Field notes on why cofounders stick together, or fall apart.
When everything's stuck, it always comes back to what drives you.
The product, a salary, a funding round: cofounder disagreements are rarely about what they seem to be about. What drives each of you, and why you want to know before things get tense again.
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Being alike won't save you. Neither will being opposites.
Instant chemistry, or a match you choose with your eyes open? Two cofounder pairs, two opposite endings, and what the pairs who last actually do once the friction starts.
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A partnership isn't decided once. It's built, tested and kept up.
A partnership isn't decided once. Five stages, from knowing yourself to going the distance, to figure out where yours really stands.
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“We'll get to know each other on the job.”
We tell ourselves we'll get to know each other on the job. That's often where everything plays out, and not in a good way.
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It's almost never the market that kills a company.
Cofounder partnerships are still thought of as love at first sight. What I see in the field looks a lot more like an arranged marriage, with a baby on the way right away.
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