🚩 6 Biggest Mistakes Choosing a Co-Founder + 📝 Quiz: Which Mistake Might You Make?

Choosing the wrong co-founder can and will derail your startup! Don't let it! Learn which pitfalls you're likely to fall into and tactical ways to prevent them.

Jan 30, 2024

Which mistakes are YOU most at-risk of when choosing a co-founder?

If you’ve ever thought: “all successful startups have co-founders”, “I’ll know when it’s the right person”, “I need a co-founder with [deep industry expertise], [an expansive network]”, or “I need a co-founder NOW!” Then this article is for you!

The founding team is a leading predictor of startup success or failure

Finding a co-founder is often as hard (if not harder) than finding a life partner - in fact more than half (65%) of high potential startups fail due to co-founder conflict.

Finding the right co-founder goes far beyond technical skills or finding someone with a compatible personality. The right co-founder will complement your abilities, share your vision, and align with your values and work ethic.

In this guide (and accompanying quiz), we’ll reveal the 6 most damaging mistakes when selecting a co-founder. These pitfalls commonly show up in three categories:

Category 1: Knowing Yourself & Where You Thrive
Category 2: Mapping Out What You (Really) Need
Category 3: Taking a Test Run (with Intention and Structure)

Our findings are informed by existing research, hundreds of conversations with founders, and personal experience as founders. Learn more about the authors: multi-time founder - Ines Gramegna, and co-founder relationship expert - Annie Garofalo.

Category 1: Knowing Yourself & Where You Thrive

Mistake 1: “Everyone needs a co-founder - anyone is better than doing it alone!”

The data about solo-preneurship is pretty clear: it is undoubtedly harder to build a successful startup as a solo founder. The workload alone is hard to manage, not to mention how lonely and emotionally taxing entrepreneurship can be. As a result many founders (and investors, for that matter) believe the only path to success is to have a co-founder, no matter the cost.

The Truth: The truth is, as the saying goes: “better alone than poorly accompanied”. A co-founder should be chosen primarily for their active contributions to the business rather than just as a shoulder to lean on. While the right co-founder can multiply a venture’s success, the wrong co-founder can kill the business.

Actionable Steps: It's better to be alone than in the wrong partnership. Focus on:

Writing a co-founder “Job Description” to define what a co-founder commitment looks like (functionally, socially, emotionally)
Building a support system (friends, family, coach, healthy habits and routines around sleep, sports etc) outside of your co-founder to rely on
Understanding why you feel strongly about having a cofounder and what scares you about going at it alone

Mistake 2: “I’ll just know when it’s right, I don’t need to know myself first”

The temptation when starting a business is to think that it had to start yesterday. As a result, anything that can further delay building is viewed as a waste of time. That includes taking the time to understand oneself (one’s strengths, preferences, areas of development) before searching for a co-founder. What’s the point? You’ve spent enough time with yourself already to know what you need, right?

The Truth: Self-awareness and knowing your strengths and weaknesses are essential for finding the right co-founder. Knowing yourself (and being able to articulate this to potential partners) is paramount for a successful co-founder search because it will allow you to find someone complementary in skill but aligned in your values & vision.

Actionable Steps: To enhance self-awareness, engage in the following:

Seek input from friends and colleagues about how they view you
Take personality tests like the Enneagram or Big 5 (see the “Resources” at the bottom of this article for a full list of personality tests)
Reflect on your past experiences, identifying patterns of what partnerships worked and didn’t work for you

Category 2: Mapping Out What You (Really) Need

Mistake 3: “I need an industry expert co-founder”

When founding a company - especially in an area where you are not an expert - you may be tempted to over-compensate by bringing on a high profile subject matter expert.

The Truth: While industry experience is valuable, grit and determination often trump insider knowledge in the long run. A co-founder with the resilience to adapt, learn, and persevere can be more critical for your startup's success. That said, if high profile experts want to join your team (congratulations!), refer back to your “co-founder job description” and be clear about milestones. You may also consider bringing them in as an investor or advisor rather than co-founder.

Actionable Steps: To remedy this:

Identify individuals with a strong growth mindset and willingness to learn (ask about how they’ve learned something on the job recently)
Look for signs of resilience and adaptability (e.g. ask them to do a short project with you! - see Category 3)
Source expertise in other ways (e.g. as advisors, investors, consultants) and/or have the hard conversations about co-founder commitment and expectations (see: Mistake 1)

Mistake 4: “I need someone with an expansive network”

Most first-time founders have a limited customer, VC or partner network. As a result, it can be tempting to choose a co-founder for their valuable connections in the space to shorten time to sale and to fundraise.

The Truth: A vast network can be appealing (big tech, brand name accelerator, etc), but it shouldn't be the sole driving factor in your decision. Even if they have a significant network, they may be unwilling or ill equipped to activate this network effectively. Choosing someone for their network can blind you from other important factors in choosing a co-founder. Additionally, network is not an innate skill, but something that you can build as you grow as an entrepreneur.

Actionable Steps: To address this:

If network is critical, develop a process to adequately test the relevance, authenticity and activation potential of the person’s network.
Do a few test runs to see if this person is willing to open their network to you (especially if there may be mistakes and pivots as a startup).
Build a strategy for expanding your personal and company’s network (events, advisors, investors, sales, etc) that does not rely on a co-founder.

Mistake 5: “I want someone who’s always in sync with me”

The well-studied “similar-to-me bias” proves that we gravitate to people who are similar to us. That includes personality traits. We fear that different personalities will clash and cause issues within the founding team.

The Truth: While it's essential to connect with your co-founder on a personal level, don't overlook the benefits of diverse personalities. Diverse personalities are especially important in supporting each other in difficult times, in getting different perspectives on a problem, and in learning how to create an environment that celebrates differences of opinion. It's less important to always be “in sync”, and more important to have shared values and principles on the big things.

Actionable Steps: As a result, you’ll want to:

Walk through the 9 hot topics for co-founders and see how you deal with disagreements
Pick your top 5 values each from Brené Brown’s list and compare; discuss where might these align or be in tension?
Both create a manual on “How to Work with Me” and compare them

Category 3: Taking a Test Run

Mistake 6: “Let’s just get started together & see where it goes”

When you get excited about an idea and working with someone who shares your passion, it is easy to just decide to just ‘jump in’ and see how it goes. This is particularly true for prospective co-founders that know each other well (close friends, relatives, or prior colleagues) and assume they’re on the same page.

The Truth: While it is tempting to just hop in and get started, it can also be the most dangerous of the pitfalls. Without taking the time to (a) have open communication about commitment, vision, shared values, (b) test out whether the collaboration is enjoyable and productive, the likelihood of the co-founder relationship working out in the long-run is small. No matter your prior experience with that person, make sure to take the time to test out and define what this exact working relationship will be before making the full commitment.

Actionable Steps: A few ways to address this:

Launch a co-founder trial project / pilot with a clear timeline, deliverables, ownership plan, and check in date. Try to design a project that mimics the reality of being co-founders as much as possible in terms of intensity, uncertainty etc.
Try 'Blind answering': take some of the key questions around expectations, vision etc. and write out your answers separately then exchange papers. See if they match!
Try on for size different scenarios and see how you align or diverge in your answers, see these 4 scenarios (see end of that article)

In Conclusion: Turn Mistakes into Best Practices!

There they are - the biggest mistakes when co-founder “dating”! Reframed, the top 6 best practices in finding a co-founder:

The 6 Best Practices When Finding a Co-Founder

Better to found alone than be poorly accompanied.
Self-awareness is a pre-requisite (for you and any potential co-founders).
Grit and adaptability (rather than industry expertise) are the best predictors of success.
Build your own network rather than relying on someone else’s.
Ground in shared values rather than shared personality.
Run through a clearly defined co-founder pilot project before making any commitments.

We all know finding the ideal co-founder is an art, not a checklist. Our hope is by understanding the most common pitfalls, you’re better able to find the right partner.

Curious which mistake you’re prone to fall in to? Use our quiz to figure it out (we promise you’ll get results right away, not behind a email paywall).

Take the Quiz!