Cofounder management

http://www.aaronkharris.com/cofounder-management

by akharris • 11 years ago

151 43 11 years ago

Cofounders rarely have experience managing anyone or anything.

This might be true if you're talking about a startup run by a bunch of 20-somethings with no experience. These are certainly en vogue in Silicon Valley today, but hardly represent all startups.

Cofounders often think they don't need management because they're all on the same team, working towards the same goals.

This is a sign of an inexperienced, naive founder. No entrepreneur worth teaming up with believes management is unnecessary.

Startups are high pressure, and pressure makes people make bad decisions and lose their tempers.

Notwithstanding the fact that if your startup is a pressure cooker, you're doing it wrong, it's dangerous to believe that all people react the same way to pressure and stress. Pressure and stress lead some people to anger and poor decision making. Start a company with these people at your own risk.

Deciding to start a company from scratch with the goal of building a billion dollar business takes ego.

Most successful businesses aren't started by people who are focused on building a billion-dollar company. If that's your overriding goal, clashing egos will hardly be your biggest problem.

Incidentally, while it obviously wasn't the intent, this post demonstrates some of the advantages of founding a company solo. It worked for Sam Walton, Ralph Lauren, Richard Branson, Sara Blakely, Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Michael Dell, Ross Perot and countless others.

Investors like YC don't look on solo founders favorably and have helped create a narrative that has deterred some entrepreneurs from taking this path (and created the inane "seeking co-founder" environment), but entrepreneurs should understand that investors have motives for wanting multiple founders that are not necessarily aligned with their interests.

For seed stage investors particularly, multiple founders is a derisking mechanism. For instance, there are a lot of smart, talented folks out there, but it's still hard to find exceptional founders capable of competently wearing multiple hats. On the flip side, hiring exceptional employees is expensive. A company with just $120,000 in funding can't hire a good developer, product manager and sales or bizdev person. This creates significant risks for seed stage investors. The solution: seek companies with multiple founders who split key roles. Since founders at this stage essentially work for ramen and equity, having multiple founders is like a cheap insurance policy for resource risk.

jndsn4022• 11 years ago

Agreed, much of the startup advice from YC and other outlets is geared toward 20-somethings, and thus may come across as simplistic to people who have:

a) worked in a professional setting (e.g. a large corporation) b) managed other people c) been married d) been alive since before 1980

adanto6840• 11 years ago

I find C to be interesting -- my gut suspects it's probably correct & accurate, but not having ever been married I'd be interested in hearing you elaborate further on that point specifically.

leesalminen3• 11 years ago

I'm not convinced that ones age has anything to do with it. Personally, I think it has to do with maturity.

A person is simply the culmination of ones experiences, training and beliefs. For some, it takes 40 years to build those things and for others it takes 20 years.

Although age and maturity usually correlate directly, it's not always true. We've all met people in their 40s that act like they're 18, and 18 (ok, maybe 25) year olds that act like they're 40.

Disclaimer: I'm in my 20s

eastbayjake• 11 years ago

I've watched founders in their 50s face these same struggles as startup founders. Most were married people had spent most of their careers in large corporations where they managed hundreds of employees. It's just really, really hard for 2-3 driven, Type A people to work through disagreements when they care deeply about a product.

krschultz2• 11 years ago

I have no idea why you are being downvoted to oblivion. I've been on HN for over 7 years, and this comment is upvote worthy.

Yes, it goes against what PG preaches, but you don't downvote people that have intelligent well thought out comment just because it runs against the zeitgeist of SV.

7Figures2Commas2• 11 years ago

Frankly, I could care less about the downvotes but it's always telling when downvotes are not accompanied by substantive responses refuting the points made.

flurie• 11 years ago

One could change some of the specifics of the language (less talk about management, change "cofounder" to "spouse"), and this could be information on how to have a successful marriage.

In addition, an important piece of advice on marriage that almost certainly applies to cofounders as well is not to contradict your partner or have disagreements in public.

mikeg82• 11 years ago

The default comparison is that cofounders are always "married" but that's only half accurate. It's like being married _and_ raising a child. Most of the conflicts I've seen and experienced with my co-founders are about how we feel to best parent our startup.

angersock3• 11 years ago

What's always great fun is when the cofounders are new, and are married!

yaddayadda2• 11 years ago

What's even more fun is when they get a divorce and remain cofounders.

It gets weird and it gets awkward! Where I'm at, there's clearly a 'his team' and 'her team'.

yuhong• 11 years ago

This reminds me of the often anonymous eg Ask HNs involving cofounders. I know that often only the cofounder involved can fix the problems with non anonymous ones, but what if the cofounder don't have a problem with them?

aberoham• 11 years ago

My cofounder is my brother and communication is far and away one of our biggest challenges. In our case the style familiarity and family connections actually compound the delicacy of how we go about growing and changing our routines. To say I've learned more about myself since cofounding a company than in any prior endeavor would be an understatement, and I've done some pretty whacky things in the past in an effort to test my limits. (reality tv, expat, changed my name, etc) Were we both not at points in our lives where we are receptive and careful with criticism there's no way we have made it this far. One of our clutch mentors ends up being another brother who knows us both very, very well. I can't imagine how we'd get through tough times without that well known second opinion, or how impossibly impenetrable a cofounder relationship is to outsiders who haven't done it before. Hat tip to Mr. Harris for calling this out!

krschultz2• 11 years ago

Cofounders rarely have experience managing anyone or anything. They're learning at the same time as running a startup. There are a lot of good ways to manage, but they take time to learn and practice.

Boy is that scary.

angersock3• 11 years ago

Yep. And that's why, if it isn't your first rodeo, you can end up in a weird headspace as an early employee, because cofounders may act like they know a lot of things they don't (including how to lead), and you know that they are still learning.

You kind of have to top from bottom sometimes.

monknomo• 11 years ago

I feel like topping from the bottom is an underappreciated skillset that can be really helpful for an employee and their boss. Done right, the employee looks almost telepathic and prescient. Done wrong and the employee looks like a jerk, but ymmv...

jtbigwoo3• 11 years ago

High-achievers (and most people) are trained to simply put in more hours to get past problems. If I'm not doing well in a class, I study more or do extra credit work. If I'm not selling, I can make a hundred more calls. If I make a short-sighted technical decision, I can stay up all night and refactor my way out of it.

Part of the reason why management is so tough is that you can't always solve problems by simply working more. When it comes to team dynamics, a lot depends on catching problems in the moment and communicating clearly the first time. You can't just brute-force your way through problems like you can in most other areas. It takes intuition and understanding that is innate to a few folks and earned through experience by everybody else.

Think about this situation from the article: "We did, however, realize (a bit later than we should have) that disappearing from a tiny office too frequently during the day was a bad idea and hurt morale for the rest of the company." There was no way for them to fix this by working harder, they had to find an intuitive sense for how much time away from the office was too much.

Managing people is a fundamental skill for founders and one of the areas where intense effort often doesn't make a difference at all.

doctorpangloss• 11 years ago

You can't just brute-force your way through problems like you can in most other areas. It takes intuition and understanding that is innate to a few folks and earned through experience by everybody else.

You absolutely can brute force with management. You can always pay people more, or give up some of your equity to someone who will work harder.

"We did, however, realize (a bit later than we should have) that disappearing from a tiny office too frequently during the day was a bad idea and hurt morale for the rest of the company." There was no way for them to fix this by working harder.

Being present longer and taking fewer breaks is superficially working harder. More abstractly, you can work harder until you make redundant people who complain about coffee breaks, if you so choose.

amirmc4• 11 years ago

"You absolutely can brute force with management. You can always pay people more, or give up some of your equity to someone who will work harder."

That's not remotely 'brute forcing management'. That's just giving people different financial incentives. If you had a management problem before handing over cash/equity, you're still going to have one after.

jtbigwoo3• 11 years ago

> You absolutely can brute force with management. You can always pay people more, or give up some of your equity to someone who will work harder.

Offering more money/equity will allow you to pick from a bigger pool of possible employees. If you know what you're doing, you can use that to hire better performing people. It's really hard to keep good people, though, because they can generally find another high-paying job when they get fed up with you.

I can think of three situations where a company can survive bad management:

-Companies that are growing ridiculously fast can keep great employees, at least as long as the growth keeps going. If everything else is going great, employees can overlook a manager who doesn't know what he's doing. That means everything is great--pay and benefits, opportunities for advancement, ability to have an impact, enjoyable coworkers, great location, etc. Happily for startups, this can give you breathing room to figure out how to be a good manager. The growth can't last forever, though. When it slows, the best performers tend to leave first since they're the most confident in their ability to find a similar position elsewhere.

-Companies that are the only game in town can keep great employees. This is sort of the inverse of the last one. If there are no other good opportunities, either because of geographic, economic, or political issues, employees will stay rather than being unemployed. If the economy gets better or the employee decides to move, the company is out of luck. Plus, the limited pool tends to work both ways--fewer good people look for jobs in these situations.

-Companies that can offer lottery-level payouts and craps-level odds. When I was in college in the mid-90's, Microsoft seemed to have their choice of any college grad in the western U.S. The reason was simple: there was a pretty good chance you could work there for three years and come out a millionaire. This obviously isn't a model that very many companies can follow, but lot of startups will try to make similar promises. (I'm not saying that Microsoft was poorly managed in the 90's, it's just an example.)

> Being present longer and taking fewer breaks is superficially working harder. More abstractly, you can work harder until you make redundant people who complain about coffee breaks, if you so choose.

It appeared to me that they were heading off site to work out issues between founders, not because they were taking breaks. Whenever the bosses disappear together, I think smart employees will assume that something is up.

Balgair• 11 years ago

"High-achievers (and most people) are trained to simply put in more hours to get past problems"

Hmmm, with personal experience, most people are not ever trained to do this. I'd say the majority are content to let things fester away, sometimes literally. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, in most people's lives, things pass and they are the same, maybe a little poorer and wiser.

"...why management is so tough is that you can't always solve problems by simply working more." Yes, you can work your way through management. In fact, I'd say thats the best kind of management: leadership. Look at good leadership role models: Drill Sergeants. They march every step of the way and set the bar for their recruits. Yes, there are MANY differences, but as far as a role model for managing, the military has a lot to look at, and from Major on down, they live and breathe the working management style.

"hey had to find an intuitive sense for how much time away from the office was too much" Or, just talk to the folks and see what was up. Any time not spent in front of the people trading their time for your money is not good. They need to know why, almost reflexively, why the boss is out playing golf with clients and drinking at 2pm. It's not a matter of not working, its a matter of communication, which is work.

Not to say that you are not correct a lot of the time though. Management is a skill just as any other, and it takes a lot of mistakes and time to learn it. Though the MBA is reviled almost in the Valley, it does give an initial survey of how to deal with these issues, if used as it is intended.

brianliou91• 11 years ago

Having just gone through some co-founder struggles myself I think your response is right on the money. Especially when you talk about catching problems in the moment and communicating clearly the first time. I've learned that arguments can be on the surface about one thing (maybe a present issue) but really they stem from something previously uncleared or what SEEMED to be cleared arguments in the past. Each miss-communication compounds to affect the next. I'm just hopeful that experience and a willingness to learn and accept mistakes is the ultimate remedy.

mathattack• 11 years ago

This is also a reason why some high-achievers don't make good managers. When the game switches to things that don't involve hard work, they flounder. The more introspective high achievers make the switch.

This fellow talks about it too -> http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/cim/What-Got-You-Her...

pskittle• 11 years ago

I was helping a close friend grow and build out his startup idea. i've known him for a while and we're still pretty tight. However along the way i realized that i wasn't into it as much as he was . the problem we were solving didn't bother me at a cellular level. Even though ive known him for a while it took me quite a bit of time to be upfront about it (i didn't wanto hurt his feelings) but as soon as we had a talk about it it was cool.

balls187• 11 years ago

Apologies for being cynical but this is a nothing article that offers no real advice.

Open communication isn't just about checking in frequently, and talking doesn't guarantee that each person will feel listened to.

Communication is much more than just setting aside time to talk.

I would have much preferred if the author gave specific strategies for listening and being more effective at communication rather than high level generic advice.

My advice for co-founders that are serious about being better at communication: hire a marriage and/or relationship counselor to help you with your communication.

amirmc4• 11 years ago

I think it's valuable to at least raise an issue even if you don't have the perfect set of advice to deal with it. Sharing such experiences can help others recognise their own problems. IMHO launching into ways to fix this issue would have taken away from the post by being overly prescriptive about solutions.

amirmc4• 11 years ago

One of the critical things about management (in my view) comes down to communication. If communication is open, honest and frequent, then mistakes or roadbumps become easier to deal with. If communication is lacking, vague or insincere then it begins to erode trust and people withdraw.

Learning to communicate (inc. listening) is a valuable skill that is often neglected.

martinkl• 11 years ago

A tricky thing about communication is that sometimes it's really hard to convey why you believe something. You have some intuition that you should do A not B, but you can't put a finger on why. In order to resolve conflicts, you need to find a way of reasoning about intuition.

So I agree that open and honest communication is super important. I just wanted to note that difficulties in communication may happen even with the best intentions.

amirmc4• 11 years ago

I completely agree and I didn't mean to imply that communication difficulties only occur due to bad intentions. My point is more that lack of communication can directly lead to negative effects.

Even when there are open/honest comms, there's still the additional effort needed to understand what's being said (which I think is what you're referring to). To reach that level, you must first have been able to listen. Not every decision can be made using hard facts but it should be possible to explore the drivers behind viewpoints - assuming of course, that you trust the people you're discussing with. Taken to an extreme, it's almost like a form of counselling.

slgeorge• 11 years ago

I believe you're talking about communication from management to employees. It's a common frustration that 'management' is not "open and honest". Funnily enough most managers will agree that "open and honest" communications are critical.

The challenge is commonly in the implementation which is difficult - and that it's not actually as much of a "universal truth" as you might expect.

Mostly, when people complain about communication it's because there are challenges and they feel that those are not being addressed properly. In my experience the 'implementation' issue is that people experience situations very differently - that's why people feel that no-one is listening - it's literally because the two sides don't manage to explore/find a common ground so then can't really work to solutions. For an obvious extreme, consider how the Founder of something like Google experiences their company, versus a newly-minted developer. As a manager you'll probably spend a life-time trying to learn the nuances of understanding how other people are experiencing situations.

Management has many aspects, some if it is to "make the group productive", but some of it is to "make the organisation successful". Those two are not always the same, and there can be conflict. What's good for the company and what's good for the individual employee are not always the same. Imagine if your start-up is about to run out of money, and is pitching for a big deal: as a 'manager' would you be comfortable telling everyone that if we don't win this job then we won't be making payroll in two months? On the one hand, people will say that they want to know, on the other you may watch everyone immediately send out their CV's ... the risk/benefit is not always straightforward.

jacquesm• 11 years ago

The voting in this thread is HN un-worthy.

Cofounder management

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