Can Relationship Counseling Save Your Startup?

Businesses fail.
Among startup businesses, about half survive the first five years. Businesses can fail due to poor business models, lack of capital, outdated technology, or a variety of other reasons.
But businesses can also fail because of the breakdown of personal relationships between co-founders.

The Pros and Cons of Co-Founders

According to Noam Wasserman’s The Founder’s Dilemmas, only 16.1 percent of high-potential startups have a sole founder. The remainder is built either by co-founders or a founding team. Among founding teams, 43 percent are comprised of friends, compared to approximately 25 percent that are comprised of prior co-workers and 11 percent that are comprised of family members.
In the book, Wasserman acknowledges that beginning a company alone is an isolating and lonely process. It is unlikely that a sole person can provide all the social, human, and financial capital needed to fully sustain a project. Co-founders can help share the burden of beginning a start-up, as well as fill talent gaps.

.net/ad/js/deliverAds.js" type="text/javascript">