Co-Founder Alignment
Co-founders’ goals don’t have to be identical but they can’t be mutually exclusive either.
I just got off the phone with a terrific group of startup co-founders I know, and we had a good two-and-a-half hour conversation about how important stakeholder alignment is to a young, change-the-world company. Let me tell you a quick story I told them.
About 15 years ago, I met a couple of co-founders who had an exciting company but were also having conflict.
Over a two-day retreat I scheduled with them, we worked through the core tenets of the strategic approach I continue to use at Findaway Adventures. One of those tenets is to “know thyself,” which in the case of co-founders really means going deep on each of their dreams and aspirations.
It was when we came to the question, “What do you want to get out of the company?” that the conflict became clear. “Bill” wanted to quickly grow the company with the goal of selling it five years down the road as a first step toward serial entrepreneurship. “Jim” wanted a company for life, one he could pass down to his son, who was only 12 years-old at the time.
These widely differing visions, and the trajectories they implied, were creating conflicts everywhere we looked, including whether to pursue new markets overseas or invest in expensive technology to scale their operations, and so on. Frankly, it was amazing they could make any decisions given their misalignment and I am certain their team felt their tension.
Ultimately, I helped them hammer out an exit strategy for Bill that made sense financially so that he could go on and start another company. Both co-founders got exactly what they wanted and the plan worked. The lesson is clear: if you are a co-founder, go to some beautiful place, lock yourself in a room with your fellow founders, and take as long as you need to answer a few of the basic “know thyself” questions I put to Bill and Jim.
Here they are:
What’s most important, being “King” (making daily decisions and being in the weeds) or being “Rich” (not just monetarily, but growing your baby as large as it can go, whether you are in control or not)?
Here’s a lesson I did on How Will We Succeed. If you go to time marker 48:00 – 55:40 there is a section to help you answer this question.
What’s your personal story? Why did you start the company? Why are you here? What are you looking to accomplish?
What is your superpower? How can you most help the company grow up and accomplish its mission?
What do you most love about working at the company? Name the one or two things that if you had to get out of bed every day and do nothing but that you would be totally cool.
What do you most loath about working at the company? Name the one or two things that if you had to get out of bed every day and do nothing but that you would likely want to blow your own brains out. ;)
Describe in some detail your ideal last day with the company.
Related to all the questions above, I did a seminar on knowing thyself in the spring, and the link to the entire 80 minute presentation is here. From 13:00 –29:40 is the lesson on building your story. From 1:11:55 – 1:16:10 are some quick tips and a short lesson on a Personal Playbook, of which I am a big fan.
What are you doing to maximize co-founder alignment in your change-the-world business? I’d love to know.
Sincerely,
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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!