Dealing with co-founder fallouts
A few lessons from a year of mediating between people who once had a shared passion but ended up with shared resentment and frustration.
I’ve been asked to provide mediation and facilitation for an increasing number of teams in the past year and the most common constellation has been co-founders.
Co-founder relationships are very special.
They are usually rooted in friendship and shared excitement. These are people who spark off each other and find they both have a passion for making something in the world.
But over time, as those ideas turn into businesses and organisations, things can get tough - or just plain boring.
Navigating tricky projects and clients, hiring and firing, or just getting through year after year of keeping things running takes its toll.
Here’s what I’ve found that can turn hard work into disconnection:
Not spending quality time together
Things get busy, work becomes routine, and while the idea started with hanging out together and sharing great conversations, that’s the first thing to be deprioritised when everyone’s flat out.
In the communication gap, the things that are creating stress for one person easily turns into resentment or negative stories about the other.
As time goes by, this affects the quality of the relationship and your ability to get things done together. After all, you started this thing because you’re a team who could achieve something great together. If the team starts failing, so do the results.
Ignoring unique strengths and differences
There’s a lot involved in running an organisation, from running big projects through to pitching ideas, drumming up business and managing teams.
The weight of it can sometimes feel like too much and when it does, it’s far too easy to feel like the other person isn’t doing as much as you, or isn’t paying enough attention.
Rather than recognising that we all have a different part to play - that we’re all wired and resourced differently - we slip into frustration and a sense of ’this isn’t fair’.
We get caught out by this idea that because I’m struggling, that must mean the other person isn’t pulling their weight.
Letting the day-to-day squash your passion
What brought you together was your love for something and a longing or passion for bringing it to life.
As time goes by and the routine becomes the norm, that spark is harder to see in the increasing dark and it can feel like you may have lost the shared energy that got you together in the first place.
Rather than spend time feeling excited about possibility or driven to make change, you become focused on just keeping things going. Ironically, without the passion, eventually things will run out of steam.
This is by no means an exhaustive list - these are just some of the most common problems I’ve come across. But none of them are inevitable, or at least irreconcilable.
Sure, it is very important to notice when your relationship or work together really is done because it’s true that ‘all good things come to an end’ (see the work of The Decelerator if you want to understand that side of things better).
But there are very simple strategies that I’ve found address co-founder fall-outs - not necessarily not quick fixes but equally aren’t big, scary confrontations:
Make time for each other
Never, ever de-prioritise time together. Even if you don’t have anything specific to talk about - or especially if you don’t - get a regular slot in the diary to just chat.
Yes, you’re both busy. Yes, you should be ruthlessly focused on what will ‘move the dial’. But guess what? If your relationship suffers, so does your ability to deliver and ultimately so will your mental health as the stress and worry stacks up.
Grab a 30 minute coffee each week, go for a walk in the park, chat more on WhatsApp. Whatever you can manage, make it happen and keep the connection open.
Appreciate and capitalise on your differences
Some people really are better at doing the payroll and some are better at client or funder meetings.
Some people need to talk about all the feelings, all at once, and some people need time to take it all in, reflect on it and make sense of what’s going on for them.
Expecting your co-founder to meet your preferences and biases in how work is shared out or how you resolve your differences is a route to madness.
However - talking about your differences in a generative way is a direct path to a better relationship and better business.
Check in on the why
The spark that got your relationship from friends to business partners is the driving force behind everything you do.
It’s not the money or the accolades. Believe it or not, it’s not even the results - it’s the passion you both shared at the point you said: “Let’s do this.”
At least every six months (preferably every quarter), make an explicit effort to reconnect to your shared ‘why’ and make sure it’s there in the middle of your relationship.
That ‘why’ can change. That’s OK. What’s not OK is to pretend it doesn’t matter and to let it fester in the background.
So, these are just some of the most obvious problems and potential solutions that I’ve seen in my work, tending to co-founder relationships that have found themselves on the rocks.
They’re also lessons I’ve learned from being part of teams that have co-founders firing on all cylinders, most of the time (we’re all human).
Sometimes people need a little help, which is where people like me come in.
But equally, you might not need someone to come in and sort you out - it is possible for you to re-find the stable ground that you once used as a jump-off point for the thing you both committed to bringing to the world.
And if you haven’t read this piece thinking how it relates to your personal relationships, and one of those is suffering, perhaps go over it again and see what you can draw from it…
If you need conflict mediation or facilitation for a relationship that matters, drop me an email via hello@maxstjohn.com and we can find a time to talk it through.
If you’re just interested in developing your own capacity for navigating conflict, check out my online, self-paced course How to Fight Well