Renew Your Co-Founder Vows — and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup

Executive coach and interpersonal dynamics expert Rachel Lockett shares five practices to strengthen the most important relationship in your startup.

Outline

The diamond of co-founder dynamics

“Whenever I have an intake call with two co-founders to ask what they want out of coaching, their goals typically boil down to figuring out the misalignment in one of three buckets: shared vision and strategy, personal growth and the relationship itself,” says Lockett.

She has a framework for thinking about these three areas that’s shaped like a diamond: The company’s long-term plan at the top, each founder’s leadership evolution in the middle and the health of the relationship at the bottom.

Vision and strategy

The first priority is alignment on where the company is headed: your one-, five-, even ten-year plan. You likely discussed this when you first dated — but naturally, things change as the business grows up. “You can't do great work together unless you’re aligned on where you're going,” says Lockett.

Pivots are typical, and Lockett finds that founders start to diverge on shared vision after a startup clinches product-market fit. “I asked two co-founders after they raised a Series A to write down their purpose for the next year, and they came up with really different answers,” she says.

Each founder’s individual growth

Building a company is a constant exercise in giving away your Legos. And that often stirs up thorny feelings when founders have to give up the work they loved doing in the early days.

The relationship

This is the nuts and bolts of how you communicate. Trust, healthy conflict, commitment and accountability form the foundation of strong co-founder relationships.

Common scenarios for breakdowns

Lockett often observes this telltale sign that founders are headed toward a breakdown: They can’t give — or receive — hard feedback.

Role

Role evolutions are a sneaky cause of co-founder fights. “Founders feel shame when they have to step back from roles they once owned — it’s like the A+ student who thinks they have to be good at everything,” says Lockett.

Rules

Your rules as a founding team are your compensation, equity split and expectations of personal commitment.

Relationships

Other times, the source of co-founder conflict is the erosion of trust due to lack of communication and empathy — the bedrock of the relationship itself.

Five practices to strengthen your relationship from the outset

You’ve got your diamond. You know how it cracks. What can you do early on to make sure that doesn’t happen?

1. Write (and renew) your co-founder vows

Lockett urges co-founders to draft an operating agreement — how you vow to show up for each other “in sickness and in health.”

2. Get outside support early on

Like in any close relationship, you need someone you can vent to — who isn’t just the other person in the relationship.

3. Master healthy conflict using nonviolent communication

You and your co-founder are going to fight. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. “Conflict isn’t the problem. Avoiding conflict is,” says Lockett.

4. Carve out time for co-founder dates

Couples need quality time together outside the hubbub of their daily lives. Co-founders are no different.

5. Normalize role evolution

Your check-ins are a good time to discuss how you and your co-founder are feeling about how your roles are changing.

Founders who evolve consciously stay on the same team, even if they switch roles.

Startups live or die based on the relationships of their leaders. “But don’t let that scare you. The work to maintain them starts with these small habits. Just like in a marriage, shared commitment to the vision, individual growth and a healthy relationship is all it takes. Everything else is learned behavior,” she says. “I recommend starting with one hour each week to invest in your co-founder relationship — it compounds over time.