with an IMHO important clarification "Conflict is something to embrace. Narcistic Assholes don't have conflict with you - they are just lying all the time. No asshole rule is the most important advice for startups." Based on my personal experience I couldn't agree more!

acremades 10y ago

Cofounder issues is one of the main reasons why startups fail. Structuring things the right way at the beginning is critical. Below is a threat with great recommendations when there are cofounder issues. https://cofounderslab.com/discuss/how-do-you-deal-with-a-cofounder-that-leaves-the-company-with-a-good-amount-of-equity https://cofounderslab.com/discuss/how-do-you-deal-with-a-cof...

popironi 10y ago

We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures and Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us raphaelnunezhacks@gmail.com

popironi 10y ago