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Couples therapy for startup co-founders
- adastra22 4y agoIf you need therapy with your business partner, cut your losses and move on.
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoIf you think therapy should be reserved for dire, nigh unfixable problems, then maybe. But you can also use therapy as a regular part of life for fixing problems big and small.
- adastra22 4y agoIt’s a sign of deeper problems if you can’t communicate with your (work) partner well enough to avoid these issues. Your job isn’t a marriage and the analogy falls flat. If you’re having enough communicative difficulties that you’re considering failure, then you’re already enough in the shit that one or both of you need to move on.
- andrewstuart2 4y agoAnd when your startup encounters business issues, do you just cut your losses and pick the next idea? Of course not. You work through problems when there's value on the other side of the problem, and communications problems are just one class of problems that may crop up in an otherwise highly valuable relationship. You hire people to help you solve other issues you don't have the experience to solve, don't you? The same SME is valuable in communications.
- tomrod 4y agoIt depends. There can be an upside to quitting.
- adastra22 4y agoThere will always be business issues. Those you solve. But if you’re spending your time on founder conflicts instead of the business, your business will fail. Even if you work it out in therapy, your competitors will have gotten ahead of you.
- johnfn 4y ago> It’s a sign of deeper problems That's right - and how do you think you should go about approaching those issues?
- adastra22 4y agoBy finding a business partner you are compatible with. Don't bring your whole business down in a drawn-out founder conflict. Someone gotta go.
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoYour job's not a marriage, but there are similar elements to a marriage if you're co-founding with someone. You're building a business together. You need a lot of trust. It's primarily financial.
- bmismyname 4y agoIf you need therapy with your partner, cut your losses and move on.
- dumbworld 4y agoYou think it’s not like this but actually it is.
- yamazakiwi 4y agoYou're thinking in extremes... There are many people who could benefit from therapy, mediated conversation, or dispute resolution.
- mynameisash 4y agoI read that comment as a sarcastic take on it's parent, not a continuation of the sentiment. FWIW, I think therapy is awesome and should be embraced by more people. Probably a good thing for founders to have their own version of it. Renowned therapist Esther Perel has (had?) a podcast called How's Work? where she mediated conversations with business partners.
- mikkergp 4y agoPeople aren't born with communication skills, if you're going to quit because of interpersonal problems rather than look for a difficult and potentially uncomfortable solution, you shouldn't be starting a business. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200407/rock-around-the-doc-metallica-in-therapy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200407/rock-arou... I would bet this is much more common then you seem to think.
- bmismyname 4y agoYou're not wrong, but not every problem needs to be solved and there are 8 billion people. In my experience it's usually better to align yourself with those you communicate well with, and avoid the ones you don't.
- fairity 4y agoHilarious take. Having communication problems? Just quit! Don’t mind the fact that your startup is potentially worth millions, or that you otherwise enjoy your work. /s
- spookthesunset 4y agoThat’s easy to say when you don’t have payroll to make and investors to please. Once you get to a point where peoples livelihoods depend on you things change a bit.
- halfmatthalfcat 4y agoLol /r/relationshipadvice energy
- troelsSteegin 4y agoIs “cofounder coaching" all that different from a service a management consultant might typically perform? In any event, getting in the same room together and listening without interrupting seems like a pretty fundamental part of improving a relationship, no matter what that's called.
- dumbworld 4y ago
- aantix 4y ago22% of founders ask their family for money. Probably because either 1) they don't want to risk the relationship or 2) their family doesn't have much to give. https://clutch.co/consulting/resources/startup-funding-sources-new-businesses https://clutch.co/consulting/resources/startup-funding-sourc...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dr_dshiv 4y agoYo, cheers to this. It has been a real struggle. My wife founded designtherapy.org to provide design thinking + couples counseling. Basically a way to systematically think about positive opportunities together, achieve dreams within conflict etc. Might check it out. Counseling is hella cheaper than divorce.
- clcaev 4y agoOne of the powers of having two or more cofounders is that you will see things differently. Those differences bring opportunity that neither one could see alone, but, those differences also bring risks. Consulting like this can go along way towards bridging those differences to build a stronger collaboration between partners.
- ddown24 4y agoI definitely agree with the advice to seek therapy for the inevitable relationship issues over coaching. Coaches definitely will help the individual but the experience is typically so one sided that it can often result in making tensions worse. A co-founder leaving can cause a lot of trauma to organization that is impossible once one leaves. I'm sure founders think the main impact is individual but let's be honest, it affects the entire staff. So yeah, co-founder tension needs to be treated like a marriage for the benefit of the co-founders and especially the benefit of the employees.
- cannaceo 4y agoIt's worse than a marriage. At least in a marriage you can get divorced.
- djbusby 4y agoYou can separate from business relationship too. IME it's less messy than divorce.
- dheera 4y agoOn the other hand I think it's important for leaving to be normalized and accepted as an option. In my previous startup there were an increasing number of irreconcilable differences between me and my then-cofounder's style of working, management, and doing business, and though we had tried a lot I don't think me being egged on by everyone in the system to stay in the company while depressed about it was helpful. The reality is cofounders can leave (legally) and we already have a perfectly good structure (vesting schedule) to deal with such decisions fairly, we just need to normalize it actually happening when it needs to happen.
- granshaw 4y agoI think actual romantic couples therapy when one person is a founder and the other isn’t is the bigger need :)
- Cupertino95014 4y agoWe could compare starting a business to getting married and come up with one big difference: Any decent lawyer will draft your business partnership agreement to provide for one partner wanting or needing to move on. That doesn't mean it'll be painless or cost-free, but at least there should be financial details in there. In marriage, a lot of couples think a pre-nuptial is anti-romantic.
- FunnyBadger 4y agoOr. Be better at selecting your fellow co-founders. Once you are partners it's already too late if there's a problem getting along.