The spousal bickering between founders, a love story

A conversation over a couple of beers with my friends Robert and Steven about the stereotypical woes entrepreneurs tend to share with each other gave me a surprising outcome. The commonality is about the complex relationship between company founders. Now, without cheesy puns involving carnal pleasures I’ll play the matrimony card: the relationship with your business partner(s)/co-founders is astonishingly similar to married couples. Even worse. I’ll explain why.

Imagine that couple going on a holiday trip by car. One is driving, the other one is planning out the route. Both of them alternate between their main priorities and telling the kids how far along the road they are or just to shut the hell up. Things escalate. Kids become more noisy. Hungry. Tired. The same happens to the couple. Story ends in either: A. patching things up, or B. a really nasty divorce (there probably is a C as well but I really like my lists).

Robert and Wouter of Wakoopa

Now replace the couple by co-founders. Both (should) have specific tasks. Both also alternate between overlapping tasks. Replace the kids by customers, users, partners and/or investors. Things can get really ugly if you haven’t set your priorities and duties straight. And imagine if this relationship is a threesome! But it doesn’t stop there.

In my discussion with Robert – who, like myself, has a single co-founder – we talked about how nasty things can get between co-founders. Co-founders say things to each other that we wouldn’t even say to our lovers. You think the talented cast from ‘The Hills’ is bitchy? Step into a startup office. The swiftly reoccurring ups and downs push personalities to extreme clashes. These situations are definitely not for the feint hearted. Entrepreneurial egos and testosterone levels can raise to clashes of gargantuan proportions (insert grain of salt here). It’s really important that you know what you and your partner are supposed to be doing in this situation, and that territories are marked accordingly.

Arnoud, Jons and Steven of Marvia

I’m in the luxury position to have a co-founder who is basically the exact opposite of myself. Paul is calm and quiet. Takes his time to make decisions. Makes sure things run smoothly in the background. Can react seemingly without emotion to pressing matters. On a practical level he runs financial, legal, partnerships and tells me to quit acting like a diva when things aren’t going the way I want them too.

I’m vocal, extrovert and emotional. I react fast and instinctive. On a practical level: I do the product. Make sure it’s nice and pretty. Tell people about it. There’s obviously a lot more to what we do, but for the sake of this post I’m keeping it short.

Paul and me

Robert is in the same position with Wouter. Steven runs Marvia in a holy triad with Arnoud and Jons. As we discussed, all personalities that can seem to oppose each other: but what’s really happening is that these teams complement each other. And that’s a really good situation to be in, since we’ve all seen cases where things turn ugly. I’m not saying that this is entirely because of what I’ve described in this post, but I think it’s important to find a co-founder that complements you on many levels. And that’s one of the most difficult tasks if you want to start a company.

If you started a company, how did you find your co-founder? I get a lot of questions of guys and girls that want to start a company and lack complementing skills. Leave your story in the comments.

Footnote: Of course that line about The Hills was a joke. Sheesh.