How to Build A Stronger Co-Founder Partnership
What makes a partnership successful is simple in theory and complex in practice.
Our process with co-founders is similar to how an elite athlete would work with a coach to help them fine-tine and master their game.
A typical engagement involves three elements all of which are customized to our clients’ needs based on where you are at in your partnership, the financial health of your business, and more.
Assess. Sharpend will work with you to identify your partnership goals and how each co-founder wants to grow individually to support long-term success. We’ll help you see and understand your current communication patterns, individual strengths, and partnership blindspots, and discuss who you want to become—individually and collectively.
Practice. Many co-founders have excellent baseline communication skills. However, all partnerships form patterns that need to evolve to meet the changing needs of your company and team. This evolution comes from regular training and practice supported by an expert facilitator/coach.
Frameworks that Match Your Partnerhip’s Needs. One of the benefits of business partnerships, different from other life partnerships, is that you and your partner hold a shared performance-based goal—hitting your company milestones. Oftentimes, what co-founders need are new frameworks and tools for everything from communication to “Decision-Rights” that meet the new stage that your partnership and company are in. We’ll support you in designing these and hold you accountable for using and iterating new partnership frameworks.
FAQ:
What types of engagements are typical?
Foundational. This is for new co-founders or co-founders who are scaling and want to build a world-class partnership foundation. This work includes everything fro giving feedback, defining roles, developing processes, and having certain hard conversations which are essential for ALL co-founders to have.
Conflict. This is for co-founders and partners when a degree of conflict has entered into the partnership. The goal is to develop the communication tools to evolve your partnership.
Crisis. All partnerships will hit a crisis moment at some point. Sometimes this results in a split other times changes are made and everyone grows through the experience. In both cases, the support of expert coaches helps achieve optimal results.
What is the typical length of a co-founder engagement?
Every co-founder coaching engagement we run is custom. The typical non-crisis program is 4-6 months giving us enough time to make significant growth gains.
When a partnership is in crisis, the program adjusts to meet the timeline and needs you are facing.
When should we invest in co-founder coaching?
According to Noam Wasserman, 65% of otherwise successful startups, fail due to co-founder issues. Your business partnership is one of the few existential threats (or amplifiers) to your startup’s success.
That said, you are busy and this work can be intense.
The best times to commit to co-founder coaching are:
-At the onset of your partnership to maximize the benefits of a stronger relationship from the get-go.
-After a new round of funding. Funding leads to new hires, new roles, and the need for hard conversations and improved communication.
-The first moment you notice cracks forming in your relationship and before deep resentment builds.
What are the benefits of doing this work?
Benefits include:
A more trusting co-founder partnership.
Increased ease in defining and sticking to roles.
Increased skill on how to give each other feedback and have healthy conflict.
Increased self-awareness and peer-awareness.
Increased confidence and trust in yourself and your partnership.
Building the muscle of interpersonal risk-taking, which is essential in growing any complex relationship.
Increased understanding of one another’s motivations, fears, communication and conflict styles, and more.
Increased joy and fulfillment—getting to build your company in a partnership where you are seen, understood, and where you understand your partner so you can both be free to do your best work.
Increased performance and results.
A culture of maturity as your successful partnership leads to better decision-making and communication, both of which trickle down to the rest of your team.
What’s the time commitment?
Engagements range, but typically require 5-hours/mo per founder, not including prep work for different sessions.
How do I sign up?
Schedule a call with us to learn more about next steps and our availability.
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, HourWork, CEO and Co-Founder
“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, Co-founder of 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, Co-founder of Navier
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, Feals, CEO and Founder
As our consulting business was scaling, we noticed that despite us all being on good terms, we didn't have the tools to work through the hard interpersonal issues that began showing up.
Nathan helped our founders and partners learn how to give each other tough feedback, understand one another's working style, and to make healthy conflict a part of our company culture. This has led to greater trust amongst our team, less tension, and better results."
-Ben Haley, Evolved Energy Research, Co-Founder and Partner