Co-Founder Coaching
Nathan specializes in designing high-impact, custom engagements to improve the performance of the #1 driver of your startup’s success—your co-founder relationship.
We work with teams backed by A16Z, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, Struck Capital, and more to help you navigate common co-founder challenges including: improving trust and communication, working through conflict, re-align your roles as your company scales, navigating differences in work styles and expectations, and more.
If you and your co-founder are looking to create a more open, enjoyable, and effective partnership, get in touch, and let’s have a conversation.
Testimonials
My co-founder and I came to Nathan to make sure we were getting ahead of any challenges that would arise in our partnership, especially while working remotely.
Nathan helped us better understand who we are as leaders, how we complement one another, and how we can communicatre more clearly with eac other..
As a result, we’ve been able to collaborate in a more meaningful way and we recently raised our next round of capital.
-Rahkeem Morris, CEO and Founder, Hourwork
“My cofounder and I worked with Nathan when we hit a challenging period in our cofounder dynamic.
Nathan helped us slow down, better understand each others' perspectives, as well as have hard but important conversations that led us to evolve our partnership to fit where we were going next with our company.
Through this work, my co-founder and I implemented new ways of working together that produced tangible outcomes: improving our communication, work outputs, and overall effectiveness. Also we are having more fun! I highly recommend Nathan for any cofounders looking to build a foundation of trust, communication, and performance.”
-Arielle Kilroy, CEO and Founder, Dado
“One of the biggest reasons for startup failures is bad co-founder dynamics and co-founder breakups. Just like a marriage, it’s important to create time and space to actively work on your co-founder relationship.
From day one, Nathan helped us work on our communication with each other, and created space and frameworks for us to take risks with each other and get feedback in order to deepen our co-founder trust. This is especially helpful in a remote work setting where you have to be way more intentional in building the high trust relationships required to build a successful company.
Nathan has helped us so much with this. I recommend all co-founder teams do this intentional work to build a stronger partnership.”
-Julien Emery, CEO and Founder, SuperPanel
“Nathan worked with my co-founder and me during a challenging period of high-growth and interpersonal conflict. He introduced us to a variety of communication processes that helped us understand each other's motivations, and communication styles, as well as unpack key issues that allowed us to rebuild trust and move forward effectively.”
-Sampriti Bhattacharyya, CEO and Founder, Navier
“Nathan is an incredible co-founder coach. He is responsive, thoughtful, and encouraging. He introduced me to new frameworks which I have found personally transformative. Our team has noticed the difference in style and I feel much deeper insight into myself and therefore much greater ability to lead. Couldn’t recommend Nathan more for scale-up CEOs and co-founders.”
-Dom Pimento, CEO and Founder, Tortus.AI
My co-founder and I sold our first startup for over 9 figures. Now, on our second startup as co-founders, and in spite of our long history and friendship, issues emerged that put tremendous strain on our partnership, friendship, and work.
Nathan helped us talk through our differences, have hard conversations, and re-align how we work together which was painful but necesssary for each of us and our team to grow.
-Alex Iwanchuk, CEO and Founder, Feals
Nathan has been an amazing coach to work with, so much so, that we engaged with him for two separate engagements.
Our cofounder and executive teams had been working together for a decade, which created strong bonds and operating styles but also work to be done to march together in unison.
Nathan supported the cofounders to navigate past frustrations and later coached our executives who have different management styles. His work was transformative on our team trust and communication and resulted in a lasting impact on our team performance.
I appreciate Nathan's unique ability to create a structured space where we could move past discomfort, expand our individual and collective growth edges, while being mindful of the original joy that sparked our adventure together.Nathan was able to leverage his operational experience having scaled a startup and his deep knowledge of individual/team behavioral patterns to drive our results.
Working with Nathan resharpened our focus, streamlined our communication, and prepared us for the phase of our endeavor as a tight unit.”
-Shivang Dave, PhD, CEO and Founder, PlenOptika
Our environmental consulting business is led by five partners. After years of working together, and scaling our team, we noticed that despite all the partners being on good terms, we didn't have the tools we needed to work through the hard interpersonal issues that started showing up.
Nathan helped us learn how to give each other tough feedback, understand one anothers’ working styles, and made healthy conflict a part of our company culture vs something to be feared. This has led to greater trust amongst our team and better results."
-Ben Haley, Founding Partner, Evolved Energy Research,
What You Can Expect:
A fully customized engagement to meet you and your co-founders’ goals, whether that is building better communication habits, negotiating an exit, or resolving long-standing issues.
The use of personality typing tools to help you reflect on your strengths, weaknesses, and patterns, as well as to create a shared language for talking through differences.
Didactic training on topics including difficult conversations, goal-setting, and more.
1-1 coaching to go deep with individual founders. Regular facilitated, group-coaching sessions to practice co-founder communication skills, explore tension areas, and excavate negative patterns that are disrupting your partnership.
Process implementation to take me out of the equation and create lasting change for you and your co-founder.
“The number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.” ”