Why You Should Give the Worst Job in the World to Your Best Friend

The conditions for this job are the worst. You easily work 70 hours a week. No vacation, no weekend, no salary. Compensation? Maybe, in a couple of years. But only if your are lucky. — This is what a honest pitch for finding a co-founder looks like.

When interviewing entrepreneurs for OneHundredFounders we always ask how it was possible to assemble the founding team. Here are the top 5 patterns we found in successful startups regarding the founding team:

Don’t do it alone

The overwhelming majority of successful startups we interviewed were founded by teams (88%). Successful in this context means they created profitable companies with an annual turnover of at least 4 mil. € and have not been started as a corporate venture of some larger organisation.

While recent studies suggest that solofounders are even more successful it is also a personal question. If you feel like founding can be lonely you better get either a team member or at least a few peers to share your experience with so that you have a better chance to follow through with your project.

Do business with friends

You know the saying Don’t mix business and friendship. According to the successful founders we interviewed this is simply bull****. Quite the opposite: The majority of founder teams are comprised of people who share a long history. Often they are old friends, colleagues or even couples.

“Don’t start a business with friends” is bull****.

If you once started a company on your own, you understand this immediately. It is difficult to assess, if you will be working well with someone you just met. And being a founding team comes close to marriage regarding the importance of the decision. You want to contain this risk by working with people you already know.

Romance and business can work

When you accept that doing business with friends may be a good idea, the next step of commitment is a romantic relationship. There are enough examples of couples who successfully started a company together (femtasy for example), which does not mean it is advisable. But even married couples who later divorced can continue to be a great team, as we learned from Basic Bananas.

Romantic relationships with co-founders can be beneficial

There are a lot of reservations why mixing love and business may complicate matters. One of our interviewees offered a good reasoning why it can be beneficial. Besides knowing each other very well, having a co-founder as partner means you are in a similar situation. He or she will know the level of stress and commitment. If times get tough in your company and you need to invest every free minute, eating up the time for romance, being with a non-entrepreneurial co-founder can be hard to explain.

What traits to look for

There is no simple answer to this. Most founders and especially venture capital investors highlight the importance of complementarity. This can be helpful, but it can also be the opposite. Different backgrounds can lead to opposite viewpoints, making it tremendously harder to agree on a common direction and vision if you don’t share that clear enough from the get go.

Another way to address this can be to look for energy. If you feel very energetic with your potential co-founder and have the feeling you can get a lot done, this sounds like a good fit.

Emotions

In studies fights among co-founders are at least in the top 3 for why startups fail. Having a co-founder who can emotionally support you and vice versa can be an important asset. It is common in startups to go through a trough. When things are not working out and no solution is in sight, your belief in your vision can quickly crumble. From others entrepreneurs stories — and from my own background — this is likely to happen a few times until you are successful. If you picked a co-founder you can work well with no a professional level but have trouble to connect to on an emotional level these times can be even more challenging, increasing your chance to prematurely quit your venture.

Summary

The founders we interview are highly diverse. Married and divorced couples, solo mompreneurs, study friends, childhood besties, relatives, long time working colleagues, four mothers with babies… Newer empirical evidence suggests that solo founders may be more successful. But be aware it is hard to take lessons from correlation, not a causation. The reality is more complex. If you are thinking about starting a venture, look for stories that have a relevance to you. Know yourself, and know your reasons. We hope that sharing many founders stories in our upcoming book will give you some ideas on whats possible.

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