Choosing the right co-founder may be the best decision you ever make
65% of startups fail as a result of conflicts in the founding team. With statistics like this, you betcha this is one of the most important decisions you will make, and this is even before you start up.
A health warning, I have only been a co-founder once so I am by no means an expert but I have been with my co-founder for over 6 years now and the Company is growing so I believe there is merit in what I am about to say. But like all advice; while it works for me, it may not necessarily work for you.
I met my co-founder at University and we always had the aspiration to build an amazing high-tech company. It just so happened my co-founder developed a brilliant piece of technology during his PhD, which provided the trigger and that was the start of our journey.
The following are some of my observations and views along the way.
Is the person reliable?
Can I call this person at 2 am if there is a crisis or if there is an opportunity you have to jump on immediately? And does this person actually pick up the phone? Will this person back me up when it’s crunch time? If the answer is no, or you feel awkward asking then he/she is probably not the right person because there will be times when you have to rely on that person at a moment’s notice.
Different but complimentary
It is massively advantageous to have co-founders that bring different skills, expertise and ways of thinking especially at the early stages of a startup. However this diversity should not be at the expense of being able to work effectively together. Having this ability to ‘Divide and Conquer’ allows the company to gain traction much much quicker. What is also useful is having a different outlook in life but still have a shared vision of what you want to build. This helps the founding team navigate the blind spots which people with similar ways of thinking will simply not see.
Compatible working styles
Each of us have our own preferred working style so it’s worth considering whether the combination works in your favour or that it might lead to clashes. Are you a Planner or a Doer? Are you more Strategic or Tactical? Are you more Cautious or Aggressive? One is not better than the other, and this is not to say you can’t do both but it’s normal for a person to naturally gravitate towards one end of the spectrum. It’s usually better to have a spread of these tendencies in so to cover more bases when resources are limited at the beginning.
Are they well-travelled?
The most successful entrepreneurs I have met tend to be well-travelled. They have lived in different countries and/or enjoy exploring new places when they take holidays. Now there is no evidence to back this up but I think this leads to being more open minded in accepting new ideas, more flexible in the way they work and better at dealing with uncertainty.
Do they speak more than one language?
This is a contentious one but I do believe people who speak more than one language are usually more adaptable. Don’t believe me? Hear it from Professor Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished researcher at York University, Toronto with a specialisation in cognitive and language development in children. She said “Imagine driving down the highway. There’s many things that could capture your attention and you really need to be able to monitor all of them. Why would bilingualism make you any better at that?”
And the answer, she says, is that bilingual people are often better at controlling their attention — a function called the executive control system.
“It’s quite possibly the executive control system most important cognitive system we have because it’s where all of your decisions about what to attend to, what to ignore, what to process are made.”
Research shows the bilingual brain is used to handling two languages at the same time. This develops skills for functions such as inhibition, switching attention, and working memory.
These skills make up the brain’s executive control system, which looks after high-level thought, multi-tasking, and sustained attention. Because bilingual people are used to switching between their two languages, they are also better at switching between tasks, even if these tasks are nothing to do with language.
This is critical at the early stages of a start-up where resources are often limited and the founders have to undertake a variety of tasks; anything from building the product to talking to customers to mind-numbing admin.
“The Airplane Test”
This is basically the “Could I Get Along with This Person?” test. Can you stand this person for a 12 hr long haul flight without strangling him/her and actually genuinely enjoy his/her company. Is this person fun to be around? If not, then run away… immediately because you are gonna spend a lot of time with each other for next few years.
How they react to things
Now this is a hard one to test and it usually takes a long time to really know how a person reacts in certain situations; how do they deal with pressure, how well they cope with stress, do they have integrity, how they deal with success and how/if they bounce back from failures? It’s important to at least have a gut feeling on how your co-founder feels about certain matters and how they would react.
Another good indicator is; do they genuinely care about things? If they are not passionate about anything then the odds are they will bounce at the first sight of trouble.
Do you trust the person?
In a startup, you have ambitious people from different backgrounds thrown together, working in close quarters under the pressure of having little money and the constant fear of going bust so conflicts are bound to happen.
But strip away all the BS, it’s all about trust. It’s impossible to grow a company if you are always looking over your shoulder or second-guessing your co-founder. Now I am not married but I would imagine it to be similar to marriage and let’s not sugar coat it, married couples argue and fight, and it is no different with co-founders. However I would say the key factors to mitigate and resolving these conflicts are mutual respect and openness. Without these fundamental building blocks, it would be very difficult to get through the tough times which there will be plenty.
Your move
After reading all this, you might be thinking “This sounds too much of a hassle. I just want to get going with building my startup. I’ll fix it if/when it becomes a problem”. It’s natural to think this but remember this is the foundation layer you are putting in place, so if its not solid then whatever you build on top of it is unlikely to be stable. Now, you might be able to survive a founders conflict but it will be painful and mostly likely it will cost you momentum.
So why not take a little more time at the start and keep your eyes open for your co-founder soulmate. And when you find him/her, hold onto them and never let go.
