Couples therapy for startup co-founders | Hacker News Reader

Couples therapy for startup co-founders

protocol.com

69 pointsisaacfrond29 comments

Yo, cheers to this. It has been a real struggle.

My wife founded designtherapy.org to provide design thinking + couples counseling. Basically a way to systematically think about positive opportunities together, achieve dreams within conflict etc. Might check it out.

Counseling is hella cheaper than divorce.

I definitely agree with the advice to seek therapy for the inevitable relationship issues over coaching. Coaches definitely will help the individual but the experience is typically so one sided that it can often result in making tensions worse. A co-founder leaving can cause a lot of trauma to organization that is impossible once one leaves. I'm sure founders think the main impact is individual but let's be honest, it affects the entire staff. So yeah, co-founder tension needs to be treated like a marriage for the benefit of the co-founders and especially the benefit of the employees.

On the other hand I think it's important for leaving to be normalized and accepted as an option.

In my previous startup there were an increasing number of irreconcilable differences between me and my then-cofounder's style of working, management, and doing business, and though we had tried a lot I don't think me being egged on by everyone in the system to stay in the company while depressed about it was helpful.

The reality is cofounders can leave (legally) and we already have a perfectly good structure (vesting schedule) to deal with such decisions fairly, we just need to normalize it actually happening when it needs to happen.

It's worse than a marriage. At least in a marriage you can get divorced.

You can separate from business relationship too. IME it's less messy than divorce.

One of the powers of having two or more cofounders is that you will see things differently. Those differences bring opportunity that neither one could see alone, but, those differences also bring risks.

Consulting like this can go along way towards bridging those differences to build a stronger collaboration between partners.

Is “cofounder coaching" all that different from a service a management consultant might typically perform? In any event, getting in the same room together and listening without interrupting seems like a pretty fundamental part of improving a relationship, no matter what that's called.

We could compare starting a business to getting married and come up with one big difference:

Any decent lawyer will draft your business partnership agreement to provide for one partner wanting or needing to move on. That doesn't mean it'll be painless or cost-free, but at least there should be financial details in there.

In marriage, a lot of couples think a pre-nuptial is anti-romantic.

I think actual romantic couples therapy when one person is a founder and the other isn’t is the bigger need :)

Or. Be better at selecting your fellow co-founders. Once you are partners it's already too late if there's a problem getting along.

If you need therapy with your business partner, cut your losses and move on.

People aren't born with communication skills, if you're going to quit because of interpersonal problems rather than look for a difficult and potentially uncomfortable solution, you shouldn't be starting a business.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200407/rock-arou...

I would bet this is much more common then you seem to think.

You're not wrong, but not every problem needs to be solved and there are 8 billion people. In my experience it's usually better to align yourself with those you communicate well with, and avoid the ones you don't.

If you think therapy should be reserved for dire, nigh unfixable problems, then maybe. But you can also use therapy as a regular part of life for fixing problems big and small.

It’s a sign of deeper problems if you can’t communicate with your (work) partner well enough to avoid these issues.

Your job isn’t a marriage and the analogy falls flat. If you’re having enough communicative difficulties that you’re considering failure, then you’re already enough in the shit that one or both of you need to move on.

And when your startup encounters business issues, do you just cut your losses and pick the next idea?

Of course not. You work through problems when there's value on the other side of the problem, and communications problems are just one class of problems that may crop up in an otherwise highly valuable relationship. You hire people to help you solve other issues you don't have the experience to solve, don't you? The same SME is valuable in communications.

There will always be business issues. Those you solve. But if you’re spending your time on founder conflicts instead of the business, your business will fail. Even if you work it out in therapy, your competitors will have gotten ahead of you.

It depends. There can be an upside to quitting.

> It’s a sign of deeper problems

That's right - and how do you think you should go about approaching those issues?

By finding a business partner you are compatible with. Don't bring your whole business down in a drawn-out founder conflict. Someone gotta go.

Your job's not a marriage, but there are similar elements to a marriage if you're co-founding with someone. You're building a business together. You need a lot of trust. It's primarily financial.

Hilarious take. Having communication problems? Just quit! Don’t mind the fact that your startup is potentially worth millions, or that you otherwise enjoy your work. /s

That’s easy to say when you don’t have payroll to make and investors to please. Once you get to a point where peoples livelihoods depend on you things change a bit.

Lol /r/relationshipadvice energy

If you need therapy with your partner, cut your losses and move on.

You're thinking in extremes... There are many people who could benefit from therapy, mediated conversation, or dispute resolution.

I read that comment as a sarcastic take on it's parent, not a continuation of the sentiment.

FWIW, I think therapy is awesome and should be embraced by more people. Probably a good thing for founders to have their own version of it. Renowned therapist Esther Perel has (had?) a podcast called How's Work? where she mediated conversations with business partners.

You think it’s not like this but actually it is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com