What to discuss before choosing a co-founder

Choosing a co-founder is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make when starting a company.

You may spend years working together. You’ll make decisions about money, people, products, customers, and growth. 

You may also navigate missed goals, financial uncertainty, long hours, difficult conversations, and periods when neither of you is sure the business will work.

That makes co-founder compatibility about much more than whether you’re both excited about the same project.

“The conversation with potential co-founders is not about equity and job titles,” says Paul Whitten, founder of Nashville Adventures. “It’s how you handle being broke as hell in the startup phase. Everybody is fun and great to work with when money is being made.”

His advice is to have what he calls the “worst-case talk” before you start drafting the paperwork.

The worst-case scenario isn’t the only concern you should discuss with a potential co-founder. Before starting a business with someone, talk about what each of you wants, how you work, what you expect from each other, and what happens when you disagree. 

Talk about money. Talk about workload. Talk about failure. Talk about what it would look like if either founder ever wants to exit.

Some of these conversations may feel premature when you’re excited about an idea. 

Having them early can help you understand the person you’re considering building it with.

Why do you want to build this company?

Start with a deceptively simple question: Why are you doing this?

Two founders can be equally excited about an idea while wanting completely different things from the company.

One may want to build quickly, raise outside capital, and pursue an acquisition. The other may picture a profitable company they can operate independently for the next 20 years. 

One may be willing to leave a stable job and go without a salary. The other may need predictable income within a year.

Those differences matter.

Before committing to each other, discuss what success looks like to each of you.

• What do you want this company to become? 
• How ambitious do you want to be? 
• How much risk are you willing to take? 
• How long are you prepared to give the business before you expect it to support you financially?

You don’t need identical answers. You do need to understand where your answers differ.

What values and standards are nonnegotiable?

Skills are usually part of the co-founder compatibility equation. One person understands the technology, while another understands sales. One is strong in operations, while the other is a natural product imagineer.

Those complementary abilities can make a partnership stronger.

Brooke Tessman, a startup advisor who has worked with companies including Amazon, LinkedIn, and Faethm AI, points to three traits she commonly sees among successful co-founders: integrity, commitment, and complementary skills.

“You have to be able to trust each other completely, especially when money, pressure, and setbacks occur,” Tessman says. “Startups require long hours, consistent communication, and long-term dedication.”

Tessman recommends complementary skills, such as combining engineering, design, and business, to propel the startup forward. 

But complementary skills alone don’t tell you whether two people can build a company together.

Eva Maria Beristain, owner and founder of Karen’s Green Maids, argues that shared standards can matter even more.

“Your shared value of quality, customer satisfaction, and reliability are much more important than your skills as they relate to one another in theory,” Beristain says.

That can show up in surprisingly practical ways.

• What does “good enough” mean to each of you? 
• When is something ready to ship? 
• How should customers be treated when something goes wrong? 
• Would you sacrifice speed for quality? 
• What shortcuts would you never take?

Two people can care deeply about the same company and still answer those questions differently.

Understanding those differences is part of relational intelligence: the ability to understand not only yourself and another person, but also what happens in the space between you. 

Different standards, expectations, and ways of responding can interact in ways neither person would necessarily predict by looking at themselves alone.

How will you divide the work?

Titles can make responsibilities look clearer than they actually are.

You’re CEO. Your co-founder is COO. Great.

Before choosing a co-founder, get specific about the work each person expects to do.

• Who answers the angry customer email on Friday afternoon?
• Who checks the numbers? 
• Who follows up with vendors? 
• Who manages contractors? 
• Who fixes something when it breaks? 
• Who handles the tasks nobody particularly wants to own?

Discuss how many hours each person can realistically contribute, when you expect each other to be available, and what each person will own. Talk about strategic work and operational work, including how you will value contributions that are less visible.

Beristain has seen what can happen when those expectations remain vague.

“The person that actually does all the ‘work’ finds themselves at odds with the ‘strategist,’ who seems to be making most of the decisions; this creates resentment,” she says.

That resentment may have little to do with whether the original division of labor made sense. The problem can be that the founders never developed a shared understanding of what each contribution was worth.

Also discuss what happens when the balance temporarily changes. There will probably be periods when one person has to carry more. How will you recognize that and address it before a temporary imbalance becomes a permanent source of frustration?

How will you make decisions?

Eventually, you’re going to disagree.

The important question is what happens next.

Before starting a company together, determine which decisions require both founders’ agreement and which decisions belong primarily to one person.

• If one founder leads product and the other leads marketing, does each have final authority within that area? 
• Are there financial thresholds that require both founders to approve an expense? 
• Which decisions are important enough that neither person should make them alone?

Then consider the harder question: 

What happens when you reach a genuine deadlock?

Kate and Lauren, longtime friends and co-founders of Coilie, addressed this early. When they launched their company, they included a dispute clause in their articles of incorporation that established what would happen and who would have final decision-making power in the event of a disagreement.

You may never need to invoke a formal dispute process. Defining one forces you to confront a useful question before the stakes are high: 

What will we do when talking it through isn’t enough?

How do you handle conflict?

Decision-making rules can tell you who gets the final say. They don’t tell you how the two of you will behave in the midst of co-founder conflict.

Ask each other what conflict looks like.

When you’re frustrated, do you want to discuss the issue immediately or think before responding? 

Are you comfortable being challenged directly? 

Do you tend to push harder when someone disagrees or withdraw from the conversation? 

How do you want your co-founder to tell you when they think you’re wrong?

Talk about past conflicts at work, too. What happened? How did you respond? What would you do differently now?

This is one place where a co-founder compatibility assessment can be useful. A good assessment shouldn’t simply give two people a score and declare them compatible or incompatible. It can help identify differences in how two people communicate, process information, respond emotionally, make decisions, or approach structure.

Those differences then become things you can actually discuss.

That is where relational intelligence becomes particularly useful. Knowing your own tendencies is valuable. Knowing your co-founder’s tendencies is valuable. But you also need to understand how those tendencies are likely to interact.

Understand the patterns between you and your co-founder: take the free SHEER Personality assessment.

What happens when money gets tight?

Don’t limit the money conversation to equity.

Talk about your personal financial realities.

• How long can each of you work without a salary? 
• When do you expect to start paying yourselves? 
• What happens if the business can afford to pay one founder but not both? 
• Are you comfortable taking on debt? 
• How do you feel about outside investment? 
• How much of your own money are you willing to put into the company?

Then talk about losses.

“You should have an open dialogue about how you plan to address conflicts, who will make money/who will lose money when something doesn’t go right,” Beristain says.

Financial pressure can change the way people make decisions. A risk that feels reasonable with six months of runway can feel entirely different with six weeks.

Whitten’s advice is deliberately blunt: “Everybody is fun and great to work with when money is being made.”

Find out how you each think about money before there isn’t enough of it.

What happens when things get hard?

Money is only one kind of pressure.

Imagine your launch fails. Your biggest customer leaves. A product you spent six months developing doesn’t sell. You make a costly mistake. Growth stalls. You’re both exhausted.

Now what?

Tessman identifies commitment as one of the three traits she sees in successful co-founder relationships because startups can require “long hours, consistent communication, and long-term dedication.”

But “committed” can mean different things to different people.

Ask what each of you is actually committing to.

• How much time will you give the company? 
• What circumstances might require you to step back? 
• How long would you continue through a difficult period before reconsidering the business?

It can also help to understand how each person responds when things go wrong. 

Some people immediately move into problem-solving mode. Others need time to absorb what happened. 

Some become more cautious after a setback, while others become more willing to take risks.

Those responses can complement each other. 

They can also become sources of conflict if neither founder understands what is happening.

What could end the partnership?

This may be one of the least enjoyable conversations you have with a potential co-founder. 

Have it anyway.

“At what point does the business stop being worth it for either party?” Beristain suggests asking.

• What if one founder wants to leave?
• What if one stops contributing at the agreed level? 
• What if one wants to sell the company and the other doesn’t? 
• What if someone receives another opportunity they want to pursue? 
• What happens if your personal circumstances change?

Discuss what a fair exit would look like while neither of you is actively trying to exit.

Then work with the appropriate legal and financial professionals to put the necessary agreements in place around equity, ownership, intellectual property, financial obligations, and departure from the company.

A difficult conversation between two people who still trust each other is much easier than negotiating the same issues after the relationship has deteriorated.

What happens to your relationship if the company fails?

This question matters even more if your potential co-founder is already someone important to you.

Whitten takes a firm position on the subject: “Don’t start a business with your best friend.”

But friendship and co-founding don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Coilie co-founders Kate and Lauren met in college and have been friends for almost 20 years. They now run a company together from different states.

Before doing so, they talked explicitly about what mattered more.

They agreed that if they ever had to choose between their friendship and their company, they would choose the friendship. Both were prepared to walk away from the business if preserving their relationship required it.

So far, they haven’t had to make that choice. 

“We have been very fortunate, and while we disagree sometimes, we're always able to talk it through. We've both said many times that there is no way we'd be where we are without the other,” says Kate Trey.

Their experience doesn’t prove that you should start a company with your best friend any more than Whitten’s experience proves that you shouldn’t.

It shows why you should talk about it first.

If the existing relationship matters independently of the business, say that. Discuss what boundaries might protect it. Ask what would happen if the business failed, or if the partnership ended badly.

You are choosing what you are willing to put at risk.

Co-founder compatibility is something you investigate

There probably isn’t a perfect co-founder waiting for you. You may end up like Whitten, going it solo and avoiding co-founder conflict altogether.

Or, like Coilie co-founders Kate and Lauren, you may decide that a long-time friendship provides the perfect foundation for a successful business relationship.

Either way, exploring compatibility is an important first step before committing. Even if you discover differences in your patterns and personalities. 

A highly Structured founder may work well with someone who is more Adaptive.

A cautious decision-maker may benefit from someone more comfortable with uncertainty.

Two people with different skills, perspectives, and ways of thinking can see possibilities that either might miss alone.

The question is whether you understand those differences well enough to work with them.

Talk about money before money is tight. Talk about workload before someone feels overworked. Talk about conflict before you’re angry. Talk about leaving while you’re both excited to begin.

Use compatibility assessments to get a better understanding of the patterns between you and your co-founder. When you can, spend time working together on something meaningful before committing. Pay attention not only to how well you collaborate when things are exciting, but also to what happens when you disagree, miss a deadline, or have to change course.

And learn about each other beyond skills and job titles.

Because “Are we compatible?” may be less useful than a more difficult question:

Do we understand how we will work together when this gets hard?