How to Build Trust Among Co-Founders in Startups

Welcome to Heart of Entrepreneurship. I'm Jesse Pujji with my co-host Dave Kashen and my longtime coach. What's up, Dave?

What's up, Jesse?

Heart of Entrepreneurship is our little corner of the podcast sphere where we talk about building businesses from heart and we challenge the notion that success requires suffering. That came out the wrong way this time, but anyway, um, so I got a good topic. That I just thought of.

Great. Awesome.

So I met a kid today who's really awesome, and I took him for a walk, and he's, you know, 26 years old, Wharton like you and me, worked at McKinsey, and now has a startup that he's bootstrapped actually that's doing really well. It's like, you know, and he actually has 3 equal co-founders, his best friends from high school, so I was like very déjà vu-y of of my experience. And he was asking me, you know, he was like, well, you know, what, how do you, you know, how do you deal with this? How do you deal with that? Co-founder disagreements. And I started sort of introducing him to like, I started giving him a framework essentially for like, okay, you're in this thing where you have 3 co-founders. None of them have titles yet, which is a very common young early co-founder thing. You know, they, they obviously are very close friends, so they intuitively work nicely together, which is always a good thing. There's trust there. Um, and let me just tell you what I told him, and then I'm curious, as like, if you were talking to a 26-year-old founder, and that's like, it's first-time founder, that's another big part of it. How would you start to give them a frame for their own growth and development for building a love-oriented startup. Um, and yes, okay, so what I told him— do you want to say something?

Uh, just to be clear, the, the frame, the frame you're giving is a particular emphasis on first time and like just at the beginning and young. Yeah, young, first time, just starting out.

As a—

because there could be— there's lots of first-time founders that are 3 years in.

Yeah, yeah, younger, ambitious founder, very smart, great, but like, you know, indecisive. Like, they don't, you know, they don't want to get the answer right versus understanding that that's not a thing. And, and, um, yeah. And so what I, what I told him, I said, look, I said, the first step for, for you and, and ideally your co-founders is to have I was like, the first step is to build, start building your own individual self-awareness. Um, because, and, and, and then, you know, I always tell the story about you. I was like, why, you know, and he had worked at McKinsey, so we share this. Like, well, self-awareness in McKinsey land is here's my strengths and here's my development areas. And if you can say those openly, you're people like, whoa, you're pretty self-aware. And that was like when I met you, I was like, yeah, I'm honest with myself about where I am. But then self-awareness, as, as you know, is like I was like, it's many levels deeper than that. What are you feeling in any given moment? What's— what are emotional things you avoid? What are— so I was like, I was like, if you guys can first individually and then maybe together as a group start building your own awareness of yourself, and that could be taking the Enneagram, and, you know, McKinsey does Myers-Briggs. I was like, any of those tools are helpful. And then, like, I was like, okay, so first you build your individual self-awareness, and then can you start to build more Trust. And I, where I started was candor, like revealing. So once you know yourself, can you start to regularly with each other, the co-founders be like, and then we, so revealing, meaning sharing what's true for you in any given moment, being willing to share the sort of scary thought in your head that you may not wanna say.

Mm-hmm.

Then we start talking about unarguable language, which is like, instead of saying, you know, you made me, you made me, or we should go do this. You say like, I, I think this is a good idea, or I keep having this thought, or I'd like to go do this. As a way to build the connective tissue. And then that kind of went into a bunch of other things around decision authority, clear agreements, a lot of it from Conscious Leadership and from the 15 Commitments. I'm trying to think what else I said to him. It was like 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago. Yeah, there was a bunch of other parts around like the journey with each other and how do you start to really look at each other as, as sort of helpful in each other's growth. And I think the biggest thing I said for friends, I mean, having my own experience with friends who are co-founders, I think you do tend to leave a lot to like, we know each other, it's all good. We trust each other, but that builds a lot of resentments and unsaids that actually end up harming the partnership. Um, but anyway, that's what I told him.

Great. Well, I, uh, all of that resonates with me. I'm glad you told them that. I'll share the thoughts. There's sort of two different threads I noticed in my mind. One is the one you started on, which is individually, how do we sort of intentionally, proactively go on this, you know, self-discovery journey through the experience of the startup? The other one is collectively, how do we set ourselves up to thrive as a, you know, co-founder team? And, um, you know, as you know, I, I started a, um, venture capital fund with one of my best friends. And, uh, so I'm keenly aware of the joys and the perils. Um, from my perspective, it's been amazing, net-net, but like the joys, perils, and challenges of starting something, co-founding something with someone you already have a personal relationship with. Um, and I'd say that the biggest risk of it is that that personal relationship biases you to do things that aren't actually best for yourself, for the business, for, you know, um, or and/or the risk of rupture of that relationship.

Yeah, that's what I was—

creates so much fear that like you just can't operate from presence. Um, so I just want to name that. So, so let me put, you know, you put some attention on, um, the individual path. Let me put some attention on the, the collective path for a few minutes here.

Um, well, actually, no, let's, let's actually do the first one first. Like, what— okay, when you're related, but we can do the first one first as an individual because I actually started doing the collective and I was like, well, I don't know your co-founders, let me just give—

I guess you talked about candor. Go ahead. How would you as an individual, if you're coaching an individual founder who's young and early in the journey and you're saying, hey, you got to build your own self-awareness first before you, you know Yeah, so first and foremost, like, when I start working with a new client, or even before that, frankly, when I talk to a potential new client, um, I usually try to flip the script and reorient the whole conversation from I'm going to coach you to build self-awareness to be more effective so that your company can be successful to your company, your startup is a dojo for your personal and spiritual growth.

Yeah.

So that reorientation is massive and, you know, really profoundly shifts the context of the experience. And then all of the setbacks and challenges that inevitably arise, including the interpersonal ones, they become like your sparring partners in your dojo. And so it's like, oh wow, okay, how do I stay present, at least in, you know, in the work that, that I do and you do. Um, how do I stay above the line? How do I stay present even when my co-founder does this thing, or even when we're disagreeing, or, you know, and all of the challenges, interpersonal and otherwise, become opportunities to, you know, to build that self-discovery, self-awareness. So, you know, yes, those tools like Enneagram, Myers-Briggs are useful. You know, any kind of self-awareness expansion I think is useful. And my favorite way to do it is in the wild, in the game, while you're building the company. Can I just say that?

Yeah, go ahead. I want to dive deeper on that because I think it's— I said that to him. And in his case, he sort of readily accepted it. But I think a lot of people you talk to, founders, they don't readily accept it. They go, no, the purpose of me starting the business is to make my mark on the world or make a lot of money or be successful, live up to my potential. How do you— if Andrew was on the call and he was being skeptical about that premise, how would you start to— I don't know if convince is the right word, but how would you start to help people see the opportunity in—

Yeah, that's well said.

—using your startup as a personal growth vehicle?

What I typically say is that you get to win twice, right? So if, if you make the company's success primary, then you will start to sacrifice and trade off personal growth, you know, um, you know, making authentic choices that in the short term might risk the company or the company's success, um, taking the time to do some of the deep inner work, you know, self-care. So from my experience, if you're attached to the outcome and you make the outcome primary, you almost— it just— I know this because, you know, what's— there's that expression I love, um, good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. Right. So I've had clients that I sort of, um, corroborated with them around like, okay, we're going to make you successful, right? That's my job. I'm your coach. I'm going to, you know— and we didn't create that different orientation. And when things got hard and when, um, things got stressful and like they would skip maybe our sessions because, well, I need to take this, you know, I need this time to go make that one extra customer call or write more code or, um, and they would, you know, you know, we'd get back together and they wouldn't have done the work because they were too busy, you know, in the startup to work on the startup or on themselves. So I think that's like the, the risk of not doing it and then doing it being like orienting yourself in your startup as like a platform for growth. Um, from my experience, the upside, the benefit is you get to grow and maximize your growth and, and self-discovery and self-awareness. Um, and the more you, uh, the more aware you are of your patterns, the more you see through them, the more you operate as your authentic essential self— from my experience at least— the more effective and the easier it becomes to create, you know, the outcomes you really want.

Yeah. That resonates a lot, I guess. I like you get to win twice. I oftentimes will say you are the ceiling of your startup. Yeah.

The startup will most people have had the experience of being in a flow state and they know like it's almost wild how powerful you are when you're in flow and you're like, right. How did I just do that? It's almost like magical. Like I can't believe what I just created. That was like 10x. The local maximum that we're trying, those kind of experiences. So, that's kind of in the realm we're talking about is—

Or like another question I'll ask is, do you think your company will be better if you're not better in a year? Right. If your skills do not improve, if you're— And self-awareness, I also described to this kid today as like, we need to come up with a good— we can do this live of like a good— self-awareness is like the magic. It's the opposite of kryptonite. I don't know. It's like the magical thing that can actually make you better in all the other places because once you—

It's like the amulet or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Like no matter what power you want, if you can—

the rising tide that lifts all the boats, uh, we can find a good metaphor.

It's the core skill essentially, because if you have that, all the other skills will—

it is. Well, yes, and while everyone can choose their own path, I, I don't try to judge or know what other people's paths are. I do think at some level, like the deeper game we're all playing is this game of like awakening to our essential self. Sure. So both makes you more effective in the sort of worldly game, and also I think is a more direct path to the ultimate freedom, joy, you know, well-being that is the end of the rainbow we're all kind of chasing anyway, right? Um, I want to share one other thing, which is I think the hardest part of this conversation is there are tons of examples of wildly successful companies, you know, financially successful at the least, um, and even world-changing and world-impacting, that clearly seem to be built from, you know, by people who are not that self-aware, who operate from a lot of fear, who others would describe as like a dictator, tyrant, or at least like harsh, or you know, aggressive or ruthless. Um, any— you know, the business world, ruthlessness is a— is, is sort of lauded. Like, you have to be ruthless. You have—

so I think, you know, even the, the premise of who say that struggle is required for success, they actually say—

yeah, that's where I was going to go. The premise of the podcast, success without suffering, is— might be pretty, um, uh, provocative for a lot of people who believe that It is that struggle that creates suffering, right? Suffering, that's true too, but that struggle that creates success. Um, and you know, there's a lot of nuance here because we're not saying you just like work an hour a day and like magically envision and it's all going to unfold. You know, there's this concept called Wu Wei that I may have mentioned before. I really like it. Um, it's the definition I like is effortless action. Right. So it's not no action. There's lots of action occurring. Like, yeah, sure. I don't think any of us are delusional to think that like with a very little action, you can build a world-changing multi-billion dollar business. Like that seems absurd. Maybe now with AI actually, but until recently, kind of an absurd idea. Um, and, and I haven't seen it done. You can have lots of action that doesn't feel like efforting and struggle and sacrifice. Um, but again, you know, I, I just, I want to sort of stipulate, acknowledge, you can build a wildly successful business with little self-awareness, um, at least a certain degree, with lots of fear, you know, with lots of ruthlessness.

Most companies and things have been built that way. I mean, most governments are run that way.

Most— I think so too. Yeah, we're, we're sort of standing for like a new, better— what I believe, what we believe is a new better way because I've seen it, you've seen it, you know, we've experienced the contrast and we know it's possible to be successful without suffering. Like, we're here standing for like, let's raise the bar, right? Like, in some way, I might argue it's easier to be successful while suffering and struggling. That's kind of the easy path because humans are wired for threat. It's just more natural, right? So let's raise the bar and challenge people to create as or more successful companies without suffering. So, you know, when we say you'll be more— well, I said it very precisely, and people may not have heard it. Um, what I usually say, it becomes easier and easier to create the outcomes you want, right? Which is, I think, both, um, true at the feeling level. It just feels easier. It's like you maybe you're creating the same outcomes, but it feels easier And there is some weirdness that I don't really understand around flow and synchronicity and serendipity and magic, where, you know, you and I and, and hundreds of clients I've worked with have experienced these— like, maybe they're just statistically anomalous, you know, coincidences, but it sure doesn't feel that way. Like, when you're in a certain state, those things seem— at least seem to happen a lot more frequently. And I know for my own life, like, just the ease in which I'm able to create more and more extraordinary outcomes, seems to expand in direct correlation to the sort of, I don't know, frequency I'm vibrating at, the state I'm in.

So, so if, if in this, this guy, he was like, yeah, sure, I, I, I get it. Like, I— he didn't, he didn't push back in this case. Yeah. What would be— what's your sort of Dave's guide to the first 5 steps of building individual self-awareness? Individual self-awareness, um, within the context of a startup. So he's a founder, he's like, you know, okay, I'll, I'll get it, I'll make it my dojo.

Yeah, well, let me, uh, let me kind of make— maybe I'll make two paths because for so long I've used the Conscious Leadership Framework, that's where I default to. So what that path looks like, and that would probably be my default recommendation, Um, step 1, read The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, the book and the, the commitments themselves. Um, step 2, be really honest with yourself if you're willing to commit to those 15 commitments. And actually, like, commit, like, not in language but in, in orientation and action. Like, I'm gonna live this way and I'm gonna be excited if somebody tells me that I'm not because I know they're trying to help me grow, and I'm going to look for, you know, opportunities to notice when I'm not and shift. And so, because to me, commitment is primary, right? It's just like how we've oriented ourselves, um, which one of the, one of the Conscious Leadership worksheets says at the top, like, commitment is from the Latin committere, which is to organizing and to organize our energy in a chosen direction, right? Like, there's tremendous power in human beings in commitment. So, that would be after understanding what the 15 commitments are. That's step 1. Step 2 would be committing to them. And frankly, those 2 steps, if you earnestly and honestly commit, like, that's the 80/20, and the rest is sort of just the kind of filling in the bones. But it's useful, or putting meat on the bones, I think is the expression. So, step 3 would probably be some kind of ritual, like a weekly check-in with myself of like, how am I doing? You know, which of the commitments— you know, it could be nightly or daily.

Would you have something journal in that case? Or like, what do you—

how do you check in with journal? Um, it's almost like a meeting with yourself, which could be in the form of journaling. It could be like you literally print out the 15 Commandments and you read them and you're like, how am I doing on each of them? Right? Okay, so number 1, responsibility. Oh yeah, I've been blaming a lot. I've been blaming myself. Okay, I got, you know, number 2, curiosity versus being right. Oh yeah, I notice I keep wanting to be right. So there's, there's some kind of, um, some kind of ritual. Yeah, audit. Yeah, self-audit, right? Like, you know, this is the old adage, like, you, you manage what you measure, right? So some way you're measuring, am I actually living these commitments? Um, you know, I often, especially early on, will invite clients You know, the first step, as you know, of the— of becoming a conscious leader is building awareness around context, around the question of where am I? Am I operating from threat or presence? So maybe step 4 is some kind of structure to remind you throughout the day to just check, do a line check, right? Where am I, above or below the line? Um, that— there's an app called Yap that I have some clients download that's like random reminders.

Some people will have the— just checking, am I feeling like threatened and closed off, or am I feeling open and sort of curious?

And yes, am I blaming, or am I trying to take responsibility?

Am I truly— two things that I— that you had me do that I always tell— I told this kid today. One, what was like really surprising for me was paying attention to my— the sensations in my body. And I just, I don't think up until then in my life, I was, was 2018, so I was 34. Like up until that time, I don't think I'd ever actually understood or known I might, there was like bodily sensations happening that were indicative of how I might be feeling. And so for me, that was just like, or what state you're in to the, or what state I'm in. Like, oh, like just noticing if like, if I feel tightness in my chest or by clenching something, or like— and I think that was like a really, uh, valuable way for me to just understand how I felt. And like, and it became like a self-awareness mechanism of— because then when it was— it would be— you notice it's different if you checked it 5 times a day. You're like, oh, right now I feel this. I'm like, oh, that's weird, that's interesting. And it just became a jumping-off point to start to— kind of interesting place for curiosity to start as to why I might have been feeling that way. And like There's like, you know, you and I both listened to Ram Dass. Like, there's almost an acknowledgement that there's a different intelligence that I think this is like worth talking about for a second of like that, you know, women historically were called, oh, intuitive. And even in my marriage, Dee would say like, I don't know, I just don't like the feeling I have around that person. I'm like, what are you talking about? That's what kind of nonsense are you speaking? And then as I like, it turns out she was very right about this different type of intelligence. I was totally wrong about it, which was that there's a lot of stuff going on that's really, really helpful for your state and just even decisioning and all that stuff.

Yeah, I've heard it described as BQ, right? So, there's IQ, EQ, and then there's BQ, which is like body quotient, body intelligence, right? Can you actually use your body as a source of intelligence? Oh, there's constriction in my stomach. What's that? What's that telling me? Um, because, you know, they're super sensitive signals we have here. And, um, yeah, I, I can generally feel in my body, you know, some kind of constriction that tells me I'm below the line. I, I like— if you think about the concept of flow, right, being in a flow state, like, I think the metaphor of a river is really useful. Like, imagine you're floating down a river and If you're just like going with the river, you know, you feel pretty open, right? You're, you're just in, in the flow. But if you get scared about where the river's taking you, right? I often give clients an example of like you see a log off in the distance that looks like an alligator. Oh God, you can almost feel immediately in your body, right? Flight, fight or flight. You're trying to swim upstream. Holding on to a branch, right? So you kind of go in and out of flow, right? Being in flow with life, essentially. Um, by—

the irony, by the way, is even if it was an alligator and you just stayed in the raft, you probably— he would probably wouldn't even know.

Well, that's true too. Yeah, all the, all the things you do to keep yourself safe might actually make you more at risk. That's, that's a good— that's interesting point. Um, I was going to make— I, I like this really simple point, and then I'll come back to the fifth you know, close of like— I think it's— I think Buddhism, you know, espouses this, like, back to like the river and the flow. There's, um, what takes you out of flow is resistance and attachment. That's just like a really simple— you know, you can see, like, if you're swimming against the stream or if you're trying to hold on to a branch, right, and like stay, stay there, you know, or, or trying like desperately to get somewhere else, you know. Um, so that's a really simple way that I, I find useful to just think about, am I in flow or am I resisting something or am I attached to something? Um, so what would be the fifth kind of step? Um, so you've, you've, you've started to build this practice of where I am.

One tidbit real quick, by the way, we were talking about like body intelligence. Like I've been reading all these things lately that the heart and the gut actually have neurons in them.

So for the science mind, they talk about the gut brain.

Yeah, like, so the, the heart has like apparently this really unique— it has its own independent way of thinking effectively. And same thing with the gut. And like, it's just interesting, science is like capturing up to a lot of the stuff that's like woo historically, you know. And, and anyway, that was just an interesting tidbit that that stuff is They're finding that stuff is realer than people realized.

Yes. Which is pretty amazing. Like, yeah, our brain is everywhere. It's not just the neurons here. There's neurons here, neurons here. Um, I don't know. What's the fifth step?

Well, another one that I say often for me at least was, was like paying more attention to my language and language ended up being a very, a very sort of quick window for me in self-awareness. So. When I was like using words like should, must, have to, that was a sign I was usually not, you know, I like that in a threatened state. Whereas when I was like, oh, this would be amazing, or how cool would this be? Or I'm curious about that. And just for me, language in general, especially in a conversation with your co-founders, which kind of segues into the next part of this, but like when I'm talking to people or disagreeing, like, how am I disagreeing? Am I, am I curious or am I like really digging into my, my rightness? I—

one of my favorites, one of my favorite, um, distinctions to give founders early on— so this might be the fifth thing— is, um, it's related to what you're saying but a little distinct: communicating to control versus communicating to reveal. And it relates to being, you know, above and below the line. If we really reflect, most of the time we're communicating to control. It's like, what do I say to get this person to do this? I think that and feel that, right? Because we're attached to the outcome, we're trying to control things. Um, and you know, I have clients all the time, Dave, how do I get this person to do this? How do I get this person on my team to do that? And often I'm like, well, have you told them you want them to? Um, so the way I usually explain communicating the reveal is like, imagine you're a reporter right? And you're like, you're really good, you're so good, you got the inside scoop on Jesse Pujji, so inside that you can hear his thoughts and feel his feelings, right? And then you're just reporting, like, this just in, Jesse felt scared when you said this thing, Jesse had the thought, blah blah blah. And life gets so much easier and seems to flow a lot more when you're just like the reporter of your interior world so that other people know what's going on with you. Not to absurdity, you don't share every single thought and feeling, but when you're going to communicate, right, one of the, the Conscious Leadership agreements is like 3 or more times. If I have a thought about someone 3 or more times, right, I share it. Good one. Which I think is useful. I think we talked about that at one point. Or a strong feeling, I share it. So, you know, or by the way, just a want. I mean, this is one of the simplest, most effective and underutilized leadership tools I think there is. Just like, hey, so-and-so, I really want you to step up your game, and I really want you to double-check your work before you hand it in, right? It's such a different conversation than, hey, when you do the work, you know, when you're trying to manipulate someone, they feel it. It's like playing chess in your mind. It takes a lot of energy. So much easier just like, here are my thoughts, here are my feelings, here are my wants, like it's unarguable, to your point about speaking unarguably, that you have those thoughts, that you have those feelings, you have that. So there's— it's less likely to result in argument and drama. And, um, yeah, it's just like a, um, I think it's a huge unlock. So that might be step 5. And it's a nice— and also a nice way to tell if you're operating from threat and trying to control things versus operating from presence and just sharing and revealing and being authentic, you know, sort of without trying to, you know, control the situation. Yeah. All right.

So, so individually, founders follow those tips and start to build some self-awareness. Yes. Now, as a group, you know, again, it's very common to have a few co-founders who are friends, young, starting their first business. Yeah. How do you start to help them? Yeah, good.

So, by the way, I said I'd present another 5-step path. I don't think I will. I'll just say that if you don't like— if you don't want to go whole hog on the 15 commitments, I don't know, take maybe the first 6 or some of them. And like, even if you don't practice it in the framework of conscious leadership, like taking responsibility, right, being curious, like, um, revealing your truth, right? Like, those are generally good principles to operate by. So do some version of the 5 steps without, you know, the whole framework would be like the— my alternative B. Okay, so, um, I had a coach once who said the key to thriving relationships is shared commitments and clear agreements. So we can— let's unpack that a little bit because there's commitments in terms of what we're building and how we're building it. And both are important. So one thing I have done with early co-founders is like, okay, each of you individually, like, create your 10 out of 10 vision, right? If this thing goes as well as you could possibly imagine, it's like, it's like your dream scenario. What does that look like? And each of you do that separately without influencing each other. And then you go and share it. And it can be scary because it's like, oh, what if we're not aligned? But like, God, better to know that. Now than like find out later, right? And if you're good friends and you're somewhat conscious, generally, you can find a win for all, right? Like, you don't have to have the exact same vision, but it's really useful to surface where are the differences, where are the possible tension points. Oh, I want to do this for the next 10 years, take it public, build a legacy business. I want to do it for the next 2 years, make a bunch of money and like go hang on the beach. Like, those are very different, you know, visions. And, you know, again, um, it's okay potentially to have different visions, but if you have them and don't know it, I mean, it's just going to cause so much friction and tension.

You're going to be arguing. I would also add, I would add to that, not only is like where do you want to go vision-wise important, but even how do you want the day-to-day to be. Totally. In terms of like, maybe call it culture, or call it like, how do we want to operate?

Are we 996? Are we hustle? Yeah, exactly.

Because I think a lot of like stem from actually not like— everyone's like, sure, let's say everyone's like, I want to build a billion-dollar business, whatever. But then like, how? Like, how? And like, in some ways it's almost like, how committed are you to that? Or what nature— what's the nature in which— how do you want to feel every day? How do you want to feel with each other? How do you—

yeah, we don't want our culture to feel like— what kind of people do we want to work with? Or, you know, ultimately value— in some way you're describing values, right? Mission and values, or vision and values, right? No. We're not inventing that, right? There's lots of frameworks and books and things written about like, get clear about your vision and values, but easier said than done. Yeah.

And I think it's more important for it to be bottom-up like versus top. Like I think a lot of people go like, oh, let's all stand for speed as a value. But it's much more interesting to say like, do we get back to every email by the end of end of day, no matter what? Like, is that just the way we work? And then you can sort of usually pull those up into actual values.

Yeah. And that, and that, well, I'll refer to it two ways. I mentioned shared commitments and clear agreements. So you're starting to get into the clear agreements. Like another way, if I was specifically doing like a culture development, you know, program or, or, you know, consulting around that, um, we would generally talk about observable behaviors. Right? So it's like one thing to have a set of values on, you know, on the wall, right? Uh, speed, integrity, you know, truth. Um, but those can be so ambiguous as to be, you know, uh, not meaningful and not useful. And even worse, like, I think it's way worse to have a set of defined values that you don't live or that like aren't clear, right? It's just, it may like, people just roll their eyes and become skeptical. So yeah, I like, if I was working with a team, I would take each value or, or you can do it like you said, sort of, um, uh, what's the word? Um, reciprocally, no, reflexively, where you first figure out the behaviors and then figure out what are the values these behaviors represent.

Well, I think observable behaviors is a great, is like a great frame for that. Like what behaviors are we gonna, yeah.

And it basically is clear agreements. And by the way, the way I've been doing this lately, cuz I just find it, it creates more of a connection to reality. Is I'll literally be like, all right guys, we're going to create a 360 performance review survey, but instead of performance, it's going to be culture. So we're going to create a 360 culture review survey. So on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 is not at all, 5 is all the time, you know, to what degree does Jesse Pujji do the following behaviors? What do you want on that survey? Right. Right. Because then it's like, it becomes, because you're actually creating the survey that you're going to use to evaluate each other. It becomes real, less abstract. Like, oh yeah, what's the culture like? It's like, what are we, you know, what are we going to reward people for? What are we going to promote for? What are we going to fire for? Like, let's build a survey, you know, like a, like a feedback, you know, system, um, that in addition, you know, separate from the performance is like a purely cultural behavior-based survey. Right? Oh, goes out of his way or her way to support others, you know, you know, goes above and beyond, you know, like Netflix had a, it was really good about articulating these clearly, like only says to others, um, you know, to their face, like never says anything that they wouldn't say to the, you know, person's face, you know, like that's a very different degree of precision than like transparency. Doesn't gossip.

But even doesn't gossip is like a, I feel like too vague in some sense, right? Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's very precise, observable. You could, you could pretty easily rate your colleagues. So that I think is a version of clear agreements that's kind of at the like cultural DNA level. So I think defining that is really useful. Um, again, as well as the vision and just kind of getting clear, like, okay, well, given these differences, what might the tension points be and how might we resolve them? Right. And cause it's okay. Like maybe one founder plans to do 2 years and then move on and another founder plans to do 10. Like it's workable. Um, even like one founder wants to like 996, what, you know, what's 996? It's like 9 hours.

It's what we did in finance, dude.

I know, but what is the actual 996? Oh, 9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week. We worked way more than that at finance. Exactly.

Um, and I saw, I was on Twitter and I was like, I was like, guys, this is just like entry-level work at any sort of ambitious place. Like 9 PM, that's like dinner time. And by the way, what's interesting, by the way, just as a little aside on that, like there's controversy and people go back and forth on all of this. But like in finance and consulting to some extent in a different way because you're traveling a lot, but like there's very clear— nobody— those, those cultures all work because no one signs up for it not knowing that that's what's going to end up happening.

That's true, right? That's the whole point. Shared commitments and clear agreements, right? For me, I was like, I'm just doing 2 extra years of college. Like I pulled all-nighters in college studying for tests and I did with buddies and it was fun. And I pulled all-nighters at Goldman with my friends who were there and it was like, you know, it was fun. It was just part of the deal and it wasn't a problem. Now, that doesn't mean that like, you know, we're kind of even now I feel us a little bit like, look how, look at us, we crush, you know, we were able to do that, right? Like, I think we do have a culture that maybe overly rewards those cultures because, you know, to the detriment of potentially operating at your optimal output as opposed to input. Um, and of course those things are correlated to a point. Uh, but point is you can even have differences. This is a point I was trying to make in at the level of how, if they're clear and you have a, a set of agree— like I have, I, I can think of at least some, um, companies that I'm coaching, or I'm coaching, you know, multiple founders, um, where they actually have, they do have different levels of intensity and they know it and they're clear about it and they're both okay with it. Yeah. So it can work, but God, if you don't have clear conversations about it.

One of the things I mentioned, I mentioned the kids, I was like, you know, again, just how you even process information. Like if, if I like talking out loud and you like to digest overnight and like, and if we don't, so that's one thing to have that it's another thing if we don't give, like we don't create the space for each other to do it that way. And it's almost, it's very common that, that, that actually becomes a failure pattern for founders when one, one's a processor and one's an out loud talker. And then a lot of times the out loud talker is dominating it or they wanna move too quickly and then the person's not fully online. Like they don't agree with it because they haven't had time to process it. And so there's these things that happen, I think, as you build or, or with a team that can be, there's a lot of failure patterns in this. Um, what are other failure patterns that you observe? Uh, specifically group dynamic, like co-founder, where it goes wrong for well-intentioned co-founder. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you named the biggest one, which is lack of candor, specifically thoughts about each other, about the relationships that are not said, you know, there's this pattern. Um, of with withhold, withdraw, project, right? I withhold my truth, I just naturally disconnect from you, maybe subtly, and then I just start seeing you through the lens of some story I have about you and ignore the disconfirming evidence. And that builds over time and creates ruptures. Um, the other one is lack of clear agreements around like critical things like roles, responsibilities, decision authority, equity, Lack of good governance structures like vesting. I feel like maybe we talked about this, but I mean, I've been there. Like, there is this Pollyanna, like, we're friends, it's all going to be amazing, we're all going to contribute equally. Like, it rarely goes that way. I'm sorry, it just rarely does. It does sometimes, but rare. And you want to have mechanisms to adjust things like, like preconceived mechanisms. Like, what if we're not all contributing equally or perceiving, you know, each other's value? I'm just in a scenario where you're, let's say, of equal equity or something. Like, if there's no vesting, you're kind of screwed. Like, then one person has a quarter of the, you know, the equity. Yeah. So, 4 co-founders, I think you said, and then they're not contributing or they leave and they, like, it's, it screws up the cap table. It creates resentment. So like really, you know, it's like a prenup, I guess, like really clear preconceived structures that make it easier to change things if people feel like they're not working. Yeah.

And sometimes it's even as simple, and I'll say this to a lot of founders, like even if you don't legally create things, which you can, having, having a clear check-in conversation, hey, right now we're, we're all equal. Do we all agree to revisit this in 6 months? And. Right. You know, and I think there's—

and yeah, I do think it's useful, even if it's not legal. And how will we change it? What if we don't agree in 6 months? Like, if there's no mechanism, then it just becomes a power struggle, and that like, it creates unnecessary level of drama and tension. I mean, there's some tension that is, that is necessary and useful, but if you have that lack of like ambiguity, lack of clear agreements, lack of clear mechanisms, it just becomes much more about opinion and, and kind of influence and power, which is—

can you talk a little bit more about decision authority? Sure. Who makes what decisions, right?

How are decisions made? Um, uh, you know, the, the 80/20, I think, is that, um, most decisions are either leader decides with input is like the decision rule That's most of the time, you know, there's someone who's the, the DRI, the owner of the, of the decision. They get input from other people and then they decide. However, there are some things that either purposefully or accidentally become unanimous consent decisions. We all have to agree, which means any one of us gets a veto. Yep, that is quite a lot of— it presents a lot of risk of stalling, right? Because if one person has a veto, well, you're, you're stuck. You might be stuck, especially if, like, sometimes teams will be like, we'll try to get, like, the, the decision rule is unanimous consent if we can within a reasonable time frame, and then majority rules or plurality rules or leader decides. But there needs to, like, usually if there's some things that are unanimous consent, there needs to be a clear backup option. Otherwise, you're just stuck, you know, with someone having a veto.

I gave him this example today. You know, there are a couple of funny— one was like, we had this email handle called founders@ampush in the early days. Yeah. And it was like—

this was a— well, I won't say it.

Go on. People would just like go like, well, if one of you respond and says yes, do I get it? All three of you need to say yes? Like, OK, if two out of three of you—

yeah, super confusing for the team, for everybody to not know who decides what. Yeah.

And then the other thing I kind of gave him the frame was I was like, there's like deciding what color to paint the wall of like a part of a room. And then there's selling the company. Right. And if you're making those two decisions the same way, yeah, something's off. Something's off, right?

The level of buy-in you need for one is very different than the other. And that's basically the trade-off, the time it takes to make the decision versus the level of buy-in required. Yeah. Right. Those are kind of the axes. And what I, you know, the most common failure pattern is, um, basically you could say it this way, like an assumption of, of more buy-in needed than actually needed, right? If 4 people have a veto to what color to paint the wall, that's, that's an unnecessary level of buy-in required. Right. Um, and too often teams will assume, especially a bunch of co-founders, unanimous consent is the decision rule. Right. And so one, if the decision rule isn't clear, even if it's something other than that, but people think it's unanimous consent, you know, or, you know, like that creates issues because people think they have to convince everybody. Um, but that's the biggest failure pattern I see is we don't want to offend anybody or upset anybody, so we don't create a clear power structure.

Well, and like the classic, like, none of us is the CEO, we just are 3 co-founders, we don't have titles yet.

It's exactly the same thing. And it's like, well, no, that's—

you got to have somebody.

There's a reason that most organizations have a CEO. And it's interesting, you know, I, I mentioned I'm running this venture fund and, um, with my best friend, and we have this wonderful woman named, um, Jory who works with us. And I even see a little, little bits of where we get— we slow ourselves down. Sure. Because we kind of don't have clear decision rules. I mean, small enough that we can, we can move pretty fast, but they're sort of like, hey, should we do it this way? And it's not clear who's deciding. And, and we definitely go slower because there's sort of like an extra set of loops, um, because maybe I don't know if I have decision authority. So I put, you know, I text the three of us like, hey, you guys think this is an okay way to do this? And I'm kind of essentially getting, you know, their agreement before I do it. Whereas if I didn't need their agreement, I would just run much faster. So I just see even in a small way how that lack of clear decision authority slows teams down. Yeah.

And once it's clarified and, and sort of owned by all the relevant parties, yeah, it allows everyone to, to, I think, and it's like, I think an interesting thing of like when I had 3 equal co-founders or 2 equal co-founders versus today, I have people who I think of as partners, but, but we're not like you're clearly the end of the day, right? Yeah. I think we actually have way more in this group. Some of us were a little more older and mature, but like candid conversation. And it's like, well, if I'm not making a decision, I'll tell you exactly what I think. Whereas like, again, back to the, like, the manipulative sort of— you may, if you're 3 equal co-founders, you're like— it's a little bit, I think, why like partnerships and law firms and stuff really struggle at times and become very political places, because there really isn't— even though they'll have a CEO, there's like not— you know, McKinsey is notorious for this, like It's a bunch of fiefdoms, essentially.

Yeah. If there's not clear power structures and ways to change it, politics becomes the alternate way to try to do that.

All right. Well, this is great.

I enjoyed it. I think one thing— starting something new. Congratulations and good luck.

Yeah. And I think a meta thought for everyone to end on this stuff is like, and I think this is something you and I have spent a lot of time on. Like, there's a lot of— the podcast is called Heart of Entrepreneurship. And so again, there's this idea of like, oh, it's all love. And it's, it's like we're just going to be, you know, loving to each other. And this episode, I think, really hits home something important that maybe we don't talk about that often, which is like you still have to be kind of rigorous. Like if you're not thoughtful about decisioning and sort of like, yeah, clear clarity and agreements and all that stuff, it actually, it, it really muddies the waters, which then actually makes it nearly impossible to to do those things. And so there's actually some— I don't know if rigor is the right word, but there's some—

No, I like that. Yeah, like tight container. Like, I, you know, I often use this metaphor of like, if your life force energy is flowing through a pipe, like if that pipe is leaky or kinked, right? Like it's gonna block energy. And so we're kind of— there's like a metaphor here for like the system you're building, the company, If it's not a tight container around things, energy is going to leak, right? Not, not clear decision authority, not clear roles, clear governance structure. So in a way, it's like a form of fierce love. It's like, we're going to stand for us, for flow, by creating this really tight container around like how things actually work around here.