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 does

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.