Having a co-founder allows you to share the challenges of starting a company together

Starting a business with your cofounder is synonymous with marrying your lifelong partner. Key attributes to a successful marriage (complementing characteristics, respect, and communication) are also essential ingredients to a successful partnership in the business.

As first time entrepreneurs, starting a company is a daunting task, and having a co-founder to work with certainly helps in the entrepreneurship journey. However, one should be mindful of who your co-founder should be, and how he/she should be selected.

There is no hard and fast rule towards finding your co-founder but some general guidance that founders have shared over the years. Identify someone with complementing skillsets, similar values, and who share the same vision for the business idea that you’re working on.

Every individual comes with varying experiences, which enables us to form different opinions on a subject matter, which is essential in a business environment as it brings diversity and innovation to the team. These essential attributes can only be realized if open and honest communication culture is adopted by the company and held throughout all working relationships.  Founders need to embrace the differences and get accustomed to working as a team, as a company would not be able to achieve greater heights if not for an effective team.

Not everyone is comfortable with sharing and delegating responsibilities, as the process of explaining, teaching and communicating the exact idea across may be difficult for many reasons. However, founders need to start setting the right culture and best practices, and what’s the best time to start with the onboarding of your new co-founder.

Complementary skillsets

Complementing skillsets is probably one of the most important attribute founders should look out for when identifying a potential co-founder. The first step towards this process is to have an absolute understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. Be honest with yourself, and know what you’re good at, what you’re not so good at, and what you’re absolutely bad at.

Having this honest self-assessment of yourself is critical to finding the right co-founder which could potentially address one of the key problems you may face at a later stage of your company building process. A technical founder can be on a lookout for a co-founder with experience in commercialization, or a product design founder can work with an engineer to build out the product.

Shared values

Sharing similar values is critically important for founders, as it paves the way to a long and amiable working relationship. Some may question the lack of diversity in founders if they are too similar, nevertheless values are principles that founders believe in that guide them in their decision making. Founders can have diverse working experiences and skillsets which brings diversity to the team, but values should be aligned as they represent the actions of the company.

Also read: Launching a tech startup? Keep these 5 lessons in mind

This builds to a larger picture of founders being the face of the company — it humanizes the company where users can relate to, and in the process builds a strong following of the company’s products. Huge responsibilities come from being the face of the company, and founders have to decide between themselves who has the right skillsets to address external stakeholders and who should be the one managing the internal operations of the company.

Managing public expectations of your company is essential as delivering on its promise allows the company to amplify the effect of its PR efforts, creating greater goodwill in the process. For instance, Uber ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, despite being a seasoned entrepreneur with strong execution skills, was being ousted from the company he co-founded due to bad PR that he brought to Uber as the face of the company. It was a tough decision made by the board but it was in the interest of the company to improve its public image.

Founders should share the same vision for the company and its product offerings, in order to maintain laser focus in directing the company to their envisioned direction. At the initial stage of the company building process, there will be feedback along the way from investors, customers, suppliers, mentors, etc that your product/business model isn’t feasible and suggest that you change them. Although it’s with good intentions, they may not understand the entire vision of your company nor do they envision how the company would progress over time. Therefore sharing the same vision with your co-founders allows you to make decisions away from the noise and evaluate what will be the best for the company.

Do you even need one?

Entrepreneurs may wonder at times the need for a co-founder. Personally, I’ve met some very successful single founders, and have come across successful companies with single founder or only recruit their co-founder at a later stage. There is no one path to success for entrepreneurship, and here are some pros and cons of having a co-founder.

Having a co-founder allows you to share the challenges of starting a company together, be the pillar of support during challenging times and a sounding board for ideas, feedback and vision for the company. Being a sole founder of a company can be lonely at times, being in a unique position that straddles between multiple stakeholders, while the need to remain compose and visionary when leading the team. Having a sounding board with complementary skills in your co-founder is a valuable asset.

Also read: Partner in business and in life: Advice on running a company with your spouse

However, there could be some concerns over having a co-founder in your company with a varying opinion that could jeopardize the harmony within the organization. Open communication over differences is necessary to maintain an amiable working environment, especially as your co-founder will be working very closely alongside you to scale the company.

Working closely overtime could blur the line or who is responsible for what function in the company, this could lead to power struggle where founders are politicking within the company to gather control. These are some detrimental effects of having a co-founder if initial best practices were not in place.

Starting a company can be a fulfilling experience. It gives you the ability to empower others, impact lives and make the world a slightly better place with your product. Doing so with a co-founder can make the experience all the more rewarding!

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