0:09

Good morning, everyone. My name is

0:11

Kat. I'm a software engineer here at YC,

0:13

and I lead the startup school team. Today, I

0:15

have visiting group partner Divya with me

0:17

and we're going to talk about everything relating to

0:19

cofounders. So Bhat is a cofounder? Where

0:22

do you find a cofounder? How do you evaluate

0:24

cofounder? And once you have

0:25

one, how to work together? So much for having

0:27

me Bhat. I'm really excited to talk

0:29

about this today Li. Finding the right cofounder

0:32

is arguably the most important part

0:34

of starting a Combinator. I've seen so many

0:36

startups fail or succeed due to co

0:38

founder issues, and so I'm really glad doing

0:40

this today. Yeah. And to start things off,

0:42

let's clarify something. Bhat do we mean

0:44

by the word co founder? Yeah.

0:46

So quite Li, a co founder

0:48

is someone who starts your startup with you. So

0:51

when you apply to YC, we consider someone

0:53

to be your co founder if they have at least ten percent

0:55

equity. But in general, a co founder

0:57

is someone who is there from the beginning or

1:00

to the beginning who is building your company with you.

1:02

So if I'm hardworking and smart,

1:04

can I just start my startup alone? So,

1:06

yes, Kath. You were very hardworking and smart, and

1:08

I don't doubt you. The short answer is yes,

1:10

you absolutely can. But it's

1:12

it's really hard, like, really really

1:14

hard. You know, a startup is a very difficult

1:16

journey. For anyone and doing

1:18

it alone makes it more than twice

1:20

as hard. And so, you know, we really

1:22

recommend having a co founder for the following

1:25

So number one is productivity. So

1:27

moving fast is critical

1:29

in a startup. And when you have two

1:31

people, three people, you can literally

1:33

move two or three times as fast. You can just

1:36

get so much more stuff done. Additionally,

1:38

your brainstorming can be higher quality. Right?

1:41

You can help each other see around corners. Your best

1:43

ideas off each Li kind of

1:45

maybe Bhat get into a rut with a bad idea,

1:47

have someone checking. Accountability is,

1:50

you know, a little bit more effective when there's

1:52

someone else there. You know, you do your daily stand

1:54

up and say, this is what I'm gonna get done today. And then there's

1:56

someone there the next morning to ask you whether or not

1:58

you did it. And then I think moral support

2:00

is another huge and sometimes overlook

2:02

component. So a has a lot of

2:04

ups and downs. There's moments of optimism.

2:07

There's moments of despair. And having

2:09

someone that can both empathize with you, but also

2:11

balance you out. And some of those scenarios can be

2:13

just so helpful to keep moving. If you're

2:15

not convinced by those theoretical reasons, It

2:17

turns out that the empirical evidence also

2:19

supports having a co founder. Most successful

2:22

companies have been started by more than one founder,

2:24

even companies that are famous for only

2:26

one of its founders actually had at least

2:28

two. Microsoft, we all know Bill Gates,

2:30

but Paula Allen was around for ten years.

2:33

Apple. So Steve Jobs is the face

2:35

of Apple. But Steve Wozniak

2:37

was the one who designed and built the Apple And

2:39

little known fact, they actually had a third

2:42

cofounder. Ronald Wayne. He left

2:44

pretty early, but there were three of them in the beginning.

2:46

Yeah. And Facebook or I guess meta

2:48

now. If you've seen the social network, you'll know

2:50

that Mark Zuckerberg had not one,

2:53

not two, not three, but four

2:55

cofounders. So the list obviously

2:57

goes on and on, but we also have some quantitative

2:59

data to share. So while YC does

3:01

fund solo founders, yes, we do we

3:04

do fund solo founders. Of YC's

3:06

top hundred companies, only four

3:08

were founded by a solo founder, Are they

3:10

really only four? Yep.

3:12

And in those cases, there is a clear

3:14

pattern among the soul founders as well.

3:16

They are always able to make progress on

3:19

their own. So they built their own MVP,

3:21

they got their own users, etcetera. Yeah.

3:23

So I actually know some of these guys, they're exceptional.

3:26

And it's worth repeating then that while having a

3:28

co founder, dramatic increases

3:30

your chances of success, YC actually

3:32

does fund solo founders. We believe that

3:34

ultimately, you are the best judge of whether

3:36

having a co founder is the right call for you. Yeah,

3:38

absolutely. But if you are convinced

3:41

that you need a co founder, let's talk about

3:43

where to find one. Divya, any ideas?

3:45

Yeah. So the obvious place to start

3:47

is people you know. So friends,

3:49

classmates, Li. If you're in

3:51

school, this is an awesome time to find a cofounder.

3:53

Right? You're surrounded by classmates, friends,

3:56

people who'd be fun to work with. Responsibility.

3:59

Yes. If you were responsibilities, for sure.

4:02

If you're working at a company, look to your coworkers

4:04

that are smart, capable, impressive, people

4:06

that you work well with, And beyond that,

4:08

you know, look to other people in your network, friends,

4:11

friends, or friends. And if you see

4:13

someone who you think might be a good

4:15

match, work on a project with them. Right?

4:17

Like, this can be a lower commitment way

4:19

to test out your working relationship, your

4:21

skill sets, than an actual startup,

4:23

and you can kinda get a sense for what it would

4:25

be like to work with them. As an added bonus,

4:28

the kind of person who wants to work with you

4:30

on an evening or weekend project is like

4:32

usually really good co founder material. Yeah.

4:34

That makes sense. Yeah. These are all

4:36

really great avenues for finding people you

4:38

know in real life. In parallel, I

4:40

would also highly recommend checking out YC's

4:42

cofounder matching platform. Here's how it works.

4:44

When you sign up, you tell us about yourself

4:46

and what you're looking for. So we ask you stuff like,

4:48

are you technical? Do you have an idea you're

4:50

working on? Or are you open to new ideas? Many

4:52

hours a week are you going to commit? What industries are

4:54

you interested in? Can you be responsible

4:56

for, you know, engineering, sales, product, etcetera?

4:58

So once you've done that, our team will

5:01

manually read and approve your profile just

5:03

to make sure you know you're not a robot, you're not

5:05

a dev shop out here. And once

5:07

you're approved for the platform, You can then

5:09

look at profiles that pass your filters. If

5:11

you see someone interesting, you can send them a

5:13

message. And if they're also interested in

5:15

you, they'll match with you. We recently also

5:17

built a new feature that we called speed dating.

5:19

I love that. It does

5:21

come from the concept of speed dating.

5:23

You set aside an hour to be online,

5:25

you match with other founders for five minutes of

5:27

one on one video chat time. And it's just

5:29

a really great way to quickly meet

5:31

tons of people interested in

5:33

starting startups, which is already a pretty big filter.

5:35

That sounds really helpful, kind of Li as

5:38

part of YC's greater ecosystem. Cat,

5:40

how many users do you have? Am I in

5:42

office hours? Well, I do know the

5:44

answer to this question. So

5:46

we launched cofounder matching early last

5:48

year We now have forty thousand

5:50

profiles on the platform, and we actually just crossed

5:52

a hundred thousand matches last week. A

5:54

hundred thousand matches is pretty impressive. Do

5:56

you have any success stories you can share? I

5:58

do. And I'm really excited about it.

6:01

So while it's a little bit early to say if

6:03

these teams will last, you know, seven to ten

6:05

years, we have seen some

6:07

really promising early signs. Over

6:09

a dozen teams have met on the

6:11

platform, decided to be cofounders, applied

6:13

to YC together, and actually got an That's

6:15

awesome. I have an example. This is

6:17

SQN. So Virinda was a

6:19

PM at Visa where she launched credit cards like

6:21

the Chase Sapphire Reserve. She left her

6:23

job and spent about a year working as a sole

6:25

founder on a product to help women build credit.

6:27

She was looking for a technical cofounder

6:29

who was mission driven and had fintech experience.

6:32

Mark had ten years of engineering experience

6:34

at PayPal. He spent six years

6:36

as CTO of family oriented startups,

6:38

and he wrote on his profile that he cared

6:40

deeply about gender equity. Such a good match.

6:42

So they were a perfect match on paper

6:44

and it turns out they were a perfect match in

6:46

real life. They met on Zoom, they

6:48

just vibe instantly Li they

6:50

arranged to meet in person. They met

6:52

every day for the next week. In person.

6:54

And so it's really easy for them to decide to work

6:56

together. These guys went through YC and raised

6:58

five point seven million dollars. Bhat sounds like a

7:00

dream actually. It sounds like kind of a, like, love at

7:02

first site co founder matches for real.

7:05

Do all co founder matches take so quickly?

7:07

Or do you have examples of things that maybe took a

7:09

more time to to take Yeah. Yeah.

7:11

So, you know, every story is a little different.

7:13

So this is Kiwi Biosciences. They're

7:15

another team from the summer twenty twenty one

7:17

batch. These founders are actually some of the earliest

7:19

users of co founder matching, which is really cool. Like first

7:21

couple hundred users. Angie started a

7:23

company to solve her own pains with irritable

7:26

bowel syndrome. David had experience in this industry.

7:28

He actually started to start up in the same problem

7:30

space before, so she knew right away

7:32

that he was the one. But when they first met,

7:35

David was actually working on a trial project

7:37

with a different potential cofounder he met

7:39

through the platform. Plus he didn't like her ideas.

7:41

He thought her idea would never work. And

7:43

so he ended up just being an adviser instead,

7:46

and they met once a week for a while. But

7:48

eventually, even though he wasn't sold right away

7:50

on the idea, he was really impressed

7:52

by Angie as a founder. He believed in

7:54

her. So they eventually took a very

7:56

structured approach. They filled out this

7:58

fifty question long, co founder questionnaire, and

8:00

spent a month working on a trial together. And

8:02

by the end of that month, it was easy. So

8:04

they also went through my seat and they raised like one

8:06

point five million dollars. As an aside, that's

8:08

interesting that he didn't love the idea, but

8:10

Angie was awesome. This is something we see in

8:12

general across the space. So that's And

8:14

even at y c's. Yeah. Even at y c.

8:17

So while we're on the top of co founder matching

8:19

success, can you share any tips on

8:21

getting the most out of the platform for anyone out there

8:23

that's going to use it? I imagine that Some of this

8:25

advice actually applies more broadly to a co

8:27

founder search whether or not it's on the platform. But, like,

8:29

what have you seen? Yeah. I would

8:31

love to talk about this. So I have two

8:33

main tips Number one is

8:35

just really fill out your profile.

8:37

It sounds basic, but the difference

8:39

between ten percent and a hundred percent

8:41

effort is very apparent, especially

8:43

when you're comparing these profiles side by side. So

8:45

what I mean by that is, you know, put up a

8:47

picture or a video. Photos are

8:49

optional in the platform. But it helps make you look like a real

8:51

person. And you should brag a little.

8:53

So some people, especially women

8:55

or people from other cultural backgrounds,

8:57

value humility a lot. Bhat

9:00

this is not the time to be humble.

9:02

Potential cofounders don't know you. They're only

9:04

seeing a snapshot of you, so you really want to

9:06

sell yourself. Yeah. You wanna stand out from the crowd.

9:08

Right? Like, this is the time to just,

9:10

like, put your achievements front and center.

9:12

Yeah. And I think this is especially important. If

9:14

you are a non technical founder, with

9:16

an idea trying to recruit a

9:18

technical Bhat founder. This is a really

9:20

common case on the platform, but the thing is

9:22

that technical founders get lots and

9:24

lots of invites And so you have to

9:26

differentiate yourself by bragging about your accomplishments

9:28

and maybe show them the progress you've made on your

9:30

own. There's a huge difference between

9:32

someone saying, hey, I have a great idea. I'm just

9:34

waiting for someone to help me build it versus

9:36

like, hey, I'm working on an idea. I have an

9:38

MVP. I have some users and I want

9:40

a partner to come help me build Yeah. Remember,

9:42

people are joining you as a

9:44

person, not your idea. Exactly. And so,

9:46

like, show what you can do as a person.

9:48

Yeah. The second thing I would say is meet

9:50

as soon as you can in real life if

9:52

possible, but Zoom is also great.

9:54

According to stats from our platform,

9:56

seventy percent of all meets happen

9:59

within two weeks of matching. So

10:01

Bhat I'm gathering is you either meet

10:03

really soon or not at all. Alright.

10:05

Now that we have some avenues for finding

10:07

potential co founders. Let's talk about how you know

10:09

if they're a good fit for you. DIVIA,

10:11

you've started multiple startups. What are

10:13

some things you look for when evaluating a

10:15

potential co founder? Yeah. So

10:17

this might sound extreme, but a co

10:19

founder relationship is like a marriage. And

10:22

it's really important to get this right. And

10:24

in many cases, you might

10:26

spend more time with your cofounder than you

10:28

do with your actual spouse, especially if

10:30

things aren't going well. Especially if things are going

10:32

well. Exactly. Wanna talk about a few

10:34

things to align on early, and we're gonna talk about

10:36

some of these again when we talk about working with

10:38

your cofounder. But early on, here's

10:40

some conversations to have. So One is

10:42

goals and values. So motivates

10:44

you? Why do you wanna do a start

10:46

up? How

10:48

stress? So how do each of you handle

10:50

stress? And how will you help each other handle

10:52

stress? Are you able to provide what the other

10:54

person needs? Because there are gonna be

10:56

stressful times. Communication.

10:59

So can the two of you or three

11:02

of you have an honest and frank

11:04

conversation with each other and still move

11:06

forward productively? Finances

11:09

are a very important one to talk about

11:11

early. How long can each of you go without a

11:13

salary or with benefits? What

11:15

salary requirements do you have? Is there kind of

11:17

a timeline in mind of

11:19

which, you know, you need to have more of a market

11:21

rate salary or raise money Make sure there's

11:23

some alignment on this or at least a

11:25

conversation. And

11:28

lastly, commitment. How many

11:30

hours a week can you work? You

11:32

know, like, what do evenings and weekends look like? Are

11:34

you guys on the same page around this?

11:36

Just there's no right or wrong answer, but

11:38

these conversations need to be

11:40

had early on. And then

11:42

lastly, Bhat touched on this earlier,

11:44

but meet in person if you can.

11:46

It's a lot easier to communicate and

11:48

get a sense of compatibility, and

11:51

communicate some of the nuance on the above

11:53

topics if you're actually sitting face to face

11:55

with someone. I'd like to also own a

11:57

counterpoint. There are some things people

11:59

tend to think are important, but maybe

12:01

aren't actually so important. So

12:03

specifically, what I'm talking about is complementary

12:05

I got an email the other day

12:07

from a founder telling me they needed to find

12:10

someone to help fundraise and bring

12:12

in a network of potential investors and

12:14

experienced Board members. No.

12:17

No. You don't. You can learn that.

12:19

Actually, most skills are very learnable.

12:21

So that includes fundraising, marketing,

12:23

even sales. It's much more important

12:25

that you're compatible with your cofounder in

12:27

the other ways mentioned above. Yeah. So

12:29

there's one exception to this rule actually, and

12:31

so absolutely right. You don't need someone who

12:33

can come in and, like, do your fundraising for

12:35

you. But if you're nontechnical, you

12:37

should really think seriously about getting a

12:39

technical cofounder. And one of the most

12:41

common questions we get from nontechnical cofounders

12:44

is I can't find a technical

12:46

cofounder. What should I do? Can't I

12:48

just hire a dev shop to help me build out

12:50

my product? The short answer is,

12:52

please don't do that. Like, if you really can't find a

12:54

technical co founder, you should learn how

12:56

to code. DevShop's

12:58

pose a ton of challenges,

13:00

especially for really early stage

13:02

companies. You know, not only are they

13:04

costly from day one, but it can be

13:06

extremely challenging iterate

13:08

quickly as you're learning from your users.

13:10

You know, dev shops are designed to

13:12

ship clear deliverables. And as

13:14

an early stage startup, like, you don't

13:16

have a you're deliverable. Like,

13:18

you're kind of like feeling around in the

13:20

dark and building for your users and the

13:22

requirements are changing on the fly. They also

13:24

don't care about your user. They're just like,

13:26

I'm gonna do this thing. You're gonna pay me.

13:28

Exactly. And, you know,

13:30

iteration can just become really clunky,

13:33

ineffective, and again, very expensive. So

13:35

in short, a technical cofounder

13:38

is an amazing investment early on Li you can find

13:40

one. The last thing I want to bring up

13:42

in the about evaluating cofounders

13:44

is trial projects. The

13:46

only way to tell if you work well

13:48

together with someone is to try

13:50

working together. So at COFINA matching, we

13:52

recommend that before jumping into a full blown

13:54

COFINA relationship, you work on a trial

13:56

project together first. Essentially, you agree

13:58

beforehand on a timeline. Usually two to

14:00

four weeks, a tangible project goal

14:02

and scope, and also who owns the

14:04

work at the end. It's a very structured way to

14:06

try working together with some mutual expectations.

14:08

I do wanna say though, remember the

14:10

end of the day, just like with any other

14:12

risks you take in life, you will eventually need

14:14

to take a leap of faith. And that's especially true

14:16

when you're starting a startup, which is risky in

14:18

all sorts of ways. So find someone

14:20

you're willing to take a leap of faith with.

14:22

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we

14:24

talked a little bit about, like, de risking things.

14:26

And, like, a lot of these questions we talked about earlier

14:28

are ways to de risk that co founder

14:30

relationship. But again, like, do risk it until the point you

14:32

can, and then and then you just gotta go.

14:34

So let's say you found someone you wanna

14:36

work with, you know, using co founder matching or

14:38

one of these other ways we talked about.

14:40

So now I wanna move on to an important topic,

14:42

which is how to split equity with your

14:44

co founders. So the general YC advice

14:46

is that by default, you should just split equity

14:49

equally. So lots of options here, but you

14:51

can kinda start from that baseline. And

14:53

the reason for this is because, you know,

14:55

you would like to be making equal

14:57

contributions going forward and

14:59

you should both be equally motivated to

15:01

work hard for a very long time. You

15:03

should value your co founder. And if you

15:05

don't, like, why are they your co founder? But but

15:07

did you? I came up with the

15:09

idea. Yeah. Ideas don't matter.

15:12

Ideas are cheap. Right? And if things go well, first

15:14

of all, idea is very likely

15:16

to change over time as you listen to your

15:18

users. But if things go well, you're gonna

15:20

be working together on this for the next

15:22

seven to ten years. Or more. Or

15:24

more. Exactly. So, you know, the point

15:26

in time that you came up with the idea is just

15:28

such a small part of your my idea.

15:30

Right. That makes sense to me. So here are some

15:32

other really common bad reasons we

15:34

hear for splitting cofounder equity

15:36

unequally. Li of course, I came up with the

15:38

idea. started working on this idea

15:40

before my co founder did. My co founder took

15:42

a salary and I didn't. I'm older and

15:44

I'm more experienced than my cofounder.

15:46

We need someone to tie break when we have

15:48

arguments. So there is a good point

15:50

here about needing a tie breaker, but we'll talk about

15:52

that in a It doesn't need to be done through

15:54

equity exactly. I launched my

15:56

MVP without my cofounder. My

15:58

cofounder agreed to their smaller

16:00

share. Another one is, you know, I raised so many

16:02

thousand dollars before my co founder joined.

16:04

So even if you think you got a good deal

16:06

now, this could potentially result in resentment

16:08

later down the Yeah. You shouldn't be trying to get

16:10

a good deal from your co founder. Like, it kinda

16:12

starts the relationship off on a bad foot.

16:14

Yeah. So the bottom line here is

16:16

all of the work is still ahead

16:18

of you. You both need to be happy

16:20

and motivated for a long, long

16:22

time. Start up outcomes are

16:24

pretty bimodal, so don't jeopardize your

16:26

co funded relationship over a few

16:28

percent. Alright. So we've talked about how to get set

16:30

up with the founding team. It is time to get

16:32

to work. Now we're gonna share some stories and

16:35

best practices on how to work with your

16:37

co founders. When it comes to teamwork, one

16:39

thing we often hear is that communication is

16:41

extremely important. Dhivya, do you have

16:43

any advice for our founders on how to keep

16:45

clear and open lines of communication? This is a great

16:47

question. So communication is

16:49

so important and it's as important as it

16:51

is in any close relationship in your life. So we

16:53

talked about this earlier, but you know, a

16:55

co founder relationship is it's not a stretch

16:57

to think of it as a marriage. Yeah. And I imagine

16:59

that setting up these communication

17:01

channels starts very early in the

17:03

relationship. Yep. Like almost before you start

17:05

working together, you need to align on

17:07

certain expectations. Right? seen cofounders

17:10

enter into relationships with very

17:12

different pictures of what it looks like

17:14

to work together -- Yep. -- from anything

17:16

from, you know, how many hours you work to

17:18

how much salary you're gonna draw to

17:20

how many meetings a week you plan to have.

17:22

You're so right, Kat. Talking about

17:24

expectations is one of the first ways to

17:26

really test out your communication with

17:28

your cofounder. And make sure that you can actually have hard or

17:30

uncomfortable conversations while still

17:32

being productive. So, in my first

17:34

startup, we initially had four founders, all

17:37

friends, Still friends? Still friends?

17:39

Still real still very good friends. And

17:41

there were a couple of topics

17:43

that we should have discussed early on

17:45

that just became bigger problems later than

17:47

they needed to be. So first,

17:49

we found out pretty early on about six

17:51

months in that one of our co founders, he kinda

17:53

had a timeline in his mind for how long

17:55

he would wait for the product to go

17:57

viral. It was a totally reasonable expectation, but

18:00

it's not something we'd really discuss. So Li six

18:02

months into our startup journey,

18:04

he's getting very frustrated with the lack

18:06

of traction. And it

18:09

kind of caught us all by surprise since

18:11

we hadn't talked about it. And, you know, it's

18:13

something that just kind of built up over over

18:15

time, and he left the company pretty

18:17

abruptly. Another topic that we should

18:19

have discussed earlier was about

18:22

finances and how long we could each afford

18:24

to go with little to no salary. So there was a

18:26

little bit of a mismatch with the founders on this. Of

18:28

course, everyone's financial situation is different.

18:30

This put a little bit of unexpected affected pressure on the company

18:32

some at one point, it kinda came out of nowhere or

18:34

felt like it came out of nowhere. And we ended up feeling like

18:36

we needed to raise. We started considering

18:38

some, like, lowball Acquire offers.

18:41

And while we didn't end up taking any of

18:43

these deals, I think if we'd known sooner,

18:45

we probably could have made some decisions earlier on

18:47

to avoid these distractions.

18:50

And so just these conversations would have been really helpful to have

18:52

had upfront. Gotcha. Yeah. These scenarios

18:54

seem pretty common. Absolutely. And it'd be really

18:56

helpful to discuss these things at Advance.

18:59

Do you have a list of topics you recommend that founders

19:01

discuss with their co founders before committing?

19:03

Yeah. So this list is by no

19:05

means exhaustive, but here Bhat some good ones

19:08

to start the conversation. So one

19:10

is, how much do you wanna work on your

19:12

startup versus not? We talked about this

19:14

earlier, but, you know, evenings,

19:17

weekends, vacations, like, kind of what are those

19:19

expectations? What do you guys both have in

19:21

your minds? They can be pretty different. They can be

19:23

very different. Sometimes people just assume

19:25

and don't have the conversation. Just, like, don't

19:27

assume, you know, put it out there.

19:29

What is being available? And, like, what are response

19:31

times look like? Like, you know, if I Slack

19:33

you and you write back to me hours later, like, am I gonna

19:35

be frustrated or am I gonna think you're really

19:37

responsive? Like, you know, people have different

19:39

senses of this. How long can

19:41

each of us go without salary or

19:44

benefits? Again, this is a very important one to talk

19:46

about. And what do each of you need

19:48

to see at different milestones

19:50

to keep working on it and stay motivated. Does

19:52

anyone have a it needs to be working

19:54

by x date? And if so,

19:56

like, what does working look like? Yeah. This

19:58

is such great advice. I can definitely

20:00

see how misalignments on these expectations

20:02

can start small but really festering

20:04

Li resentment over time. Absolutely. Aside

20:06

from aligning on expectations,

20:09

We hear that building trust is another key element

20:11

of a cofounder relationship. I've personally

20:14

seen this at the root of lots of

20:16

relationship issues, not just for cofounders,

20:18

but for friendships, family relationships, etcetera.

20:20

We see cofounder breakups all the time at

20:22

y c, and a lot of them stem from a lack

20:24

of trust that grows out of control.

20:27

how has trust played a role in your

20:29

cofounder relationship? Yeah. So

20:31

trust is a really big one. One of

20:33

the things I haven't mentioned until now is

20:35

that for both my startups, one of

20:37

my co founders is my husband. So

20:39

so my husband, so I knew you were

20:41

gonna ask. And for my second

20:43

company, he was my only co Li. It was just

20:45

the two of us. And one of the

20:47

reasons we were able to make

20:49

decisions so quickly and draw such

20:51

clear lines of ownership was that

20:53

we already had so much trust built

20:55

up from being married, but also from

20:57

having run a company together earlier.

20:59

Yeah. You know, of course, not everyone comes

21:01

in with this much underlying trust,

21:03

but having that trust

21:05

made the co founder relationship very,

21:07

very functional. I think previously

21:09

existing relationships with their co founders

21:11

could go both way. Right? Of course.

21:14

Personal relationships don't always translate

21:16

into functional co founder relationships. Yeah.

21:18

That's a hundred percent true. A a previously

21:20

existing personal relationship could totally

21:22

go both ways. And let me give

21:24

you an example of one that did not

21:26

go so well. So last

21:28

batch, Les Wicy Batch. We had a

21:30

company apply. We we thought

21:32

the founder was great, and we said, why don't you come back with

21:34

a co founder? And so

21:36

he went and he found a friend, someone who

21:39

he'd been very good friends with for a long time. They

21:41

hadn't worked together. He convinced him to join the

21:43

companies. They came back, they started the

21:45

batch. The CEO had been running the company for

21:47

about six months. And to him, it really felt like

21:49

his Combinator, no. Yeah. So

21:51

he brought in this friend and day one,

21:53

he just kind of micro managed

21:55

him and didn't give

21:57

him enough space to succeed or fail

21:59

at the projects he was responsible for. And this

22:01

is an important one Right? would kind

22:03

of jump in before

22:05

the projects had time to work. Because at

22:07

a startup, like, things take time,

22:10

Right. And everyone needs a little bit of space Bhat

22:12

they need that trust. And so he would

22:14

jump in and he would just kind of berate his

22:16

cofounder when things were

22:19

starting to go wrong. And when you

22:21

trust someone, like, you give them this room to

22:23

fail, right, and the psychological safety

22:25

to make In this case, the

22:27

co founder relationship ended with the two so,

22:29

you know, we got a Slack message one morning, and they

22:31

were, like, the two of us, we were gonna bar midnight

22:34

last night with a bunch of our friends. The

22:36

CEO was, like, berating his

22:38

cofounder and then -- Mhmm. -- so the

22:40

cofounder resigned abruptly the next morning, so

22:42

it's just not a good situation. That sounds

22:44

really rough. I would not wanna be in a

22:46

situation like that. We do have a

22:48

couple of tips to help with building

22:50

trust. So number one is trust

22:52

people by default. Bhat them

22:54

until they lose your trust, not vice

22:56

versa. A lot of good founders tell us they do

22:58

this because when you operate the other way around, like

23:00

in the example, just gave, People end

23:02

up feeling micromanage, they feel not trusted, and all

23:05

this negativity will continue to build

23:07

up. If you say you're gonna do

23:09

something, it. If you're not gonna get

23:11

it done, that's fine. Like start ups run super

23:13

fast. You will often have more things than you

23:15

can finish on your plate. Mhmm. But if you're not

23:17

going to do it, you should communicate early and

23:21

Li. Create space for mistakes. You

23:23

are going to make mistakes all the

23:25

time, both you and your co founder

23:28

So don't say things like I told you

23:30

so. It's important to learn from mistakes

23:32

together rather than assigning blame when something

23:34

goes wrong. And lastly, the more

23:36

time you can spend physically together, the

23:38

better. This lowers the friction to asking

23:40

questions, talking about the little things can

23:42

expedite making progress on both your startup

23:44

and your relationship. Communication

23:46

in person can also help you

23:48

learn or get a better understanding for

23:50

the way your cofounder And that can

23:52

help you build trust as well. Thanks, Kat.

23:54

Those are great. And, you

23:57

know, they can kind of build a really good

23:59

foundation for building a

24:01

trusting relationship. So in addition to that underlying trust

24:03

that you're gonna be continually working

24:05

at, there might need to be some

24:07

structural roles and responsibilities that are

24:09

defined to keep decision making. fast.

24:11

So on my first company, we

24:13

made the mistake of trying to keep

24:15

everything equal. And there are many

24:18

of you. They're four must. Yeah. So, you

24:20

know, we talked earlier about

24:22

how splitting equity equally is a good idea

24:24

and like totally agree with that. The equity was

24:26

not the problem. The first kind of yellow flag that came up

24:28

was that we decided to not have any

24:31

titles. Like, we all called ourselves cofounder.

24:34

And so in and of itself, that wasn't

24:36

really a problem. But there's kinda two

24:38

issues with this. One is, as a

24:40

corollary to that, we tried to make all of our

24:42

decisions by consensus. Consensus meaning

24:44

you all had to agree on the decision

24:46

to move forward. Yeah. For, like, any

24:48

decision. So I don't think I even need

24:50

to go into it with this group. I'm like, why that's a bad idea.

24:52

But at the time, it felt really equal and it

24:54

felt equitable. Bhat also the

24:56

the fact that we had no no titles was

24:58

a little bit of a yellow flag because it was an

25:00

early indicator that the team

25:02

couldn't have hard conversations. And

25:04

we couldn't make decisions when there

25:06

was disagreement. Right? And so it was, like, the

25:09

consensus and the lack of titles were, like, both

25:11

kind of symptoms of same thing. You know, having to

25:13

make decisions by consensus was ultimately

25:15

disastrous. Like, we would just spin. We would get stuck in

25:17

gridlock. So let's talk

25:19

about some ways to protect against this. So you all

25:21

don't repeat my mistake. Yeah. So as

25:23

Vivienne mentioned, having clear titles or

25:25

at least naming one person the CEO

25:27

can certainly help. None of this

25:29

co CEO stuff. It helps break ties in

25:32

disagreement, and it's also just really good practice

25:34

for having hard conversations where

25:36

two people may not agree. Not being able to pick

25:38

a CEO could be a sign that you're not able

25:40

to make hard decisions together. In addition

25:43

to titles, It's important to establish a few

25:45

other things that can help with decision

25:47

making. So clear areas of ownership within the

25:49

company. Who is the final

25:51

decision maker for different types of

25:53

decisions? This could be a different person in different functions, but it's important

25:55

to know who it is. Bhat happens if

25:57

the other person disagrees, disagrees

26:00

slightly versus strongly.

26:02

Maybe the way you deal with it is different in

26:04

those cases. And finally, it can be helpful

26:06

to set up a structure for accountability. So

26:08

once you've made your decision, at some point, you

26:10

should check back in to see how that decision played out

26:12

and whether anything needs to change on the process moving

26:15

forward. Clear areas of ownership are very,

26:17

very important in a startup, in

26:19

a business. And in

26:21

addition, in order to make that work, it's also very

26:23

important to understand each other's

26:25

personality and communication styles

26:27

And so, you know, here's some tips on that. So

26:29

one is keep the keep an eye on your

26:32

on each other's mental health. Right? Like, Li either

26:34

of you as a mental health professional or anything like Bhat,

26:36

but you can kind of see some early indicators. Is your co founder burning

26:38

out? Are they taking care of themselves? Are they starting

26:40

to kind of become more

26:42

reactive or more emotional? Like, these are some things to

26:44

look out for and catch Li.

26:47

Related, know how each of

26:49

you reacts when you're under stress or

26:51

when you're having a tough conversation.

26:53

Kat, let me ask you a question. When

26:55

you're in a stressful, tough conversation, do you tend

26:57

to attack or retreat? I

27:00

get very aggressive when I feel upset,

27:02

so I would say attack.

27:04

Yeah. Same. I am I'm

27:07

in the same boat. And this

27:09

is something that I assumed was the case

27:11

for everyone, but it's not. Right? Like, people have very

27:13

different personality types I've been in a few close professional

27:16

relationships or co founder relationships. If I'm

27:18

very frustrated, I like you, I get very

27:20

spun up. Like, I I get very

27:22

communicative, communicative, I crave engagement. Do

27:24

you wanna solve the problem right now? Exactly. Like,

27:26

I wanna get into it right now right now. Right. You might not

27:28

always be a good idea. Right? Like, we might be emotional, but

27:30

I'm still like, I I wanna I wanna get

27:33

through this. And I've worked with people that

27:35

in those situations, like, they just kinda wanna

27:37

withdraw a little bit, like, they wanna cool

27:40

down. Maybe they don't wanna engage with me because I'm being

27:42

crazy. Right. But, like, people

27:44

sometimes just want, like, a little bit of time to

27:46

calm down. And I think sometimes when a

27:48

mismatch in these styles, it can create a little

27:50

bit of a Bhat vicious cycle. It can

27:52

self perpetuate. The more you wanna talk to them,

27:54

the more they are not trying to talk to

27:56

you right Right. And I might perceive that they don't care about

27:59

the problem. So it's just important to

28:01

know how people react in

28:03

stress. A few other things. So does your

28:05

cofounder tend to speak up when they see a

28:07

small problem? Or do they bottle it up until there's

28:09

a huge frustration? It's important to know how big

28:11

of a deal things are when someone brings things up.

28:13

Bhat environments are most comfortable for your

28:16

cofounder to voice concerns? Is it, you

28:18

know, like a walk in talk? Is it

28:20

-- Mhmm. -- maybe over a meal? Is it in a scheduled

28:22

structured one on one where there's time set

28:24

aside for concerns? Here's one

28:26

that might be a little bit counterintuitive, but are

28:28

you both comfortable praising each other

28:30

and celebrating each other's wins, this can

28:32

actually be very uncomfortable for people

28:34

sometimes. Can you, you know, give each other

28:36

positive feedback and can you graciously accept

28:38

positive like this a strong co founder relationship.

28:40

And lastly, will you feel attacked if

28:42

your co founder makes a suggestion about your

28:44

work? Because as we talked about, everyone's gonna make a

28:46

lot of mistakes. Right? And

28:48

everyone needs to be able to talk about these in

28:51

a way that isn't emotionally loaded.

28:53

So, figure out what that looks like for you. And

28:55

can you do it without taking it personally?

28:58

definitely have an aggressive personality

29:00

type when I'm stressed. So this is all really,

29:02

really helpful stuff to think about. Let's

29:04

wrap up by talking about a few habits and

29:06

structures you can put in place to try build

29:08

and foster a productive co finder relationship.

29:10

Number one, have regularly scheduled one

29:12

on ones. Even if you talk to each other all the

29:14

time, it can also be helpful to keep a list

29:16

of ongoing topics. That you add to as you think

29:18

of things. And if there's something non urgent,

29:21

just, you know, add it to the list instead of interrupting your

29:23

cofounder every time there's something those

29:25

one on ones, definitely reserve time

29:27

for bidirectional feedback, both positive

29:29

and constructive. Make this something that's part

29:31

of the flow. Make it routine, not something that

29:34

like a big deal you dread all the time.

29:36

Actually, I have a great example. The founders

29:38

from Kiwi Biosciences, which I talked about earlier,

29:40

do something that I think is pretty cool,

29:42

When one person gives constructive feedback,

29:44

the other person doesn't interrupt or

29:47

argue. It's a really neat way to let someone

29:49

vent without feeling like they have to defend

29:51

why they feel And I think it also helps with

29:53

feeling like it's okay to talk

29:55

about even the smallest things. And that leads me to

29:57

the next point, which is, don't delay

29:59

hard conversations. And don't wait

30:01

until things are a big problem before you

30:03

mention them. The thing with problems is that

30:05

they're easier to solve when they're

30:07

small. Engage a coach or

30:09

counselor for tricky interpersonal situations.

30:11

Don't feel bad about this. This is

30:13

really helpful. I highly recommend it. These

30:15

coaches is literally their job

30:17

to help people through these problems. They've seen it all and they can help

30:19

you. And again, it doesn't mean you have a

30:21

big problem because you're engaging a coach.

30:24

Right? Like, you can you can tackle the problem while

30:26

it's small. And we've talked about this next

30:28

one a couple times already, but we do think it's

30:30

really important. Avoid personal

30:32

statements and normalize failure. We've

30:34

set this multiple times. Failure is going to

30:36

happen all the time and you need to

30:38

create space for that. So don't say things

30:40

like I told you so. Don't say, hey, you

30:42

always do this. You always XYZ.

30:44

These are personal attacks, and you don't really want

30:46

that in your COFINA relationship.

30:49

Argue and get comfortable arguing,

30:51

but you should know who ultimately

30:53

is the decision maker. Discrete and

30:55

commit. At some point your team will have

30:57

to make a decision unless you're, you

30:59

know, trying to do the consensus thing. Don't do

31:02

that. Bhat once you've made

31:04

a decision, commit and move

31:06

on. Just remember that at the end of the

31:08

day, no matter what happens or what

31:10

details you disagree on, you have the

31:12

same ultimate goal. Right? You both want the

31:14

startup to succeed. You're on the

31:16

same team. Yeah. And you're doing something very,

31:18

very hard and against the odds.

31:20

So you wanna be marching in the same

31:22

direction. Right. So that wraps up

31:24

our talk. Hopefully, you've gained

31:26

either the desire to get a co founder,

31:28

more clarity on who your co founder

31:30

should be. Or maybe more insight on how to

31:32

work together with a co founder.