There are a lot of factors that go into why a startup might not end up successful. Some you have control over, some you don’t. An unhealthy or turbulent relationship between co-founders can be a big reason some companies fail.
Instead of going to lawyers to solve differences after the fact, some business partners are now seeking couples counseling (or partner coaching) before things get out of hand.
NPR talked with Jon Chintanaroad and Mike Prestano, co founders of tech recruiting startup, Aspire Recruiting, in 2013. The two started as friends before launching the company and ended up jokingly referring to their relationship as a marriage because of the time they spent together as the business picked up speed and revenue started rolling in.
Their personalities complimented each other when things were going well, Chintanaroad said, but when the company hit a rough patch, they clashed.
“It’s like any sports team,” Prestano says. “If you lose: ‘You should have scored this touchdown.’ ‘You should have scored that basket.’ ‘You should have passed to here instead of there.’ Those aren’t easy conversations.”
When they began fighting frequently, they both agreed that they didn’t want the business to ruin their friendship. So they went to a counselor.
Jonathan Horowitz is a psychologist with offices in San Francisco and San Mateo. He told NPR that the number of requests he gets for co-founder counseling has doubled in the last year.
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Many startups, especially in the tech industry, are founded by young guys — friends who met in college, got an apartment together and started working on their laptops around-the-clock to get a business off the ground. When things go well, co-founders can suddenly find themselves in complicated business situations with a lot of money — and power — on the line. They have to decide who’s going to be CEO. They have to answer to investors. These pressures test the relationship.
Because in a partnership there tends to be one person who is more dominant, the other person might not feel heard, resentments can build on both ends. Horowitz says his job is to facilitate better communication, empathy and build trust.
“All those things are important if you’re going to run a business with someone for years and years,” he says, “just like [in] a marriage.”
These principles aren’t just important in a startup situation. They can be useful in already established businesses.
Couples counselors say larger companies like Cisco and Google have hired them to work with managers who aren’t getting along. Stanford Business School offers a group therapy course, where required reading includes The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.
According to the NPR piece, Chintanaroad and Prestano have found a better balance in their relationship and are now using the same partnership and communication skills at bars to pick up girls.
[Photo from Flickr user Fox Valley Institute]
