Startup founders are humans — flawed and non-mechanical. Flesh and bone. Humans are complicated mammals with a wide range of thoughts, feelings, and intuitions. While many individuals prefer to think emotions are separate from cognition, this descartian dualism falls apart in light of modern neuroscience. …

Cofounders struggle with too much or not enough communication. Some teams engage in a constant back-and-forth messaging style throughout the day. While this gives them high workflow visibility, as companies grow this style becomes difficult to maintain. …

Cofounder coaching is a service designed to end cofounder fallout. As Noam Wasserman highlighted, about 65 percent of high-potential teams fail due to issues within the founding team. These challenges are fixable. Coaches, therapists, and psychologists are available to help teams improve their communication and performance. Unfortunately, the lack of…

Founders experience difficult moments. Many of the cofounders I work with experience an emotional rollercoaster while building and scaling a successful company. And as many of you know, that rollercoaster is intense. Several clients have asked me for recommendations on how to handle the moments of difficulty in a healthy…

9 ways to improve communication, teamwork, and decision-making with your business partner. — For the past 30 years, the Gottman Institute has been studying the dynamics of relationships, drawing insights from over 40,000 couples. This extensive research has led to the creation of one of the most comprehensive theories for what makes marriages thrive — the Sound Relationship House Theory. As a Licensed…

Navigating business partner arguments is more difficult when teams can’t separate fact from fiction. — Many entrepreneurs recognize the shocking statistic made famous by Noam Wasserman: 65% of high-growth startups fail due to cofounder conflict. But many have not read his book and do not understand how he arrived at this conclusion. Wasserman pulled data from a 1989 study by Gorman and Sahlman, who surveyed…

If you want to end recurring disagreements, you need to understand the deeper issues creating problems for your team — Hundreds of cofounders contact me each year to help them improve their team’s functioning and communication. But the superficial topics of disagreement often conceal the deeper origin of their difficulties. The most common disagreements cofounders experience include issues with equity and compensation, roles and responsibilities, vision and strategic alignment, problems…

Practicing this framework helps founding teams focus on desired outcomes rather than getting stuck in chaotic discussions. — Teaching hundreds of founding teams how to navigate conflicts more effectively revealed a key tool most founders overlook when engaging in mission-critical conversations. To explain this tool in more detail, I would like you to picture the Mona Lisa. While you may imagine Mona Lisa’s famous smile, you might forget…

Trust is the antidote all cofounders need to build successful companies and relationships with team members. — Power is present in all cofounder teams, but how power is experienced and expressed is unique to each partnership. As a licensed psychologist coaching cofounders to navigate conflicts more effectively, I often identify power struggles and help arm founders with the tools and frameworks they need to address them.