Over the years I have had six cofounders between three businesses. Three have been great fits and three didn’t work out. In the ones that didn’t work, the problem boiled down to two things: commitment and values. Surprisingly, skill set and experience were not the main reasons for failure.

Commitment

It’s not easy recruiting a high-paid executive or successful entrepreneur to come work for a new startup. Nobody goes into entrepreneurship without making a giant leap of faith. The right person has to be willing to walk away from a 9-5 job or successful venture and start working insane hours for something brand new and uncertain. That’s not an attractive proposition to all people. But the point is that you have to commit. It’s like doing a backflip, you have very little chance of success and certain failure if you don’t commit. I’ve had cofounders who didn’t have the right level of commitment and when that’s the case, it just won’t work out. No matter how you rationalize it, if one person carries the majority of the workload it leads to an inevitable breakdown of the team. Having co-founders with the same level of commitment is paramount to your success and happiness as a team. My current founding team is totally bought in and no one ever has to think about every person carrying their own weight. It creates a high level a mutual respect, trust, and execution.

Values

My goal is to build a world-class product and experience.   At one point I had a cofounder who was really talented and successful in his prior projects. But his philosophy was about building low cost leaders. Our business values were too different for us to be successful together. There are many ways to make money and build companies. But if co-founders have different values, it’s hard to be in sync and ultimately the differences will be too much to form a strong dynamic partnership.

At the end of the day, successful teams don’t just have great chemistry or the smartest or hardest-working people. The team has to be greater than the sum of its parts and those parts have to match up on multiple complex levels. I’ve made some mistakes by choosing business partners based on their prior success or history without really understanding their values and motivations. The best business partner I have had is one whom I worked with for years before we became cofounders. They say that you should date around before you get married. This is true of co-founders, investors, and board members too. You’ll save yourself the headaches, heartache, and gray hairs.