Breaking Up With A Co-Founder

I polled LInkedin about what I should write in my next blog.. the internet responded unequivocally. 

You guys wanted to hear about my journey in finding and losing a co-founder. But it’s not a short-story… so I’ve split this one in two.

Part one…

Eighteen months ago I parted ways with my co-founder.

It was pretty hard.

It sounds obvious to say that now. But seriously it was. Nothing prepares you for it.

When I was in the midst of it, I felt totally adrift. There’s no guidebook, no resources that take you through the challenge. Nobody to talk to. 

It’s a really common challenge, but one nobody seems to talk about. 

Now that more time has passed I’m starting to make more sense of it. I can see more clearly now what we did right and, more importantly, what we got wrong. 

It feels like the time is right to share my experience, in the hope that it can help out the next person to go through it. 

It’s a personal relationship so it will be totally different for everyone, but this is my story.

Let’s dive in. 

GETTING STARTED

Before I started a business, I really wanted to wait until I'd found a co-founder. To be honest I didn’t really know what I was doing and I was scared of doing it by myself.  I thought having someone to share the journey with would make everything easier.  

I spoke to a bunch of people but to be honest none of those conversations got anywhere. Lots of people liked talking about starting a company but very few were serious about actually doing it. They probably didn't know I was serious either.

So I set out alone. Overall it was pretty hard but one thing was a lot easier than I expected: finding new business.

The timing couldn’t have been better. The tech sector was growing really fast and I had some good connections with startups from my previous job. So, I met up with a bunch of founders and asked them what they wanted from finance.

There was this massive gap between what founders wanted - operational and tech people in their team - and what accountants thought they wanted - strategic advice, tax and filing accounts. 

I gave the founders exactly what they wanted and sure enough, they bought it. Not only that but they referred me on to other startups too. 

I had never in a million years imagined that getting started could be so easy.

NEEDING HELP

But that was where the easy part ended. Pretty soon I realised I desperately needed help. 

I remember being on holiday with my girlfriend totally unable to switch off from emails and calls. Although I had a few employees, I had nobody I could really rely on. I resolved to find someone to help me out as soon as I got back.

The conversations I had this time around were WAY more serious than before. I met some awesome people who were ambitious and committed. 

The problem was every accountant I spoke to had the same weird ideas about what founders want - strategic advice, tax and filing accounts.

I nodded along but I knew that I wouldn't be able to work with any of these people, no matter how impressive they were. Their way of thinking just didn’t fit with what I’d learnt so far.

Then I met my co-founder. Instantly it was different.

"Accounting firms are wrong. CFOs are wrong. Everyone in the profession is saying and doing the wrong things."  

This was her starting line.  Within five minutes into the conversation, I knew I wanted to work together.

INITIAL CONVERSATIONS

At the time I thought I was looking for a senior employee. But she made it clear that wouldn't work for her. It was 50/50 or nothing.

After taking some time to think I resolved to dive in. An equal partner was probably exactly what I needed. The challenge was too big to face alone. 

As she joined a little after I’d started the business, we had a slightly odd dynamic. I'd learnt a lot the hard way in those early months, and inevitably it would take any new joiner a month or two to catch up. On the other hand she was determined to prove this was an equal relationship and our views were equally valid. Every decision was hard fought. 

In fact right from the start we argued and debated daily. 

But it wasn't bad arguing, I loved it. It was the arguing of two people who care deeply about what they're creating together. It was just what I needed after struggling to motivate employees who didn't care as much as I did. I felt a huge weight lifting from my shoulders.

THE GOOD TIMES

There's no question, having her on board accelerated our success way faster than I could have done by myself. 

Before she joined, the business was pretty much a one man band with a few employees. After she joined, we looked a lot more serious and credible.  

It also doubled our bandwidth: with her diving into the detail of the operations I was able to spend more time on the sales and marketing. Our growth got even faster.

It's hard to explain how we felt at this time.  It wasn't just a job for us, it felt like the start of something enormous, we thought the growth would always go on being as fast as it was then. We felt like we were really changing things. 

Most of all I loved having every one of my assumptions challenged by someone who was super passionate and intelligent, but the total opposite of me. Between us we made much better choices than either of us would have done alone.

THE CHALLENGES

Looking back at the growth, you might be forgiven for thinking we were having a whale of a time. 

But in reality I found that growth in business is every bit as stressful as decline.  Plates were spinning everywhere and it seemed like only a matter of time before one would come crashing down. 

We both cared way, way too much about little things as first-time founders. I distinctly remember our first disgruntled employee’s response in a team survey. We both totally freaked out and blew it all out of proportion. 

We also knew that this window of huge growth wouldn’t last forever. Soon the competition would get stronger or the market weaker. We were determined to make the most of it.

We had to get ahead of it. So we went out on a limb and extended job offers to six great candidates all at once. It was February 2020.

COVID

Then Covid happened. Suddenly all our sales stopped and our clients reigned in their spend. 

We had just persuaded six young accountants that it was safe to leave their big 4 firms to join our startup, now we had no work for them to do.  We were absolutely bricking it.

Before this happened we were already operating at a really unhealthy level of stress. Now we both entered into a state of continuous burnout.

We were stressed about our business, about COVID, lockdowns and everything on the news every night.

In addition to that, confidence in the market kept rocking from 0 to 100 and back again on the back of every headline. One quarter we might double in size. The next we would shrink back again.

This would have been an incredibly challenging environment for the most successful CEOs in the world to handle. For two young people, who cared way too much, who had never done any of this before, trapped at home, it was just a bit too much.

Looking back, it’s clear each of us really needed help. 

But instead of looking outside of work, we turned to each other. That meant instead of getting the calm and stable influence we needed, we just fed off each other’s instability. The results were predictable.

We'd always had our arguments and debates, but they’d worked well and been manageable. Now, each of us feeling terrible, those debates turned.

It’s fair to say from this point on the relationship rocked up and down month by month, but it never got back to where it had been before.

Like I said, it’s a long story.

Read part 2 now