The 9 Hot Button Conversations All Co-Founders Need to Have | Partnership Agreement

Create a partnership agreement with your co-founder(s) to prevent the conflicts that kill 65% of startups. To start, take the How Well Do I Know My Co-Founder Quiz & discuss your results with me!

The 9 Essential Conversations for Founding Teams

Source: Confidante’s Partnership Agreement Program

“Social contract theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live” (IEP).

The same holds true for companies - you as a founder have a unique opportunity to design a partnership arrangement that works for you! Do not let this opportunity go to waste - take the time to reflect on your needs, share them with your co-founder, listen to their constraints, and define a shared set of expectations and norms - a foundation upon which to build your professional world.

Here are some of the structured conversations I have with founding teams. If one strikes you as particularly valuable for you, email me at annie@confidante.info and I’ll share the exercise for that topic with you.

Module 1: Self-Awareness | Reflecting on the Past

1. Working Style Preferences: First outline your own and what you perceive to be your co-founder’s working style preferences - you can think across a few dimensions of organization, structure, risk tolerance, orientation around relationships vs. execution, etc. Share with each other, clarifying areas of misperception and noticing areas of difference.
   If you and your co-founder(s) take the How Well Do I Know My Co-Founder Quiz, I’ll do this analysis for you!

2. Working Relationship Resume: Thinking back on your past professional relationships, which was your favorite and why? Which was your least favorite and why? Create a list of working norms based on these discussions.

3. Founder Motivations: Studies show that founders choose this path for one of two reasons: wealth or control. Which is primarily motivating you? Your co-founder? What might this mean for what success looks like for you?

4. Personal Values & Priorities: Your startup will not (and should not) be your whole life. Have a conversation on what your and your co-founder’s individual goals are not only professionally, but also personally - financially, family-wise, geographically, etc.

Module 2: Visioning | Looking to the Future

1. Contingency Planning: Talk about the worst case scenario when you’re living the best case scenario (i.e., at the very beginning)! What happens if one of you wants to leave the company for personal reasons? What happens if one of you wants the other to leave the company?

2. Roles & Responsibilities: Write very clear job descriptions for your job title (CEO, CTO, etc.) as well as for being a co-founder. It is essential to take the subjective definition and expectations from your own experience and come to an objective agreement on what to expect from each other in these roles.

3. Team Culture & Values: Define 5 characteristics that define your company code of conduct. Write down what this looks like in practice, and name a few scenarios where it might be more difficult to live up to this code.

Module 3: Ways of Working | Optimizing the Present

1. Shared Decision Making: Think about a Venn Diagram where each co-founder is a circle. What categories of decisions fall in who’s circle (i.e., who is the final decision maker by category)? For the categories that fall in the middle, what is the process for making a shared decision, especially when you disagree?

2. Performance & Feedback: Schedule regular time review each other’s performance (every 3, 6, or 12 months). As a founder, the only real peer-based feedback you can get is from your co-founder, create the space and process to utilize this.

3. Compensation & Equity: This topic comes last for a reason! All the other conversations will then inform how you will want to split the company. Only after these conversations will you should understand each other’s professional goals and timelines, decision making processes, and defined job descriptions - all of which are essential to creating the right compensation and equity plan for your partnership.

I hope this tactical guide to structuring fair and informative trial projects is helpful, if you’d like to chat more about it - you can schedule a quick chat with me here.

Are you a conflict-free early stage (Pre-Seed through Series A) co-founder?

Let’s keep it that way! Have your team complete the How Well Do I Know My Co-Founder Quiz and schedule a free initial team consult to explore your results.