Does "I do" apply to cofounders too?

At some point, you might find yourself marrying the person of your dreams.

“Okay, but what does marriage have to do with business?”

Well, you can find yourself in a “partnership” for your business too.

And both types of relationships can rock your world, for better or worse.

So it’s probably good to know what makes these types of long-lasting, committed relationships successful.

Because statistically, marrying the right person has a 0.71 correlation to life satisfaction.

• Don’t believe me? You can read the study yourself.

No, that’s not 100%. But it’s still high enough to think twice before you tie the knot.

And if you’re already married, this might be a good time to see if you’re still on the same page.

Everybody can use a tune-up.

So, what makes a good marriage (or partnership) a good one?

Well, John Gottman studied 3,000+ couples and can predict who makes it in the long-run with 90% accuracy … in under 15 minutes.

He identified successful marriages came from talking through six subjects.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to stay sappy, we’ll make the business comparison shortly.

Marriage Topics

• Money: Budget? Savings goals?

• Kids: Yes or no? If yes, how many?

• Sex: How often?

• Time: How much time do we want to spend together?

• Jealousy: Do we trust each other?

• In-Laws: How often do we see them? What’s their role?

Here are the business partnership equivalents:

Co-Founder Topics

• Money —> Fundraising / Runway: Raise pre-revenue, bootstrap, or bootstrap then raise with proof?

• Kids —> Customers / Employees: Are customers king? When do we hire? How do we manage?

• Sex —> Performance: How do we measure accountability?

• Time —> Roadmap: What’s the 3-6 month plan?

• Jealousy —> Competition: Who are our competitors? Do we even have any?

• In-Laws —> Partnerships: Are we looking to partner with others?

It’s not about sifting for someone perfect.

Or even agreeing 100% down the line.

It’s also not about settling.

It’s about gauging where someone is coming from and setting expectations.

Personally, I didn’t have these in mind until I answered the questions myself.

So dive into each subject.

Otherwise, you could find out you have widely different views after already committing.

Making it difficult to bring two paths together.

When I learned about this I applied it to both my marriage and my business partnership.

Just the act of bringing these topics up will give you a lot more information to work with than if you attempted to come up with your own.

Because it’s hard to develop accurate reference points if you don’t have a mountain of data on your side.

So don’t try to “wing it” on your first attempt.

Leverage John Gottam’s research and stack the deck in your favor.

— And, if you want to improve on the other better half (i.e. you), head over to readar.ai to find the right book to read next.

Keep seeking,

Michael

readar.ai