Co-Founder Relationships That Can Navigate Anything

Hello and welcome to Heart of Entrepreneurship, where we challenge the notion that success requires suffering. I'm Jesse Pujji, one of your hosts, and I'm here with Dave Kashen, my longtime coach and BFF, who's our other host. What's up?

Good morning.

Um, I'm excited about— I got a good episode in mind, or good topic. And for those who don't know, I don't ever tell Dave. Not— that's something we just kind of made that up as we started doing this.

Keep it fresh.

That's right. I want the real reactions. So we've had, you know, we're ramping up our efforts for venture, our venture studio and venture accelerator. And in the last month, we've had probably, I don't know, 50 to 100 conversations with people who are considering starting companies or starting companies in that early stage. And one of the things that's come up a few, a handful of times and feels pretty misunderstood or misperceived is co-founder relationships. And so I'm curious to get the Dave Kashen 101. I think maybe I'd start it with like, how, you know, not how would you find the co-founder? You go to LinkedIn, you know, we've got one of the founders, he's out there looking for a, amazing technical partner and, you know, he's like, oh, should I give them X% of the company and a salary? Should I make them a full co-founder? Like he's thinking about it too transactionally. And one of the things I stopped him was like, hold on, like you got to get to know this person and like figure out, you know, you got to figure out yourself, you got to figure out their value. So maybe the first question is, if you did have a few people who were in the early stages of co-founder dating, as some people call it, what things might you suggest they do, they talk about, you know, let's, let's riff on that a little bit. And then towards the end, I'd love to get more into like ongoing co-founder relationship best practices and do's and don'ts.

Or, you know, love it. Yeah, it's, it's an important topic. You know, you spend more time with your co-founder than probably any other human being, including your spouse if you're married or partner. So, it is a, like, fundamentally important choice and consideration. So, I love this. And yeah, I think it could very much shape what's possible for, you know, the company getting this relationship right. The first thing that comes to mind is actually maybe a little counterintuitive or at least non-obvious. Which is energy. So what I mean by that is, um, when you're with this other human being, if you pay attention to your own energy, are you just like energized or are you kind of drained? And I think most people focus on the sort of content— what have they done, what are their skills— but like, you're going to be spending a lot of time, and in some way You know, each of your energy and, um, yeah, energy level is like, again, one of these like hidden success factors for the company because you need so much energy to create something from nothing and get through all the challenges and setbacks. And, um, and so that's one thing that I think people don't necessarily, um, think to pay attention to that I've seen make a huge difference. I say this for, um, clients who are hiring as well, but it's doubly important for a co-founder because it's probably the most important hire essentially. So, that's one thing.

And the failure pattern, by the way, just to invert it for a second that I've seen a lot already is the spreadsheet orientation for this.

Checklist. On paper, they're the right—

I've got this and this is this. Look, they're the right person for me to partner with, Jesse. And even though I can, I'm not sure if I like them, like, but they're the right person. And it's like, well, hold on. And I think I'll just call it out because I'm going to use this episode for a lot of the people that we are talking to. But like the— we oftentimes will see and we've already seen the— again, trying to get it right and not necessarily— well, sorry. What we've seen is like the— I'll call it the naïveté or the misunderstanding of how much of a journey co-founding a company with somebody is. Yes. And that's where you get into this transactional mind of like, well, no, they're right. You know, they're right on paper, but I don't like the boxes.

I can raise money off of their background. Yeah.

And then I'm like, you know, and then I have to like paint a picture. I'm like, are you going to be okay at 11:00 at night? You know, you're telling me you don't like this person even though they're good on paper. So you're gonna be at 11:00 at night, you're going to be sitting there with the person, you know, figuring something out, trusting that they're not talking behind your back to an employee like that. People just don't realize how involved the co-founder journey truly is.

Yeah, uh, there's two things coming up for me around that. One is, at the beginning, you know, where you're typically finding a co-founder, it's easy to romanticize, right? Oh, it's all gonna be great, and we're gonna just, you know, like, up into the right. And the reality is you're gonna meet so many of the most intense challenges you've ever faced And so, like, is this the person that you want to be in the trenches with, right? And are you going to feel the level of connection and support that will enable you to get through these hard times? Or is it going to be worse because of the way you guys interact? To say your example is like, I don't like them. I'd say probably if you really don't like them, you're not likely gonna— I think there's like—

I was being purposely a little provocative there.

Yeah, that's provocative and extreme, but it's more like, like, I like them, you know, but like, eh, it's like, um, it's just sort of like dating. I like the person.

It's like chemistry and energy.

Chemistry, energy. Yeah. Do you feel like you're the best version of yourself with them? Like, do they sort of help bring out the best in you? You just— yeah, just— and these are really hard to quantify, predict, you know. Again, there's people who date— you try to date by checklist, and that also doesn't work very well, right? Like, oh, on paper they have all the, the attributes I should be looking for, but the reality is human beings don't work that way. So just recognizing, like, for some reason there's this thing called resonance, and there are certain people that we just resonate with and we feel alive and energized with them. So I think that's just a theme worth, um, you know, worth bringing to the forefront. And then, um, and then there's like commitment in the sense of like, are you aligned in what you're trying to do? Because, you know, there's a wide— not a wide variety, there's several different, you know, sort of primary reasons why people build startups and also like several different kind of mental models So, like a simple example would be, you know, and obviously we talk about a little— we touch on this in like The Hustle and Grind, you know, versus Success Without Suffering. But you can, as we've talked about, you can have success without suffering and work 16 hours a day or 10 hours a day, right? And I don't believe like one is more right than another. But if you and another human being are embarking on the journey together and you're wildly misaligned, that's not likely going to feel very good along the way.

Yeah. So, and what I think the failure pattern here I've seen is, is like aligned. You think about the next 90 to 180 days and you're like, we're aligned, we want to launch this thing. And we've had them do an exercise of like independently write down your 5-year 10 out of 10. And we've seen, we've seen lots of misalignment or, or, or just it's a helpful exercise to reconcile.

Are you trying to make a bunch of money in 3 years, right? And like exit? Or are you trying to build a 10-year, you know, like, uh, I don't say legacy, but like your venture scale type business? Yeah, so that, yeah, that's what I mean by like alignment on commitment. Yeah, what are you trying to build? How big? Um, how long do you want to spend on it, right? Like all those things, again, that there's no right or wrong, but if you're just fundamentally misaligned, it's going to cause some real friction along the way. So yeah, there's both a kind of like bigger picture of, yeah, like how long are you hoping to spend on it? What alignment?

And then like, I would say the other one, there's what alignment and then there's how alignment.

Exactly.

That's a nice way to say it. And by the way, there's like medium-term how alignment and then like really tactical how. Like we had a team yesterday And, you know, I've written about this, I think, and it's out on the internet, but like when, you know, McKinsey, people, people not consulting all the time, I worked at McKinsey and one of the, one of the amazing things they did is they get a lot of smart people. You would meet your teammates on a project for the first time and within weeks you'd be expected to be like performing high with them and working hard to produce like a really high stakes, like a document somebody's paying a million dollars for. Right, again, you can knock the slide making, whatever, but that's not a small— it had the potential to become bad, full of pressure, and I almost never experienced that on a team at McKinsey. And so they have all these tactics. One of the tactics that we were encouraging this team yesterday to do is called the team learning. And it starts with everybody goes first, second day of the project, name, story, what are your growth areas from your last project, what are the things you do well? What specifically would you like to work on on this project? That's the beginning. Then it's like, you know, maybe other high-level stuff about yourself, maybe trying to share some things, but then it's like it gets really tactical. Do you work out? Are you a morning person or an evening person? Like, what's your responsiveness like? Do you respond quickly or do you like to take your time and think about responding? Do you, you know, do we want to eat lunch together as a team or do we want to like span out and get some break from each other during lunch? So like all of a sudden it gets into this really— and but, but it's like one of the things, you know, they do a handful of other things, but that's one of them that like immediately everyone knows each other. And it was shocking to me when I was back in the normal business world after that experience that people didn't operate like that everywhere. And so it's like a simple thing, I would say, for co-founders especially, but any early-stage team of just like, you know, get aligned at every level in some sense.

Yeah. Explicit, clear agreements. Yeah, right. Versus people just hope that implicitly things work out.

Um, well, take, by the way, like you see that after months people get to know that about the norms get set after months and they get set unconsciously. Yeah. And it's like just kind of silly actually.

I like that a lot. Like, yeah, there's, there's so many nuances to the how, how do we want to work together? You know, where do we want the office to be in person or remote? Uh, you know, yeah.

And most, and by the way, most team conflicts, especially amongst co-founders. Every now and again it's like, we were, oh, I wanted to take it to the house and this guy wanted to, you know, only quickly flip it. But most co-founder conflicts are like, you know, they're very tactical. He doesn't respond to my emails. He talks a little rudely to me. Like, you know, like I've asked him to go to dinner and he hasn't done that yet. They actually, those are just like a marriage, like the little things are the big things, you know?

Yes. The other, uh, what I was just thinking of was, um, clear, uh, clear roles and decision authority. Um, that's the other thing. Like, basically, if you, you know, when you agree, it's, it's relatively easy. Question is, what happens when you disagree on stuff? And this is often where the co-founder issues come up. Is because either they, you know, both people through whatever their life history is, aren't good at conflict, right? Or they have, you know, they're not comfortable. There's generally a polarity where like one person is more comfortable with, maybe too comfortable with conflict, like likes to be very direct and aggressive and assertive. And the other one tends to be less comfortable with conflict, and so they tend to avoid it. And from my perspective, you don't want the one who's more assertive to be the one that always sort of gets their way. So, I think this is a lot of where the rubber meets the road is like, what do we do when we disagree? And you can preempt some of that by clear roles and decision authority, which You know, some co-founders don't do very well, like get clear at the beginning around like, first of all, who's CEO and who's not, right? Maybe it's CTO, COO, like the, especially the conflict avoidant, you know, types. Sometimes even that conversation is not as clear as it could be. And then what does that mean? Right? Like what does the CEO get to decide?

Roles, responsibilities, decision-making.

Decision authority. Who decides what? How do we break ties if we disagree? Like those kind of conversations upfront can make a huge difference, you know, down the road. Right.

And those kind of feel like late, late in the co-founder dating journey or as you've actually decided you want to work. What are, what are like 3 to 5 questions? If I told you I have a bunch of founders in our program that are 2 weeks into dating each other and they're going to get a dinner and there's like the, you know, again, the unintentional casual dinner and then there's like the Dave Kashen version of it, which is like, What are the 5 questions that, that early co-founders dating should ask each other and listen to the other person's answer?

That's cool. So, well, my mind immediately goes to, um, vulnerability and connection. So this is, this will both serve the how do you create like really deep connection quickly, and then also potentially how do you evaluate if it's a good fit. But one of my favorite questions is like, you know, what are the— pick a number, you know, 3 experiences that have most shaped who you are?

I love that.

At any point in your life. And you'll learn a lot about people by the answer to that question. First of all, it creates real vulnerability and intimacy because you're now talking about, you know, the most important experiences of your life and how you even conceive of how you've become who you've become. So I like that one a lot. Another that comes to mind is, yeah, what's been your— and these may overlap, but like biggest failing, setback, or challenge you've ever faced in your life? And like, you know, how did you deal with that? And then on the other— well, sort of related, like, what's your biggest dream? You know, like, what if you— like, if you could wave your magic wand, like, what, what would happen? Um, or like, what most inspires you, right? What lights you up? Um, uh, let me think what else.

And one general thing I would suggest too is, is like, you ask that question Everybody for 20 years has prepared their answer for it. A good dinner conversation when a co-founder dating is like, oh, why? Like, what is that? When did that first come into your mind? Like, ask 5 to 7 follow-ups in a curious, open— like, and I think that's when you'll really get to know each other really well.

I love that. Yeah, follow your curiosity. I mean, I think, you know, I'd say the same thing again, you know. Probably in hiring in general. But I, I think especially the co-founder, like, and we talked about this actually interestingly in our culture conversation, one way to elicit values is tell me about the, you know, the, your favorite people you've ever worked with. Yeah, like, what were they like, you know? And that will help you see, like, if they describe someone who's totally different than you, okay, that might be a red flag, right? But if the kind of people they describe that they love working with are just naturally, you know, the way that you love to work, that's a good sign. Maybe like, what's the best team experiences you've— team experience you've ever had, right? Where you were part of a team and like, you'll learn about kind of how they saw that, what their role was in it. Yeah, I mean, I like—

I had a couple, one, One, just like, if this goes really well over the next X number of years, like, tell me what happened in your mind. Like, what are— like, not— and not what we got to, which is one answer, but like, how did it feel and what was the experience like? And then one, one that you must have given me at some point but has been one of the best ones is, what are you most afraid to tell me?

Oh yeah, that's good.

Um, like, I've had like, you know, and people take it in very different directions. Like, uh, to give some examples, like Nak, our COO, he was like, I'm afraid you're just going to steamroll me at every turn. And he said that and like, it's completely shifted from day one, our entire working relationship, because we're literally both aware of it, you know, just having said it one time. And Casey, my late co-founder, she's like, I'm afraid to tell you I have ADHD. Hmm. And so like, there was something very personal that's like, you know, that she was afraid I was going to So there's just like that one. It just—

that's a great question.

It creates—

yeah, what, what are you afraid to tell me? Or yeah, what do you most not want me to know? Yeah, similar. Um, one that I like is just, just— this is kind of straight on, but like, what's a 10 out of 10 relationship? Like, if, you know, if you imagine us working together, like, what would a 10 out of 10 look like in terms of the way, you know, how we work together in our relationship? I think that's really useful, both in terms of understanding, but also like co-creating, right? Like, the more you know that, the more you can create it. Uh, but, and yeah, if you hear their 10 out of 10 is wildly different from yours and feels incompatible, that, that's useful to know. Um, might be interesting to look at like worst relationship, you know, like what, what's been the most challenging relationship you've ever had? Like, I think that would be an interesting to explore just to again get a sense of How do they deal with people that are challenging or challenging relationships?

Yeah. The other, another one, the third one is like, what are you, what's, you know, even after the first time you've met a person for 30 minutes, you immediately come away with hesitations or like things you're not sure about.

Yeah.

And like, oh, what are your sitting here now? We're 2 weeks into our founder dating. What are your top 3 hesitations or concerns about me or about this? Or about working together? And man, even just that question for 30 minutes, A, it might just help you determine if it's the right fit, but B, you'll get to know each other and start having real conversations. And just again, to call it out, you could have dinner with a person and man, you could never go anywhere near any of these types of topics or conversations.

Totally.

And that's the biggest founder failure pattern.

Yeah. Is you just focus on the business side. Stay safe in business. And yeah, and you miss the raw humanness. The question just popped to mind, um, yeah, what, like, what are some of the more challenging feedback you've received? Because I think one of the things will be really important is to know that you're— you can be like, be candid with each other and give each other hard feedback. Um, and then this is something I use in workshops and retreats all the time, um, but if you really 'If I really knew you, what would I know?' Hmm. And that's a really nice invitation to just, you know, whatever level of vulnerability they want, you know, or willing to, you know, go. Um, and you could even go, you know, 'Okay, if I really, really knew you, what would I know?' And you could even go crazy and do a third time, 'If I really, really, really knew you.' And it's, it's just inviting like a much more vulnerable, personal, human sharing than we might typically have in a conversation like that.

Yeah.

And even just like the level of vulnerability that they're willing, you know, the level they're willing to be vulnerable is in and of itself interesting, useful, you know, information.

Anything, anything else for early co-founder dating and relationships that come to mind to set them up for success? Hmm. What one that just came up for me, um, I, that like, uh, before you even start dating a co-founder, you know, I wouldn't go crazy, but just writing down like 3 to 5 things that you think you're looking for. Like, what do you think? And now of course, like, again, people tend to overly focus on like technical PHP or whatever, right? But I'm talking about like, oh, someone who This is how their approach to conflict resolution. This is how they think that— are they, you know, like, what are the things just to keep— it's like anything, it's easy to get caught up, I think, in situations and having some touchstone for what, what you're actually looking for, what you think will be the best for you is a good, good starting point.

Yeah. I, I like visioning, so like I would, um, I would invite invite folks to like visualize the, the 10 out of 10 co-founder relationship and like create that vision independently of the person just so they can get clear with like, okay, what is the ideal that I, that I picture? And then that, that can help sort of be like a benchmark to then say, okay, do I— could I see that with this person, right? Oh, I see us like really feeling like good friends and deeply supporting each other and going out to dinner and having a personal relationship that transcends the business relationship and supporting each other's growth and giving each other raw feedback, just like what is 10 out of 10. And then when you meet a person, you can kind of then like assess, okay, do they fit into that vision? Do they want something similar? Because even that, like, there's, you know, there's probably co-founders who want it to be a little bit more of a business relationship and others who might want it to basically be like a best friend that they're, you know, become like a best friend. And that, that's a big difference, you know, in terms of—

and you can imagine one of the founders wanting that, the other one not, and then—

right, right.

I'm never talking about it.

Why are you always saying no when I ask you to dinner?

Yeah, we're co-founders.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's, that's a good one. So what, so, okay, so those are the early ones. We talked a little bit about, you know, as, as you are starting to kind of decide, we talked about doing roles, responsibilities, title, decision authority.

And just to underscore that.

Yeah.

Real quick, like co-founder is not a role.

Mm-hmm.

Like, that's, I like a lot of people, like they're just like, oh, we're co-founders. It's like, okay, but. You're building a business and like people have different roles. And so that, I think that can get really conflated. It's like, yes, there's this gravitas and weight to being a co-founder, but that's more of like a historical fact that like, oh, we are the two people that started the thing.

Right.

Then once you're actually building, it's like, okay, well, are you the CTO? Are you the CEO? Are the CEO like those roles and the expectations and like performance kind of standards should be based on those roles. You know, the co-founder—

This is a pretty mis— I mean, you know, for the first 3 years of Ampush, we had an email address called founders@ampush.com.

Yeah.

And everyone would email that for requests or questions. Yeah. And then would guess at what point they like, did they, should they wait for all 3 of us to agree? Should, is one of us saying yes okay? Is it a majority thing?

Right.

And it just, it was such a disaster and it'd be people called it the three-headed monster. Like, they just didn't know what to do with it because we refused to— you know, we were best friends and roommates, and we kind of refused to do titles. Talk about— I want you to go deeper on this, Dave, because I think that, like, again, this is called The Heart of Entrepreneurship. It's a touchy-feely podcast. And I think a lot of founders do have a touchy-feely intention, at least, when they say, like, oh, we're co-founders, and oh, we don't want to do titles, and we don't want to— And talk about why that might be misguided, even if it's the right orientation, and talk about why it's misguided. Decision authority, roles and responsibilities, what are all of those and why do they actually support a better co-founder relationship?

Yeah, so the first thing that comes to mind is how this desire for harmony can undermine an effective relationship.

Yeah.

And I think that's— I mean, just at the raw human level, like, humans, most humans tend to, um, avoid conflict and just emotional intensity in general. And I think, like, most of us have experienced experienced that our most powerful thriving relationships come not by avoiding the hard conversations or the conflict, but by navigating it effectively together. And, you know, for anyone who's married, like, I can't imagine you're in a thriving marriage if you don't talk about the hard stuff. You haven't had, like, really intense conflict at times because human— like, one, Humans are different, right? We have different wants and needs and perspectives. Two, we're all coming with our baggage. So let's just, let's just acknowledge that, right? Like what happens to us between, you know, 0 and 8 years old tends to form our attachment patterns, our, you know, perspective about ourselves and what the way we react to when we're under threat. And so, like, kind of similarly to a marriage, you know, the way I view it is at its best, we can substitute a marriage or a co-founder relationship serves to help surface the wounds, really, like our childhood wounds, so that we can heal them and grow together. But at their worst, we just trigger each other's childhood wounds and we get in these cycles of drama and reactivity. So let's just first acknowledge we're human beings. We're coming together with these childhood wounds about how we, how we understand, um, what is lovable and what allows us to be loved. And, um, you know, when we didn't feel loved. And so we bring all of that to our, our marriages, but like for this purpose, our co-founder relationships.

Right.

And so I think that's really important.

Someone who was like, what are you talking about, Dave? What is this mumbo jumbo? Like, no, just no. Like, I don't get it. It's two people building a business together. Yeah. So, and we're co-founders and I mean, I'm just curious how you would— if I reject the premise of childhood wounds and all that stuff, I don't get it. How would you, how would you help me understand that?

Let's see if we can simplify it.

Well, like, anytime this idea of chasing harmony— go ahead.

Well, so anytime we're reacting to something with what feels like a disproportionate reaction It's because we're superimposing the past onto the present.

Yep.

So from my experience working with lots of co-founders, like, stuff happens, but it's like the— often, like, the level of, like, reaction that one co-founder has to the other is often bigger than the— like you said, like, they're like these little things, but we have big reactions, right? And so I, from my perspective, like, recognize— recognizing that as like a learning opportunity. It's like, wow, that's weird. Like, they said no to—

well, like, I imagine two co-founders having a conversation about equity, and one is like, sure, well, I want 60% and you have 40%, and you should get 40. And rather than it being like a business discussion, immediately the person who's getting less is going like, am I not worthy? Am I not worth— you know, what do you like? And they're not going to say that consciously, but, but then they react strongly to that, and then, and then the whole deal falls apart, even they're actually great, they're great, you know, candidates to work with each other, but because they, because they had this stuff from the past that kind of showed up in their present.

Yeah. So you can imagine like a tale of two ways, you know, that, that co-founders could have that conversation. One is this like just kind of butting heads, like what, like, like, I think I'm worth, you know, 50/50, and it's just like an argument about who's right. And another one that's much more vulnerable is like, wow, I notice when you say 40 for me, like I feel sad, I feel scared. And like I tell myself a story that like you don't see me as worthy, you know? And if they're even more self-reflective, like, oh, I'm reminded of times in the past where I felt snubbed or rejected or less worthy. All of that could become an opportunity for growth and healing. And so, you know, if I'm like facilitating this co-founder, you know, dynamic, my intention is for it to have them, you know, support each other's self-awareness and grow as a result of the conversation. And grow as a result of it. And that generally leads to them finding a win-for-all solution. Maybe it is 60-40. When you recognize, "Oh, I'm making up these stories. Actually, when I let go of making this mean anything about my worthiness, I can see why that's actually fair because of your experience and my experience." And the problem is if you don't go there, then you could just have a stalemate because of these like actually emotional issues that just present as like these factual fairness, like who's right and who's wrong. Yeah.

Talk a little bit. Let's go a little more tactical like this. Again, people tend to stay with founders as titles. And you just said— made this really important statement. Co-founder is not a title. So what is it like?

Yeah.

What is a title? What are decision authorities and why are they important to actually tackle head on?

Yeah, I think part of your question is why do they avoid it? They avoid it because basically it's like we're trying to protect each other from feeling anything.

Yeah, right.

It's like a hero move. Like, oh, if I assert I want to be CEO, they might be upset, and maybe that's arrogant, or maybe that's, you know, mean.

The first thing to see is, is that you're probably not actually— you may be doing it to avoid conflict in the short run or to create harmony, but in the long run, it becomes a huge mess. And instead, if you can create these structures up front and early, they— yeah, that's right, inside the structures.

The answer to your question why it matters is most drama is created by a lack of clear agreements.

Right.

And I've seen so many, I'm sure you like so many co-founders who have like just constant drama because there's just something fundamentally, um, they just don't have a clear agreement around who decides what. And so they're just constantly at each other trying to win the argument or or they just have different ideas of like who should make the decision. And so making the— creating that clarity early on that, you know, these are our roles, this is what's in, you know, like, um, you know, product. Like, who decide— you know, who decides what's on the product roadmap? You know, like something as simple as that, um, will save a ton of time down the road from them just like arguing back and forth. And worse, Then once you have a team, like, that's a two-headed monster thing where like the team is like, who do I listen to? Like, one co-founder says we should do this, one says that, and then you have this just lack of clarity throughout the organization and it's wildly inefficient. So, the more clear swim lanes and decision authority and roles are, the more efficient and effective the team, the organization is. Like you said, the less conflict down the road. Like one of the— I'll just go here. One of the brilliant things I forgot about, like the Constitution, is that it had within it a mechanism to revise the document itself.

Right.

Right. So like similarly, if you have like clear, clear ways, you know, for decisions to be made and for revisions for, you know, policies and how you do things, to happen, um, then it no longer becomes a power struggle, right? In the absence of clear structure and agreement, it can just feel like a power struggle, and that, that doesn't serve anybody.

Yeah. What, what is decision authority, and, and how would you recommend— and like, not necessarily like an early stage co-founders, let's assume they've chosen each other, they've got the company going— yeah, when they implement it.

Yeah. So we get like there's sort of— let's just think about decision rules, right? There's like a couple basic decision rules that, you know, you could choose from. Um, the most common is like leader decides with input, right? So, you know, like to acknowledge— okay, I— let's say I'm the CEO and you're the COO, let's say, or CTO. Um, so on these types of decisions, like you know, let's say hiring, you know, for certain roles, maybe even like fundraising.

Budget below a certain dollar amount.

Yeah, capital allocation. Like, I'm going to seek your input and then I'm going to decide. So just that, you know, so it's like I'm not going to— I might not decide unilaterally. Like, I want your input. You're going to be involved. But I'm the decider. And like, that clarity is, you know, saves a ton of, you know, frustration and inefficiency down the road. Now, there could be decisions that you decide require unanimous consent, like selling the company. Yeah, right. If we get an acquisition offer, basically what you're saying is either of us can veto it.

Yeah.

Like, we will only sell it if both of us agree. But that should be the vast minority of decisions. Otherwise, what do you do when you disagree? Then you're just stuck. Yeah, right. Um, or at least if you have some mechanism for unanimous consent, you know, within a reasonable time frame, and then we'll— and then I'll decide. Or— and then, like, there— even with that, with any unanimous consent, there needs to be some backup option, or we'll go to, like, a third party or a board or something like that.

Because if it's, yeah, so those are the rules are generally, I guess the buckets just to have them. There's, we have to agree every for this set of things. We all, we all have to agree. Let's call it.

Yeah.

This set of things, one of us decides with the inputs from the other.

Yes.

You could do a majority rule.

You could do majority rules. And then you could do no input, just, you know, like for minor, where do you know, which office are we going to have? What it's just like, yeah, you just, you just own that and you You just do it. So a leader decides without input.

And I would submit, I think early on it's kind of scary because you're co-founding and maybe you also, again, you want this harmony and you, and you may be afraid to have the conversation. I would just submit that the fast, like I am now at this stage of my journey, the faster I can push decision authority to a person or to myself, just, it's just the clarity of who's going to, hey, you go, you know, you're going to go figure that out. Or I think the other thing we didn't really talk about that I think is valuable is a proposal or recommendation culture. And I think you can institute that quickly with co-founders of like, again, it could be even if it's majority rule, one of us takes the ball and one of us says, here's what I recommend we go do. Somebody thinks it through and that can be a very powerful way. And again, more over time you're like, well, you just start making these decisions. I don't want to keep doing it.

Yeah. And I like your use of this idea of failure mode. I would say the failure mode here is the default to unanimous consent. Yeah. That's what tends to happen is you don't have the discussion. Okay, we're co-founders. And then every kind of major decision, you just sort of— and it works for a while because, you know, there might— if you're somewhat aligned, yeah, I agree, I agree.

Okay.

But then you hit it, you know, you hit it. Well, one, it's way less efficient. And then, yeah, you— what happens when you hit something where you don't agree and now there's like this big conflict around it because it's like you, you have to get to unanimous consent when that shouldn't have been, you know, the necessary standard.

Yeah. One hack for me, by the way, in all, in all discussions like this, even whether co-founder otherwise, is just saying out loud how, how strongly I feel about the given, both for myself and for others. Because, you know, this was a— people love Jesse hacks like this, but like, I was like, you know, I have a persuasive way of talking. I was a debater. Like, I'll say something and people go, oh my gosh, you feel— and then I'm like, I'll say, well, here's what I think. I don't feel strongly about this at all. Like, you can, you know, or no. And again, more importantly than the I don't feel strongly, which is most of thing— most decisions in my experience, when I do say I feel strongly, then everybody pays attention, right? Or if I have the authority, I have the authority. But like, yeah, but I think that's a good little hack to get.

I think that is a good hack. There, there's a related hack um, this is useful for co-founders, also just useful for meetings in general, which is polling. So what happens in even with leader decides with input, right? Um, like you get kind of like what you're saying, you get input from people and they're like, yeah, I disagree, I think this is not the best path forward, blah blah blah. And it's very like qualitative and it's, it's hard as the leader to really like assess accurately where is everybody around this issue. So if instead, or at the end of that, you say, okay, well, let's just do a poll, right? 1 is I hate this, you know, 5 is I love this, right? Whatever decision you're trying to make, you know, where's everybody at? And I've seen many examples where like people are vehemently arguing, like maybe because like you, they like to do it. And then, you know, you go around and people like, oh, I'm at like a 3, 4, 3, you know, 4. And you're like, wait, what?

Like, right.

Oh, so we're all at 4. Yeah, I was just, we were just talking about it. So I was arguing why it might not work. Yeah. Um, and that can cut through a lot of that noise. And so similarly, co-founders could do this, like, hold on. Okay, I hear you saying you don't prefer it. Where, like, 1 to 5, are you, is it's kind of similar to what you said about just quantifying it. Like, are you a 1? Like, you actually hate this? Oh no, no, no, I'm, I'm at like a 3. Okay, fine. You're a 3. I'm a 5. We're doing it.

Cause you can kind of figure out what to do too. It's like if everyone's generally aligned, then it's like, let's make it a little bit better and keep moving.

Yes.

Versus let's pause and actually like reconsider everything that's going on. What are other—

so let's go to maintenance. Do you wanna go to maintenance? Cause you—

yeah.

Yeah. I mean, so yes, there's a lot that can happen up front. And again, the more I think the overarching theme is the more explicit, the more clear, the more explicit you can be about your dreams, your vision. What you're committed to, how you want to do it, what you want to do. And the more explicit you can be about like the nuance, clear agreements, the likely more effective you'll be. Um, and then once you've got that foundation set, uh, how do you maintain a good working relationship? And for me, the 80/20 there is a meeting about the relationship. Yeah. And by the way, very few people do this. Very, very few. They meet about work, they meet, or they don't meet. But like, I have seen this make a world of difference where there's like a maybe weekly, you know, maybe biweekly, at least monthly, you know, maybe it's a dinner or lunch, but like some meeting where it's like, hey, how is our relationship going? You know, what's frustrating you? Like, it's kind of like a clearing because stuff builds up. Yeah, like just naturally we get frustrated with each other, and if we don't make space to kind of clear that out, um, or to get, you know, to see where we're off, out of alignment, um, and then as part of that meeting, um, and in general, like, the more you're committed to candor— so I'd say those two things, um, commitment to candor of actually— so the, the very explicit agreement, you know, from Conscious Leadership is if I have a thought or feeling related to you three or more times I will tell you, because that, that, that, or that feels important. But generally, if it feels important, it pops up 3 or more times. Um, and ideally you do that all the time, but, but the reality from my experience is if there's not that explicit meeting, sometimes you're not— you just don't pay attention to it or you don't think about it. So it's a chance to say, okay, yeah, I've had this. I, yeah, I've had this thought or feeling. Look, I'm annoyed when you do this thing I feel frustrated, I feel annoyed, and I don't want you to do that or treat me this way. Or, you know, and it's amazing how like doing that on a regular basis can like reset and clear out all this like, you know, resentment and like the cobwebs that can kind of build up in the relationship. So to me, that's the 80/20, is that combination of like the meeting but in that meeting you're truly candid with each other about each other and the relationship, right?

And candid with love, but like, but candid and sharing what's true for you. Yeah, I would—

yes. Um, to me, the, the another way to think about the distinction is like, it's the purpose of the candor is revealing, right? It's not manipulative. I'm not trying to control you, manipulate you, get you to do it differently. I'm using that time to reveal, hey, when you do this, I have this experience. I'm not blaming you and I'm not saying you're doing it wrong. I just want you to know when this happens, I have this experience, I have this feeling.

And this is effectively the how to adjust the constitution, right? Because if you're having this meeting on a weekly basis and then you're constantly talking about it, you have a space and an area to basically address how to evolve the relationship over time, which is, you know, I think more businesses fail because of the founder relationship than any other reason.

Yeah, I think that's right.

Right.

And yeah, if stuff just builds and builds, it's just harder and harder to resolve it down the road, right? It's just like so much, you know, resentment and anger and frustration and like just two different human beings trying to get stuff done together. Like, there's just naturally going to be friction points, and that's normal, and that's okay. But from my experience, revealing them actually like releases that tension and pressure. Even if nothing changes, just having shared it instead of bottling it— like, if you withhold, you just naturally disconnect from the other person. That disconnection grows over time, and you can start seeing each other like through the lens of these stories you make up about each other instead of just like actually as, as you are as human beings.

How often would you have that meeting?

I would say at least once a month, but, um, maybe even every other week at the beginning.

Yeah.

Like, I don't think it necessarily has to be.

And I think also I would just call out, like, it's, it's like everything, it requires practice and try, like, it's not something for anyone listening, especially if you're a first-time co-founder, like, The first few meetings are not— they're gonna be awkward or uncomfortable, or you won't, you know, and that's just part of the, part of the practice of like anything.

Agreed.

Awesome. Anything else to end it on, on the maintenance side of this?

I do think, um, I think the most the healthiest co-founder relationships, you pay a lot of attention to how connected we feel. So, I just want to name that as like a measure, like just to kind of be monitoring and measuring like how connected do we feel? And if it lessens to actually put attention on like, hey, let's do what we can to feel connected. Like, I think that people underrate how much that matters. And then I would challenge most co-founders to, to see the growth of their co-founder as one of the most critical success factors for the company. So it's like part of win for all is like, I'm committed to you growing in the ways you want to grow and you're committed to me growing. And then we use the company and the relationship to support that growth. That is a really powerful context to come from.

Yeah, that's a great one to end on. Yeah. Ultimately, your co-founder relationship is your— one of your highest acts of service, similar to your spouse. It's like if you can serve that person and serve— serving doesn't mean do everything they say or want. Serve means helping them grow, you know, be the best version of themselves. It, it will be very powerful for you, powerful for them, powerful for the company, and lead to a lot of good stuff.

And ideally to recognize you're kind of sparring partners for each other. So you are going to trigger each other. Try not to take it personally. Just look at it as like, oh, thank you for showing me this thing that I get triggered by, you know, which it's easy to say, hard to do. But if you can aspire to that and over time get to that place where you're really supporting each other's self-awareness.

All right, co-founder relationships, great episode, off the cuff. Thanks, Dave.

I like it. All right, see you soon. Bye.