{"id":34305,"date":"2017-02-10T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=34305"},"modified":"2017-02-10T12:01:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T19:01:49","slug":"difference-making-breaking-co-founder-dynamic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/difference-making-breaking-co-founder-dynamic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference Between Making and Breaking the Co-Founder Dynamic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" really enjoying the process of leading an education startup in Colombia. It\u2019s been over three years now, and thankfully, we are still alive and moving forward. It isn\u2019t easy, but I love what I do. The journey has been intoxicating: I have swung regularly from euphoria to despair, just like most entrepreneurs do. I have cried. I have felt higher and prouder than I thought was possible. I have wanted to give up. Welcome to the family of broken, open-hearted warriors.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Across the entrepreneurship ecosystem,<\/strong> we have our priorities all wrong. Along the way, during my time with CoSchool<\/a>, I have had the chance to work with some wonderful mentors and\u00a0advisors. I\u2019ve read many books about the journey. I\u2019ve taken part in accelerator programs in Colombia and the U.S. And yet, nobody told me the single most important thing you need to learn how to do as an entrepreneur: having difficult and honest conversations. This should be Day 1, Hour 1, Lesson 1 of any curriculum for entrepreneurs. The rest can wait.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the high-octane, fast-paced, first months and years of a startup, there\u2019s a whirlwind of canvasses, Post-its, late nights, endless \u201cquick chats over coffee\u201d (with people that will probably have nothing to do with your business), projections, decisions, and action. In the middle of it all, I believe something fundamental to both the existence and success of your startup gets forgotten. And that\u2019s bad news for all of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the wise Khalid Halim wrote in his 2014 article<\/a> on co-founder conflict: “In 2012, Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman studied 10,000 founders for his book \u201cThe Founder\u2019s Dilemma.\u201d His research found that 65 percent of startups fail as a result of co-founder conflict. That\u2019s higher than the divorce rate<\/a>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I split up with my co-founder Carlos after 10 months together. We\u2019re still good friends, and he\u2019s actually working with us again, but we made a rookie mistake (in our defense, we were rookies and nobody told us) when we started out. Not once in 10 months did we sit down and have a difficult conversation. We never shared feedback. I moaned about him to the voice in my head and to my friends, whilst no doubt he did the same with his circles; CoSchool sprang into life, and we got busy being busy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Too busy to notice, perhaps, that our relationship wasn\u2019t going to withstand the first head-turning offer from another organization? As it turned out, those rocky last few weeks together (Carlos and I were both head-hunted by another startup; he decided to leave, I stayed) forced us into our first difficult conversations. But it was too late by then.<\/span><\/p>\n

No two startups are the same. There is no playbook, no script to follow. You are out in the wild, on your own, the first of your kind. Inevitably, you will face\u00a0totally new challenges with new people and need to find new solutions practically all of the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most importantly, you will need to have difficult conversations. All of the time. Hiring people. More clients. Suppliers. Mentors. Press. Firing people. The list is endless. As the months go by, your world grows rapidly. Before long, if you grow even moderately, you are juggling potentially hundreds of relationships while walking a tight-rope, tense with stress.<\/span><\/p>\n

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What are difficult conversations, then?<\/strong> A few examples, from my experience:<\/span><\/p>\n