Co-founder Matching
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This week has been a whirlwind of business co-founders matching around me. I’ve seen some crashes, while others have shown incredible resilience. The funniest thing about all this? It’s always the most unexpected one that turns out to be indestructible… go figure!
Anyway, all this got me thinking about co-founder match-ups, and I wanted to share my personal list of best practices (no particular order - they’re all essential). 🤜🏼🤛🏼
Ambitions
First off, let’s distinguish between two types of ambitions: personal ambitions (family, lifestyle, etc.) and professional ambitions (social status, income, etc.).
To make a partnership work, I’ve often heard people say: co-founders need to have the same ambition… Nope, nope, nope! I totally disagree - it’s actually the opposite for me.
Yes, it’s important - essential even - to share the same business vision, the same ambition for your company, but definitely not the same personal ambitions / professional.
It’s crucial for each co-founder to have different but compatible personal and professional ambitions.
For example, one co-founder might want to become a thought leader in the industry, while the other focuses on being an outstanding manager - so one handles media (podcasts, magazines, LinkedIn, etc.), and the other takes charge of managing the company.
The same goes for personal ambitions: one might want to start a family, while the other dreams of doing theater. This diversity allows each co-founder to grow intellectually in their own way, bringing even more value to the company.
These different ambitions are what create human complementarity and fuel the business and its vision. Because yes, the only thing that needs to be shared is the vision for the company - nothing more. Which brings me to…
Communication and Emotions
Another key point is communication - especially communicating emotions. It’s crucial to build intimate bonds with your co-founders so that you can say anything, and I mean anything, to each other. This transparency is what truly enables you to move forward together, build real trust, and establish a shared vision for the company.
I’ve always loved simple but super effective questions like: How did you feel about that call? What do you think about this client? This freelancer? How do you see yourself in this? Or with this?...
You’ve got to dive into emotions and own them. This is what will allow you to speak openly during tough times and avoid unspoken tensions.
Key Success Factors
Too much is too much! I wanted to wrap up with a point that comes up a lot - how many co-founders, and who (technically speaking)? Because teaming up is great, but you shouldn’t do it just for the sake of it.
To tackle this topic, I would like to use an old management concept: key success factors. These are all the things that need to be mastered to successfully complete a project or task.
If you’re building a SaaS, you need a CTO (tech), a CEO (sales), and maybe a CPO (product).
You get the idea - a key success factor = a co-founder. No more, no less.
And that co-founder shouldn’t become the product lead just to work with you. The product should flow through their veins - it should be obvious to them that this is their zone of genius.
Leadership
You’ll notice I haven’t talked about leadership here, because to me, it’s not the main issue! True leadership, healthy leadership, is something that appears and disappears when needed. It’s mostly about the ability to convey emotions and persuade people on a project.
Co-founders may or may not have leadership skills - no big deal! They’ll all need to step up at some point, yes, but it’ll happen naturally and likely in different ways for each person. Some will lead with their voice, others with their posture, and others with their technical behavior. But leadership takes time, so take your time.
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Catch you soon!