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Co-founders can make or break you.

Reader, do you have co-founders? Or are you looking for co-founders for your startup?

Know this.

Co-founders are CRUCIAL for your success.

But co-founders can break your startup.

Let me fix this for you today.

First, find yourself a co-founder TODAY

It's almost impossible to build a startup, in GENERAL.

It's even harder to do it alone.

Yes people speak of being a "solopreneur", but TRUST ME, it's tough.

I was a solopreneur for 2.5 years.

And yes I managed to build a good product, I hit 1M MAUs organically, raised $320k in pre-seed funding, and built a team of almost 20 people.

But EVERY step of the way was PAIN.

No one can explain to you how difficult it is to build a business, unless you try it.

So don't do it alone:

(1) Spread the pain across other founders. If one of you breaks, the others can pick them up.

(2) Don't be the Chief Everything Officer. Multiply your ROI with 2x to 4x productivity. Divide and conquer the insane mountain of work in front of you every day.

Co-founders are essential for you to succeed.

That's why most (if not all) investors decline to invest in solopreneurs.

So get yourself a co-founder.

Convinced to get co-founders on-board? Great. Your problems are not over.

A new problem will come up.

But this one, I'm going to help you fix.

Here's the deal: Mo' co-founders means mo' problems.

Imagine being in a pressure cooker with 3 other founders. Every day. For 6 months.

At some point, someone will snap.

And some startups disintegrate because of founders falling out.

(I can name a few I know personally).

Founders can get to a point where they REFUSE to work with each other.

It usually goes like this:

1. Let me tell my friend Adam that I really like to join me as a co-founder.
2. Great Adam's on-board and we're going to build a unicorn.
3. First couple of weeks go well.
4. Wait, I don't agree with Adam on a bunch of things. But he's my friend and I don't want to upset him, so I'm just going to brush this over.
5. It's silly anyway. I'll just work around it.
6. Wait I REALLY don't think Adam is doing his role properly. What is this guy thinking?
7. I'm going to sit silently and FUME. I'll focus on DOING MY WORK.
8. I HATE everything this person is doing right now. Who does this guy THINK he is?
9. Ok I couldn't take him anymore. I just EXPLODED in front of Adam in our weekly founder meeting.
10. I can't work with this person. This startup is over.

I should have called this "how to lose a co-founder in 10 easy steps".

I may be writing in an exaggerated way, but this is essentially it.

Disagreements on work. Inability to have honest and difficult conversations.

Avoidance. Avoidance of having the HARD talk now, and taking it all in in hopes things will brush over.

Problem is, these things BUILD up, and eventually implode.

So how can you fix this?

Build a FOUNDER Charter

You MUST organize how you and your co-founders interact.

You can't rely on your friendship, and you can't assume people will know how to behave.

Beyond people and their work ethics themselves, your STARTUP will push you to your limits.

There needs to be systems in place to deal with conflict. To decide on who does what. To decide on how decisions are taken.

Build a charter.

A system put in place that regulates founder relations, and allows you to diffuse tensions (before they become ticking time bombs).

The charter should go like this:

(1) Align on OBJECTIVES.

Yes. Align on objectives:

• What do we want to do with this startup?
• Where will we be in 5 years?
• What strategic levers are going to get us there?

Aligning on objectives is obvious but OVERLOOKED. make sure you and your co-founders are on the same page.

This is also an anchor to rely on in any future disagreement about work.

"Well our objective is X and if we do Y then we won't be able to hit our goals for this year".

You stop having a difference of opinions, you root it in a startup strategy that everyone agreed upon.

(2) Be clear on ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Now that you aligned on objectives, what are the major roles and responsibilities needed to get there.

It's usually areas like:

• Product and Technology
• Content
• Acquisition
• UX / UI
• etc.

Assign a lead within the founding team for each.

Again, don't be the CHIEF EVERYTHING OFFICER.

It only creates tensions when too many people are doing the same work, and it's insanely inefficient.

Your objective is clear.

Let the lead of each strategic area determine how best to get there.

Don't trust your cofounders to do a good job? That's another problem that MUST be addressed.

(It's probably you and your control issues).

A clean and official distribution of R&Rs also ensures that the workloads are balanced, as an imbalanced workload is another major source of conflict between founders.

(3) Put DECISION MAKING FRAMEWORKS in place

How do founders work together? And how do decisions get made?

This is another major source of tension between founders.

• Is it clear in what situations founders can decide on their own?
• When do they need to come back to the group?
• How does reporting and accountability work?
• How do we keep everyone on track?

These are essential mechanisms that MUST be put in place.

Does everything go by consensus? Does the lead decide on his area of expertise? And more.

(4) Nurture WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Founders are human beings.

They are pushed to the brink by their startup.

A founder will work him or herself to the bone, doing 16hr days.

Eventually, they will either burn out or explode.

Put rules in place where founders can recuperate:

• Founders must disconnect at night and during weekends. No emails, no slack, no messaging unless for emergencies. TRUST me. It's better for the long run.
• Vacations and holidays are clarified and NORMALIZED. You should take days off without any guilt, to come back re-energized.
• Founders have to time to learn and grow. Especially in learning how to become a founder. Benefit from the wisdom of others. Start from here.

(5) Have clear channels of COMMUNICATION

So far, we have put A LOT of effort to avoid builds up of tension that makes a founder explode:

• We aligned on objectives so we can root conversations around a common vision, removing the reason for many founder arguments.
• We did a clean distribution of roles and responsibilities, allowing founders to divide and conquer, trust each other, and make sure workloads are balanced.
• We put a system in place that regulates task, decision making and accountability, so governance is clear within the leadership.
• We worked on founder wellbeing, to make sure our founders don't implode in front of their team.

This removes ALMOST every reason founders argue.

But that's not enough.

There will be moments where touchy subjects need to be broached.

Have a system of communication in place that allows these topics to be aired.

A monthly founders pow-wow to debrief on how things are going between each other.

Not about work. About how they are doing, and how their working relationships are evolving.

Or more private 1.1s to have frank and open discussions about these sensitive topics.

Cultivate a culture of openness and trust.

You need to decide ahead of time "when a problem arises, we do this" and have that system agreed upon by everyone.

If you do all the above...

You just saved yourself A WHOLE LOT of problems with your founders.

And potentially saved your startup from imploding.

Review your charter and refine it every couple of months.

And build your unicorn TOGETHER,
Majd