“If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” These are the words of an inspirational quote that perfectly suits this topic of finding and working with a co-founder. 

It explains why a solopreneur might find it easy to implement their business idea but only typically operate on a small scale whereas, on the other hand, an entrepreneurs might spend more time implementing an idea but end up growing their business to reach an international audience or to diversify into new markets. 

More analytically, a founder’s dream of building a company is usually simpler than when compared to the actual process of building the company. The result is that many solopreneurs come to realize that they are incapable of running their dream business all alone (that is, they go fast but cannot go far, perhaps, because they lack technical knowledge or funding) and so they become entrepreneurs by finding a co-founder and other business partners for their startup. 

The advantage of co-founding a company and working as an entrepreneurship rather than a solopreneur is that there are more hands on deck and there is increased knowledge, expertise, and competence to get the business growing. 

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Who is a co-founder?

A co-founder is an entrepreneur who comes onboard a company to assist its founder in undertaking high-level formational, administrative, or operational duties. This instance of co-founding happens when a company already has a founder. 

The second instance of co-founding a company happens when there is no one founder. Instead, two or more co-founders come on board all at once. This set of people will have the same operational and decision-making power and appear in the same level on the organisation hierarchy. 

Take note of these two instances of co-founding as we will use them to explain different concepts later in this article. 

What is the role of a co-founder?

The work of running a company can be a huge task. This is precisely why founders request the service of a co-founder. The role of a co-founder includes:

Representing the founder:

A founder’s absence or unavailability will have less impact if he or she has a co-founder. 

This co-founder will stand in their position for the entire length of their absence. They will oversee the entire executive and decision making processes in the company. Furthermore, they will be responsible for representing the founder in top-priority meetings and forums. 

Sharing the Workload:

Whether by helping with administrative duties or by checking on team members and the progress of a task, co-founders function in sharing a founder’s workload. This helps lessen the stress on a founder. It also gives the co-founder a learning opportunity by which they can improve their interpersonal skills, increase their understanding of the business, and become poised to make more intelligent decisions. 

Contributing Financially:

In a typical setting, a co-founder nurtures the dream of building a company with the founder. Fulfilling this business dream becomes a common mission for both parties. As such, it is the responsibility of a co-founder to assist in any and every way possible. This includes making financial contributions through sourcing or acquisition of funds. 

Providing Motivation:

Another role of a co-founder in supporting a founder or one or more co-founders is by being a source of motivation. With this, their actions and words become inspirational, provide succour, and promote encouragement. In addition, the co-founder will be able to express constructive criticism when they need arises. 

Inspiring Accountability:

Leaders, founders or co-founders, and other people at the top of an organisational hierarchy have a duty to be accountable. This means that they will provide accounts of or respond to questions from their subordinates or the general public about their methods, principles, motives, and actual actions. 

Co-founders can prompt founders to lead this life of accountability both by being accountable and by requesting the same from a founder. 

What is the difference between a founder and a co-founder?

A founder is the individual who conceives the first or basic idea behind a particular business. They are the ones at the drawing board. In fact, a founder is the single individual who designs and redesigns an idea before finally coming up with something worthy of a minimum viable product (MVP). 

A co-founder is an individual who comes on the scene to support a business founder. They complement the ideas of the founder and are responsible for providing support or advice towards the business goal. 

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How to choose the right co-founder for your startup

Choosing the right co-founder will likely mean finding someone who can do the following;

Put in the same amount of effort that you do:

As a founder, you don’t want a co-founder who is less zealous or any less energetic than yourself. The reason is that running a company can be stressful and so you would need someone who would encourage and inspire you rather than someone you would need to encourage and support or even drag along. 

Is open to communicating with you:

Communication is key. Literally. The less you communicate with a co-founder and vice versa, the more unproductive the business becomes. Good communication promotes understanding between parties, effective decision-making, seamless execution of business plans etc.

Has the same ideas of a work-life balance:

Top-level executives sometimes express differences in their idea of a work-life balance. The issue with this is that operation and decision making processes are hindered when one company executive is taking a break while another is working at full throttle. 

For example, a co-founder might have the idea that working late in the afternoon is best for their well-being whereas a founder in the same setting might be accustomed to doing their work entirely in the morning. 

Similar to this, differences in an individual’s relaxation activities could prove to be a challenge. You might have two co-founders and while one finds it relaxing to read a book, the other doesn’t and so they both feel like they’re not on the same page with each other. 

Finding a co-founder who precisely understands and accepts your idea of a work-life balance is one of the best things that can happen to you. 

Learns from you and contributes as much:

As a founder, you are probably consuming a lot of information through business news, entrepreneurship books, founder’ interviews and the likes. Your wealth of knowledge could easily benefit a co-founder but that is if they are open to learning from you. 

Once they begin to learn, a co-founder will become better at making meaningful contributions to the business. Doing this will increase the chances of having creative product or service ideas and seamless business processes at your company. 

Is reliable, honest, and trustworthy:

Being reliable means that your co-founder can perform up to expectations. They are available when the need arises, and they deliver high on output. 

On the other hand, being honest means that you don’t have any reason to doubt their words. They are not deceptive in nature and they report things exactly as they happen. 

How to protect your business from co-founder’s conflict

Having multiple co-founders, like in the second instance of co-founding which we explained, could have its positive and negative sides. One of the negative side of it is that a conflict could arise between co-founders. 

Conflicts like this can tear a company apart. Moreover, serious co-founder conflicts could stain a company’s public image and leave a dark spot in its history. So how do you make sure that such an issue doesn’t occur in your business? Here are some ideas:

Set Guidelines or SOPs for Co-founder Activities:

It is easier to prevent or even settle a conflict when there is a well laid out structure for how things should be done. Therefore, companies should develop a comprehensive SOP or guideline for its co-founders, stating what range of  actions or in-actions are unacceptable. 

A guideline could also go as far as including fair and legal measures for handling or correcting erring co-founders. 

Having this kind of document and ensuring that every co-founder reads, understands, and accepts it will ease conflict resolutions processes, especially in a setting where there is no one founder to make a final decision or judgement. 

Conduct Trainings:

Training plays an important role in determining how co-founders respond to specific personal and business situations. For instance, how they react to opposing views from fellow co-founders or how they handle losing in a voting process.  

Conducting trainings also helps ensure that co-founders and other supervisors remain professional in their dealings, and keep to the standard of the company. 

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FAQs about having a co-founder 

There are lots of other things people ask about having a co-founder and we will take the time to address them in this section. 

Do I need a co-founder for my startup?

It is easy to brandish the importance of a co-founder. However, we must remember that the presence of co-founders extends the chain of command in a business organisational hierarchy. 

This issue could reek havoc for a startup, especially when individual co-founders are unprofessional, when they fail to promote a company’s goals, or when they are difficult to deal with. 

To avoid any of these situations, you will want to be really certain about whether you need a co-founder or not. Here are some questions you can ask to improve the quality of your decision;

Will having a co-founder improve the general outlook of your business?

Certain businesses can thrive with having one founder and no co-founder. This typically depends on the size of the business, and how difficult or easy it is to operate in the specific field of such a business.

Large-sized companies of about 100 or more people can make use of a co-founder since the requirements of running such a business will be much. If a company is this large and it doesn’t have a co-founder, then it might end up having a poor outlook. 

Will having a co-founder improve an investor’s approval?

Investors typically prefer to stake on large companies including those that have a well defined organisation structure. It might be a little difficult to find an investor who doesn’t have this preference but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. 

To know if an investor trusts a one-man business or not, you can simply look at their investment record. Did they invest in a company with zero co-founders or did they invest in one with multiple co-founders? If they invested in a company with multiple co-founders, what exactly were the numbers of co-founders in that company? Did they make their investment at an early stage of the company or did they wait till after the company had grown? 

Answering these questions will provide insights on every prospective investor, and this will help you decide whether to seek a co-founder or not.

Will having a co-founder negatively or positive impact the chain of command?

Having one or more co-founders means a lengthy decision-making process since numerous officials would be required to validate a line of action - and the diffenrent co-founders will likely have varying opinions. 

So if your company has lots of individual staff, department heads and deputies, administrative officers, and perhaps co-founders, it will significantly increase the time it takes to make a decision. 

The problem with this is that it sacrifices the speed of making a decision for the quality of a decision. This could result in higher opportunity costs for a business. In essence, businesses could lose a high number of opportunities (since business opportunities are usually time-sensitive) when they spend too much time in their decision making process. 

Will the company successfully support a co-founder in terms of paying their salary and providing other benefits?

Let’s not talk about the first instance of co-founding a business where there is one founder and one or more co-founders. Rather, let’s talk about having multiple co-founders and no one founder. 

In this second instance, all co-founders in the team will be entitled to just about the same privileges, such as salary, security etc. This could significantly increase a company’s expenditure and maybe even cause financial strain. 

Do I need more than one co-founder?

There is no strict rule that says you must have one, two or any particular number of co-founders. Nevertheless, many business analysts believe that between two and four co-founders is enough no matter the type of business. 

You should probably only try out other different numbers when you are certain that this will bring a rounded advantage to your team. For instance, co-founders will not pick sides against one another when making a decision. 

What title should a co-founder have?

Founder and co-founder titles range from Chief Executive Officer (CEO), to Chief Technical Officer (CTO), to Chief Operating Officer (COO), to  Chief Financial Officer (CFO), to Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), to Chief Security Officer (CSO), to Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and even Chief Experience Officer (CxO). 

Each of these titles specify a particular role which a co-founder will play. It also tells the experience or expertise which a co-founder possesses. For example, a CTO or chief technical officer will lead technical development in a business and must have good knowledge about the position. 

It is important that businesses do not assign titles to co-founders early on in the business or rather, unnecessarily. If they do, then the company will lack credibility when it is being assessed by investors. 

Businesses with experienced co-founders can go ahead to give these professionals a title. Doing this right will improve the public image of a company and also increase its chances of attracting investment. 

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What skills should a co-founder have?

Co-founders are required to have as many skills as a founder. Here are some of them;

Computer Skills:

We are in the 21st century and so it is right for any business to take advantage of computerized technologies. A co-founder would need to posesss relevant computer skills before they can promote this action in their prospective companies. 

Technical Skills:

First things first, you want a co-founder who can provide detailed, technical assistance to you and your team. This is why your preferred co-founder should have reasonable technical skills relating to the field of your business operation. 

With high technical skills, a co-founder can easily supervise operational processes. They will also be able to provide demonstrations during staff trainings and express competence when it comes to modifying or reiterating on-going processes. 

Networking Skills:

Co-founders need to have a strong network to their name. The advantages of such good networking skills include connecting with like-minded individuals to discuss challenges, profer solutions, and document useful methods for example, in an entrepreneurship book. 

Interpersonal Skills:

Interpersonal skills are relevant in every business setting. It promotes understanding, positive interactions, and strong, meaningful relationships. Co-founders who possess this skill will function better at managing team members and reporting to founders on the state of an operation or the performance of individual staff. 

To sum up

Experienced entrepreneurs mention that the most difficult thing about finding a co-founder is seeing someone who fits. 

To overcome this challenge, founders must be sure to outline all their expectations, specify the skills required of co-founders, and mention the prospective roles that they will perform once onboard the team.