We operate a mental health coaching service for charity founders. We’ve worked with 40 or 50 now. We get the inside details people don’t share publicly for PR / relationship reasons.
Looking back, almost everyone agrees retrospectively that their co-founder breakups happened too slowly. You won’t hear about this publicly because it’s a terrible career / PR move to be anything but freakishly civil towards your current and former co-founders.
Especially if you’re pairing co-founders as part of your programme, I’d urge you to consider the opposite stance. If it’s not working out, make it easier for people to break up amicably and quickly.
Two practical things you can do as an incubator:
1. Above all else, prioritise founder selection and pairing. This the only fuck-up that cannot be repaired. Good duos can self-train or learn from experience, raise their own money, pivot out of a shitty TOC.
2. Encourage them to express disagreements / unhappiness promptly. Of the co-founder breakups that seemed preventable in retrospect, almost all involved feelings getting bottled up and hardening into irrecoverable resentment. The more agreeable the founders, the greater the risk this happens.
We operate a mental health coaching service for charity founders. We’ve worked with 40 or 50 now. We get the inside details people don’t share publicly for PR / relationship reasons.
Looking back, almost everyone agrees retrospectively that their co-founder breakups happened too slowly. You won’t hear about this publicly because it’s a terrible career / PR move to be anything but freakishly civil towards your current and former co-founders.
Especially if you’re pairing co-founders as part of your programme, I’d urge you to consider the opposite stance. If it’s not working out, make it easier for people to break up amicably and quickly.
Two practical things you can do as an incubator:
1. Above all else, prioritise founder selection and pairing. This the only fuck-up that cannot be repaired. Good duos can self-train or learn from experience, raise their own money, pivot out of a shitty TOC.
2. Encourage them to express disagreements / unhappiness promptly. Of the co-founder breakups that seemed preventable in retrospect, almost all involved feelings getting bottled up and hardening into irrecoverable resentment. The more agreeable the founders, the greater the risk this happens.
Sorry for the unsolicited advice. Best of luck!