awesome post...same applies for all relationships...founder, marriage...important to have the difficult conversations upfront, rather than find out way later...and totally agree, if you're doing anything worth doing (whether it's starting a company or starting a relationship), if it's to get to a meaningful point, there will be conflict. avoiding conflict is not the goal, but rather understanding how to navigate that conflict and arrive at a place where you are stronger and better for it is the secret to maintaining a healthy team or interpersonal dynamic. but it's far easier to avoid the conversation, cause it's not always easy, and if you avoid it, there's the small chance that you can be lucky enough to never have that conversation. but you might as well go buy lotto tickets. having the tough conversations upfront means that you can sort through things when you have cool heads, when you haven't gone and formed a legal entity together and when you have other employees that are depending on you. it's tough, but the right thing to do. kudos joyce on a fantastic post!!
biggiesu I totally agree. We actually had a prolonged discussion about a many different ideas.
Oddly enough, the issues we expected to have the hardest time ended up being the easiest to answer. When you've spent a lot of time with someone hanging out outside of work, doing normal stuff like spending time with their family, shooting the shit and not talking about work but just being people it allows you to be more open.
There was a time where Joyce and I got excited about doing a dating site, for a day or two we did a bunch of research and were slowly building momentum. By the second day I woke up and I realized that my heart just was not into the idea doing a dating site (sorry dating sites, I'm married). I shared my feelings with Joyce and after a short conversatio we dropped it and moved on.
We eventually came up with the concept of a "24-hour test". If we didn't care or love the current idea we were working on after 24 hours, we would move on to something else.
We iterated through several other ideas in this fashion... researching, prototyping or mocking up, digging in, thinking, debating. One or two ideas made it past 24 hours, and one made it a couple weeks.
But, finally, after several months of planning we landed on an idea that we both are excited about. I can't wait to share it with the world.
breaking up with your cofounder is for sure in the top 3 of reasons why startups fail. How to make sure you are an awesome team is hard, and it seemed you guys nailed it. Great post!
ps. so when are those $150 trips to Hawaii available?
