Nina and Sam don't exist, but their report does: same engine and same content as yours, nothing hidden.
Sample report, fictional cofounders Nina and Sam · allyordie.com
Before you read
The Duo · Sample report
Nina & Sam
The Complements
You're aligned on the essentials, not yet on the company you're building, and you get there by different paths.
Nina's copyPrepared November 4, 2026
00Before you read
What this report does, and doesn't do
This report doesn't tell you whether you're compatible. No partnership is 100% compatible. It tells you where the two of you will rub, why, and how to defuse it before it gets expensive. Read it on your own first, then talk it through together with the toolkit in part 07.
How to read the visuals
Orange is you
Green is Sam
Swapped in Sam's copy.
Very close : you react the same way
Close on some points : some common ground, some differences
Little in common : different ground, not better or worse
Priority
Needs tools
Good to know
How serious each friction is.
You each answered on your own, without seeing the other's answers: 59 questions each, first The Mirror's, then the ones specific to The Duo. Some are about you, others about how you think your cofounder answered. That second part is what brings the unspoken agreements to light. The report then cross-checks your answers on the three fronts where, in the research and in the field, partnerships crack.
Who you are
Temperament
How you each naturally work: explore or consolidate, plan or improvise, speak up or hang back. Measured with the Big Five personality traits.
Where you're headed
Destination
What each of you wants from the company: the kind of company to build, what drives you, keeping control or maximizing value, commitment, time horizon, equity.
How you fight
Under tension
What each of you does when a disagreement heats up: confront, lay it all out, split the difference, avoid or give in.
The full methodology (sources, limits) is in the appendix.
01The short version
If you read one page, make it this one
Nina (the Leader) and Sam (the Architect): you're aligned on the essentials, not yet on the company you're building, and you get there by different paths.
It's the setup research most associates with successful teams: temperaments that cover different ground, and a shared destination. Your job: learn to translate for each other. And when things heat up, you go on the offensive while Sam steps back. That's not a problem in itself, as long as you saw it coming.
You're headed for roughly the same finish line. Your temperaments and your disagreement reflexes, on the other hand, are very different.
TemperamentLittle in common
You cover different ground: that's your complementarity, and your translation effort.
Destination and expectationsClose on some points
Aligned on the essentials, with a few topics to raise before you sign.
Under tensionLittle in common
Your disagreement reflexes are opposite: that's where rituals make the difference.
youSam
Each pair of circles is one lens. The more they overlap, the more alike you are. It's not a compatibility score.
How each of you naturally works, based on the Big Five personality traits. From that, we derive one of six founder profiles, drawn from a study of more than 21,000 startups.
You share a taste for exploring. Where you differ most is the energy you draw from other people and a taste for structure and kept commitments.
What you cover together. The Architect is the recommended complement for the Leader, or the other way around: you each cover ground the other doesn't naturally cover.
You, the LeaderSam, the Architect
You · The Leader
Clear-cut profile
You seek out adventure, stay calm when things are on fire, and aren't shy about taking the lead.
Your strength. You're the face of the vision, you hold up under pressure, and you make the uncomfortable calls. You're often the one investors meet first.
Your risk in a duo. Your confidence can take up a lot of room without you noticing, and your calm sometimes reads as coldness. The classic trap: deciding alone to move faster, then realizing the other person has checked out.
What drives you. Achievement and Building: proving they can pull off something hard, starting from scratch and building what didn't exist.
Sam · The Architect
Clear-cut profile
Sam's strength is depth: imagination, intellectual rigor, a taste for hard problems.
Their strength. Sam sees solutions nobody else has considered, and has the patience to get to the bottom of things.
Their risk in a duo. Sam tends to disappear into the work and communicate less. Their silence can read as agreement, or as disinterest.
What drives Sam. Freedom and Users: being free, choosing their own time and projects, solving a familiar problem for people they understand.
youSam
Each axis runs from 0 (center) to 100 (edge). The values are written next to each trait. No trait is good or bad: it shows where each of you puts your energy.
Main profile and secondary profile
Nobody fits one profile perfectly. For each of you, the report keeps the main profile, the one closest to your answers, and flags a secondary one when another profile comes almost as close. The Duo asks more temperament questions than The Mirror, so it sharpens the main profile.
YouA clear profile: Leader. The Duo's questions confirm a clear dominant style.
SamA clear profile: Architect. The Duo's questions confirm a clear dominant style.
03User manual
Working with Sam
Based on Sam's profile and how they react to disagreement. It's what their answers suggest, not their opinion: show this page to Sam and ask what needs correcting.
Sam loves to explore. Shutting down an idea too fast can kill their momentum: better to park it than to close it.
Sam probably prefers to take time before answering. Sending topics ahead of time will help more than asking for an opinion on the spot.
Sam tends to protect the relationship. On a sensitive topic, their “yes” may deserve a follow-up question.
In a disagreement, what helps Sam: time and a framework. A sensitive topic raised in the heat of the moment makes them shut down.
To get Sam on board with a decision (freedom, users): Give them room on their time and their projects: an imposed structure will put them off faster than a disagreement. And talk about users before you talk about growth or fundraising.
✓What works with Sam
Send the topic the day before, in writing.Three lines are enough: the context, the decision to make, your view. Sam will come with a thought-through position.
Protect Sam's deep work time.Batch your questions into a set check-in rather than interrupting as you go.
When Sam says “I'll look into it,” ask “when will you get back to me?”A date turns a delay into a commitment.
✕What puts Sam off
Settling a technical question in a meeting without letting Sam make their case.No pushback in the moment, but no buy-in either.
Mistaking Sam's silence for agreement.Saying nothing often means “I don't have an opinion yet.”
Raising the same topic three times in one day.The more you push, the more Sam withdraws.
04What works
Where you're in sync
The areas where you work the same way. Things run smoothly, and that's valuable. But when two people see things the same way, nobody plays devil's advocate: every area where you're in sync has a flip side.
In sync
Roles that complement each other
✓What will work well
You're aiming for different roles (leadership and product and tech), and you see leadership the same way.
!The flip side
A clean split at the start can lock things in: plan to revisit it when the company changes size.
The Ally or Die toolkitKeep the upside without the flip side
What you can do
Set a date, for example at ten employees or at your first fundraise, to revisit together how you split roles.
The question to ask each other
What should change in our roles once the company has doubled in size?
Source: Ally or Die field experience
In sync
You both love to explore
✓What will work well
Ideas flow fast and you spark each other.
!The flip side
Nobody will say stop. One person's enthusiasm serves as the other's validation, and pivots pile up without real decisions.
The Ally or Die toolkitKeep the upside without the flip side
What you can do
For every new lead, take turns playing devil's advocate, tasked with finding three reasons not to go for it.
The question to ask each other
What lead did we start this quarter without ever deciding to stop the previous one?
Source: research on more than 23,000 couples (Dyrenforth et al., 2010), applied to cofounders
05Where you'll clash
Your 6 friction points
The perfect cofounder doesn't exist. The right cofounder is one where you both know where the friction will be, and how to defuse it.
Each card describes the friction, what each of you brings to it, and what it will look like day to day. It ends with the Ally or Die toolkit: what you can do, and the question to ask each other. Cards run from most to least serious.
Relational frictionPriority
1Death by silence
When a disagreement flares up, one of you wants to settle it right away and the other needs space. The space gets read as agreement, and the pushing feels like pressure.
What you bring to itUnder tension, you tend to go on the offensive fast and hold your ground. It gets decisions made, but it can silence the other person.
What Sam brings to itUnder tension, Sam tends to step back and let it slide.
Day to day, it will look like this: a topic one of you keeps raising, a “let's talk about it later” from the other, and a week later one of you thinks it's settled while the other never agreed.
The Ally or Die toolkitWays to defuse it, to adapt to your situation
What you can do
Before answering, restate the other person's position in one sentence. Until you can, don't decide. Heads up: how you react in the moment isn't how you react over time, so tell the other person.
A habit for two
Whoever avoids says when they'll come back to it. Whoever confronts sends the topics in writing before talking them through.
The question to ask each other
What's the last topic where one of us thought we agreed?
Source: the Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode model, combined with Ally or Die field experience
Structural frictionNeeds tools
2Not the same company
One of you is building a rocket, the other a house. Both are good projects, but they're not the same project. It shows from the first hires and the pricing, and it blows up the day a profitable company gets a funding offer.
What you bring to itYou want a company that raises when it helps, while keeping control of the cash. Offered $3M to grow five times faster, you would sign.
What Sam brings to itSam wants a profitable, human-sized company that doesn't raise. Given the same offer, Sam would raise less.
Day to day, it will look like this: a first hire where one of you wants an expensive senior profile to prepare for growth, and the other a versatile profile the company can afford. The debate is about the candidate; the real issue is the size of the company.
The Ally or Die toolkitWays to defuse it, to adapt to your situation
What you can do
Put numbers on what your ideal company takes: how many rounds, how much dilution, how many years without dividends. Show it before you try to convince anyone.
A habit for two
Each of you describes the company five years from now in three numbers: team size, revenue, and the share of equity you own. Compare before talking about anything else.
The question to ask each other
If the company becomes profitable and pays us well, do we stop there?
Source: Ally or Die field experience; Alex Lazarow's unicorn vs. camel framework
Relational frictionNeeds tools
3Different drivers
One of you left a salaried job to stop answering to anyone, the other is ready to raise. Investors could become the very boss the first one was running from.
What you bring to itYour two reasons for building a company: achievement and building.
What Sam brings to itSam's: freedom and users.
Day to day, it will look like this: a decision that looks technical (a customer, a price, an investor) and triggers an outsized reaction in one of you. It touches the reason they're here.
The Ally or Die toolkitWays to defuse it, to adapt to your situation
What you can do
Tell the other person what your driver will make you refuse. That's more useful than defending what it makes you want.
The question to ask each other
In what upcoming decision will our reasons for being here make us choose differently?
Source: founder identities (Fauchart and Gruber, 2011) and entrepreneurial passion (Cardon et al., 2009)
Relational frictionNeeds tools
4Unspoken agreements
You haven't been telling each other the same story on personal runway, the final say, time horizon, and ambition. What each of you took for granted was never actually said.
What you bring to itYou guessed wrong on 4 of Sam's 10 answers.
What Sam brings to itSam guessed wrong on 1 of your 10 answers.
Day to day, it will look like this: a surprise when it's time to sign the founders' agreement or to hire, on a topic one of you thought was settled. See the details in part 06 →
The Ally or Die toolkitWays to defuse it, to adapt to your situation
What you can do
Go through these topics one by one, starting with the one that surprises you most. Not to decide right away, just to know.
The question to ask each other
What did each of us take for granted without ever saying it?
Source: Ally or Die field experience
Temperament frictionNeeds tools
5Pace and rigor
One of you plans, the other improvises. Deadlines, reporting and processes turn into questions of motive.
What you bring to itYou structure, you plan, you keep commitments.
What Sam brings to itSam moves in bursts and chafes at structure.
Day to day, it will look like this: a deadline one of you sees as a target and the other as a hard date. The day it slips, one sees a lack of seriousness, the other excessive rigidity.
The Ally or Die toolkitWays to defuse it, to adapt to your situation
What you can do
Separate what needs structure from what can stay flexible, and only structure the first.
The question to ask each other
What are the three commitments we keep without exception?
Source: meta-analysis of work teams (Bell, 2007) and Ally or Die field experience
Temperament frictionGood to know
6Who does the talking
One of you naturally takes the spotlight, the other stays in the background. Outside visibility can turn into a question of credit.
What you bring to itYou naturally take the mic and the spotlight.
What Sam brings to itSam tends to stay in the background.
Day to day, it will look like this: an article or a pitch that only mentions one of you, even though the work presented is largely the other's.
The Ally or Die toolkitWays to defuse it, to adapt to your situation
What you can do
Credit the other person's work in public, by name.
The question to ask each other
Who represents the company, and on which topics?
Source: Ally or Die field experience
06Your answers
Your answers, side by side
The data behind the frictions. Useful to understand where each conclusion comes from, and to check that it sounds like you.
Under tension
You confront. Sam avoids. In your report, this combination is called “Death by silence.”
YouSamBubble size = number of situations out of 8
youSam
Under tension, you tend to go on the offensive fast and hold your ground. It gets decisions made, but it can silence the other person. Under tension, Sam tends to step back and let it slide. The horizontal axis shows how much you take the other person into account, the vertical axis how hard you stand your ground.
Destination
You're in between, with no clear trade-off, Sam is leaning toward control. The gap is moderate, but it's worth raising before your first fundraise.
YouSam
Value over controlGrow the company, even if it means handing over the controls.
Not decided yetNo clear trade-off.
Control over valueStaying in control matters more than the exit price.
youSam
Position based on 6 scenarios (acquisition, CEO role, dilution, veto). Your gap doesn't create friction at this stage.
The company you want to build
You lean toward camel. Sam leans toward profitable, no fundraising.
UnicornA market giant: big successive rounds, hypergrowth before profitability.
CamelRaise when it helps to accelerate, while staying in control of cash and profitable early.
Profitable, no fundraisingProfitable without raising, growing at its own pace and staying human-sized.
The company is profitable and pays you both. A fund offers $3M to grow five times faster, aiming to 10x the company's value in five years.
You · Signs: the chance to scale up
Sam · Raises less, stays profitable
youSam
Unicorn, camel, profitable without raising: three ways to grow a company, and none is better than the others. What breaks a partnership is discovering the gap when an offer lands.
Your drivers
You're not here for the same reasons. That's not a problem in itself: it becomes one when your reasons push you toward opposite choices.
You
AchievementProving they can pull off something hard.
BuildingStarting from scratch and building what didn't exist.
Sam
FreedomBeing free, choosing their own time and projects.
UsersSolving a familiar problem for people they understand.
Your expectations, and what each of you guessed about the other
7 of 10 topics still need to be raised between you.
On these concrete topics, each of you gave your own answer, then guessed the other's. It's not a test of who knows the other best. When one of you guesses differently, it means a topic hasn't been said out loud yet: that's an unspoken agreement. When your answers differ, it's a decision to make. Together, they make up your list of conversations to have.
Sam guessed your answer right. You guessed something else.
The final say
Different answers
Your answer
Me
✓Sam saw it coming
Sam's answer
Whoever owns that area
≠You guessed: “The other person”
Sam guessed your answer right. You guessed something else.
Time horizon
Different answers
Your answer
5 to 10 years
✓Sam saw it coming
Sam's answer
No exit in mind
≠You guessed: “5 to 10 years”
Sam guessed your answer right. You guessed something else.
Pace
Known disagreement
Your answer
Over 55 hours a week
✓Sam saw it coming
Sam's answer
40 to 55 hours a week
✓You saw it coming
You know you answer differently: it's a known disagreement, and it still needs settling.
Target role
Known disagreement
Your answer
Leadership
✓Sam saw it coming
Sam's answer
Product / tech
✓You saw it coming
You know you answer differently: it's a known disagreement, and it still needs settling.
Refused role
Known disagreement
Your answer
Product / tech
✓Sam saw it coming
Sam's answer
Leadership
✓You saw it coming
You know you answer differently: it's a known disagreement, and it still needs settling.
Where you're aligned
Same answer, and you each saw it coming
CommitmentFull-time now✓ guessed on both sides
EquityBased on roles and contributions✓ guessed on both sides
Who leadsYou✓ guessed on both sides
07Your toolkit
All your tools in one place
A recap of everything the report suggests. Each tool links back to the section it comes from. Keep this page handy: it's the one you'll reread three months from now.
Before answering, restate the other person's position in one sentence. Until you can, don't decide. Heads up: how you react in the moment isn't how you react over time, so tell the other person.
Put numbers on what your ideal company takes: how many rounds, how much dilution, how many years without dividends. Show it before you try to convince anyone.
Each of you describes the company five years from now in three numbers: team size, revenue, and the share of equity you own. Compare before talking about anything else.
Block out an hour, just the two of you, no screens. Take the questions in order. The goal isn't to settle everything, it's to make sure nothing important stays unspoken.
Each of you writes down your answer before talking. Otherwise, whoever speaks first frames the other's answer.
The other person restates it before responding.
A question is closed when you come out of it with a written decision, or a date to come back to it.
What's the last topic where one of us thought we agreed?
Walk away with: a ground rule for your disagreements, for example: when one of you says “I'll look into it,” they give a date.
You know where you'll clash. Now put it to the test.
Know yourselfThe Mirror · done
Choose each otherThe Duo · you are here
Test the fitThe Trial Run
CommitThe Pact
Go the distanceThe Check-in
Before you sign anything, work together on a real project and watch whether the friction in this report shows up. What you learn will then feed into your agreement.
The PDF is for the two of you: it includes Sam's profile. Ask Sam before you show it to anyone else.
AAppendix
Detailed methodology
For anyone who wants to know how each conclusion is reached.
The questionnaire 59 questions per person
Each of you answers alone, without seeing the other's answers. The Mirror (free) asks the first questions; The Duo adds the rest. There are no right answers: each block measures a preference, not a skill.
Block
Questions
What it measures
Format
Based on
Temperament
23
The Big Five personality traits
5-point agreement scale, with reverse-scored items to limit people-pleasing answers
Big Five model
Destination
6
The trade-off between company value and control
Scenarios: acquisition offer, CEO role, dilution, veto
Wasserman, The Founder's Dilemmas
Under tension
8
Your go-to reflex in a disagreement
Concrete situations between cofounders, 5 possible reactions
Thomas and Kilmann
Expectations
6 + 6
Commitment, personal runway, final say, equity, time horizon, pace
Your answer, then how you think the other person answered
Wasserman, Ally or Die field work
Type of company
2 + 1
The company each of you wants to build, and how you'd respond to a funding offer
Your answer and your guess about the other person, then a scenario
Unicorns and camels (Lazarow), Ally or Die field work
Drivers
1
Your two main reasons for building a company, out of six
Two picks, no guessing
Fauchart and Gruber, Cardon
Roles
3 + 3
Target role, refused role, who leads
Your answer, then how you think the other person answered
Wasserman, Ally or Die field work
The five traits
Each trait is scored from 0 to 100. A score is neither good nor bad: it shows where each of you naturally puts your energy. It's the gaps between you, more than the levels, that create friction.
Trait
What it describes
High score
Low score
Openness
A taste for novelty, ideas and exploring
Sees opportunities everywhere
Prefers to double down on what works
Rigor
Organization, reliability, keeping commitments
Structures, plans, hits deadlines
Works in bursts, chafes at frameworks
Extraversion
Energy drawn from other people, ease speaking up
Thinks out loud with others, takes the spotlight
Thinks things through alone, hangs back
Cooperation
Attention paid to others and to the relationship
Protects the relationship; their yes deserves a follow-up question
Says things straight, goes for the issue
Emotional stability
Calm under pressure, ability to absorb bad news
Keeps a cool head, at the risk of seeming detached
Feels pressure strongly, and it shows
The six founder profiles
These profiles come from a study published in Scientific Reports in 2023 (McCarthy et al.), which analyzed the personalities of the founders of 21,187 startups and identified six profiles. Each profile has a signature across the five traits. Your profile is the one whose signature is closest to your temperament answers. The names are Ally or Die's; the original research name is shown next to each one.
The small radar shows each profile's signature on the five traits: O openness, R rigor, E extraversion, C cooperation, S stability. Your two profiles are in color.
The Leader
You
Leader
Seeks out adventure, stays calm when things are on fire, and isn't shy about taking the lead.
Strength. Carries the vision to the outside world and makes the uncomfortable calls.
Blind spot in a duo. Deciding alone to move faster, at the risk of the other person checking out.
Recommended complementary profile: The Developer
The Developer
Developer
Lives where product meets people: curious, sociable, great at moving things forward as a group.
Strength. Turns user needs into product and brings people along.
Blind spot in a duo. Spreading themselves thin and leaving decisions hanging too long.
Recommended complementary profile: The Operator
The Accomplisher
Accomplisher
Organized and people-oriented, turns an intention into a plan, then a plan into results.
Strength. Rigor and social ease in one person: reassures teams, customers and investors.
Blind spot in a duo. Smoothing tensions over instead of surfacing them, and slowing down exploration.
Recommended complementary profile: The Architect
The Operator
Operator
Keeps the machine running: order, reliability, and no need for the spotlight.
Strength. What's promised gets done. Builds the processes nobody else wants to build.
Blind spot in a duo. Taking on too much and letting the other person set the direction by default.
Recommended complementary profile: The Developer
The Architect
Sam
Engineer
Depth: imagination, intellectual rigor, a taste for hard problems.
Strength. Sees solutions nobody else has considered, and has the patience to get to the bottom of things.
Blind spot in a duo. Disappearing into the work and under-communicating.
Recommended complementary profile: The Leader
The Fighter
Fighter
Runs on instinct, takes the hits, and has a hard time letting go when they believe in something.
Strength. Their grit keeps the company alive through the bad quarters, and their skepticism kills bad ideas early.
Blind spot in a duo. Impulsiveness and stubbornness, which quickly turn a disagreement into a power struggle.
Recommended complementary profile: The Operator
Main and secondary profile
Nobody fits one profile perfectly. Your main profile is the one closest to your answers. A secondary profile is flagged when another one comes almost as close, for example the one The Mirror picked first. The report always relies on the main profile.
The destination axis
Six scenarios (acquisition offer, CEO role, dilution, veto) place each of you on an axis between two priorities: growing the company's value, or keeping control of it. This dilemma, documented by Noam Wasserman across nearly 10,000 founders, is one of the top reasons cofounders split: it stays invisible until a funding round or an acquisition offer forces it into the open.
Zone
What it means
Value over control
Maximize the company's value, even if it means handing over the controls
Not decided yet
No clear trade-off yet between value and control
Control over value
Staying in control matters more than the exit multiple
Two questions round out this axis, which assumes a path with investors. The first pins down the company each of you wants to build: a market giant that raises round after round (the unicorn), a company that raises when it helps but stays in control of its cash (the “camel,” a term coined by VC Alex Lazarow), or a profitable company that never raises. A scenario checks that the answer holds up against a concrete offer.
The second asks for your two main reasons for building a company, out of six: freedom, money, mission, users, achievement, building. They draw on the founder identities described by Fauchart and Gruber (2011) and the entrepreneurial passions studied by Cardon (2009). Two different drivers aren't a problem in themselves: the report only flags combinations that push toward opposite decisions.
The five reflexes under tension
The Thomas-Kilmann model sorts reactions to disagreement along two dimensions: how hard you stand your ground, and how much you take the other person's position into account. Your go-to reflex is the one you pick most often across 8 situations. None is better than the others: each is useful in some cases and costly in others.
Confront
Stand your ground, without looking much at the other person's view.
Lay it all out
Stand your ground and also seek out the other person's view.
Compromise
Each of you gives up part of what you want to move forward.
Avoid
Neither stand your ground nor seek the other's view: you let it slide.
Give in
Put the other person's position ahead of your own.
The report doesn't look at your reflexes one at a time, but at how they combine: two reflexes that work fine on their own can together create a dynamic that wears the relationship down. That combination is what gives the under-tension friction in your report its name.
The four configurations
The configuration sums up two questions: are you headed for the same finish line, and are your temperaments alike? There's no ranking. It only changes the work you have to do.
The ComplementsYou
You want to get to the same place, by different paths.
It's the setup research most associates with successful teams: temperaments that cover different ground, and a shared destination. Your job: learn to translate for each other.
The Look-alikes
You get each other fast, and you're headed for the same finish line.
Little translation needed, trust that builds fast. Your job: push back on each other on purpose, because nobody will do it naturally.
The Kindred Spirits
You work the same way, but you're not headed for the same finish line yet.
Day to day, things run smoothly. The conversation to have is about destination, and it will be easier between two people who understand each other.
The Opposites
Almost everything sets you apart, and your partnership gets built one topic at a time.
Together, you cover a lot of ground. Nothing will be implicit between you, which forces you to put everything on the table, and that's also what protects you from things left unsaid.
How friction points are identified
The report cross-checks your answers against about twenty rules. Each one is backed by a source: direct research on founders, adjacent research on couples and teams, or Ally or Die's field experience. Only the rules that apply to you show up in your report. They fall into three families.
Structural friction
What each of you expects from the partnership.
Destination, commitment, equity, time horizon, roles, who makes the call. For example: two cofounders who each think they have the final say, or who aren't picturing the same timeline. These get settled with a decision, and they get more expensive over time.
Relational friction
What plays out between you day to day.
How your reflexes under tension combine, and the unspoken agreements: what each of you takes for granted without ever having said it. These get settled with rituals and ground rules you set together.
Temperament friction
What your personalities produce together.
Big gaps on one trait (one structures, the other improvises), or a shared gap (nobody sells, nobody plans). You manage these by knowing about them, and sometimes by hiring around you.
And what works
Where you're in sync.
The same rules also spot where you're aligned. Each in-sync area comes with its flip side, because ground where nobody pushes back is also ground where nobody sees the problem coming.
Severity
Level
What it means
Priority
The kind of issue that breaks up partnerships. Deal with it before you commit.
Needs tools
Without a rule agreed between you, it ends up weighing on the relationship.
Good to know
An irritant you can handle as you go, as long as you know where it comes from.
Friction points run from most to least serious. At equal severity, structural friction (destination, roles, expectations) comes first, because it gets settled with a decision and gets more expensive over time.
Sources
McCarthy et al., Scientific Reports, 2023. Personalities of the founders of 21,187 startups; origin of the six profiles.
Noam Wasserman, The Founder's Dilemmas, 2012. Nearly 10,000 founders; the value vs. control dilemma, roles, equity splits.
Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, 1974. The five conflict-handling modes.
Dyrenforth et al., 2010. More than 23,000 couples; how personality and similarity affect relationship quality, applied here to cofounders.
Malouff et al., 2010. Meta-analysis of the Big Five traits and relationship satisfaction.
Bell, 2007. Meta-analysis of work team composition and performance.
Ally or Die field work. About ten partnerships closely supported over the past year; source of the rules on unspoken agreements, time horizon, pace and roles.
Limitations
This report isn't a validated psychometric instrument, or an opinion on whether you should team up. It's based on self-reported answers given at one point in time: take it again after a few months of working together, and the answers will shift. The profiles and rules simplify richer realities. Use it to open the right conversations, not to close them.
Profiles based on the FOALED model (McCarthy et al., Scientific Reports, 2023), destination axis based on N. Wasserman (The Founder's Dilemmas), conflict modes from Thomas and Kilmann, rules drawn from research on couples and teams. A conversation tool, not a validated psychometric instrument.
Sample report, fictional cofounders Nina and Sam · allyordie.com
Sample report · Nina and Sam are fictional. Yours will be about you.