When you're in YC they tell you that a huge part of being a successful founder is "managing your psychology." I wish they would elevate that to a first-class concept in their startup education.
Im a psychologist with a specialty in entrepreneurship mental health and co-founder conflict. I help people (sometimes individually sometimes as a co-founder pair) address difficulties such as impostor syndrome, communication skills, burnout, making decisions under stress, and effective leadership.
The co-founder relationship is extremely intimate and specific, and it is near impossible for two people to work so hard on a rigorous and trying endeavor and not run into issues. Part of what makes it hard is also the fact that outwardly, everything always has to look awesome. So there aren't any realistic comparison points.
A co-founder relationship is not unlike dating in that you have to figure out where your deal breakers are, what issues you can work through, and what issues you can let go. You also have to be open to accepting your own role in problems that arise, and commit to trying to work on those too. All of which is hard to do while also managing the stress of starting and running a company.
If anyone has questions I'm happy to answer them. You can look me up at azimuthpsych.com.
Also, if you're looking for a therapist for either yourself or you and your co-founder, heres an outline to help you out.
Do cofounders often have a chaotic relationship secretly, or is it mostly positive?
It’s always positive outwardly, of course, but I’m asking about the side that people rarely see. It’s hard to know what’s normal and what’s not. And that’s a problem when you’re trying to evaluate whether someone is a good fit as a cofounder.
Consider Jamie and Adam from mythbusters. They can’t stand each other. But when they work together, things get done. Are most cofounders like that, or is that the exception rather than the rule?
There's no clean cut answer here. It's all over the spectrum. Some founders get along great and some don't get along well. Obviously the better you and your cofounders get along, the higher your probability of success. I've seen plenty of bad cofounder dynamics kill companies, irrespective of the business fundamentals.
"It's like marriage, but without the sex" - I don't recall who said it. It's true - you get a lot of the stresses similar to a marriage, but there isn't too much fun unless things are going great.
Absolutely right that this is important. Working at a small AI-blockchain incubator over the winter, a large part of my initial brief was to encourage and help the participants learn to be their better selves and identify problematic behaviours, attitudes and assumptions in themselves, and identify and fix the resulting dynamics in their teams. Learning the soft skills necessary was meant to help them not have to deal with this further down the line, and obviate the problem of the asshole founder. That strategy didn't work out due to founder interference, which made me realise now much resistance there still is in some kinds of moneymen and engineers to acknowledging the important psychological and social factors in team success. I'm glad this is acknowledged to be needed in some of the existing better incubators!
I tell people believing in their abilities made the difference.
Having money helps(well paid 9-5), but knowing that with enough googling and never giving up mentality, you can solve real problems. Sometimes I am shocked at how little is needed to solve problems that the entire world is currently dealing with, but my fully capable friends dont even try.
Im a psychologist with a specialty in entrepreneurship mental health and co-founder conflict. I help people (sometimes individually sometimes as a co-founder pair) address difficulties such as impostor syndrome, communication skills, burnout, making decisions under stress, and effective leadership.
The co-founder relationship is extremely intimate and specific, and it is near impossible for two people to work so hard on a rigorous and trying endeavor and not run into issues. Part of what makes it hard is also the fact that outwardly, everything always has to look awesome. So there aren't any realistic comparison points.
A co-founder relationship is not unlike dating in that you have to figure out where your deal breakers are, what issues you can work through, and what issues you can let go. You also have to be open to accepting your own role in problems that arise, and commit to trying to work on those too. All of which is hard to do while also managing the stress of starting and running a company.
If anyone has questions I'm happy to answer them. You can look me up at azimuthpsych.com.
Also, if you're looking for a therapist for either yourself or you and your co-founder, heres an outline to help you out.
https://azimuthpsych.com/articles-and-ebooks/how-to-find-a-t...
Janna Koretz, Psy.D