““If you are cofounding an organization, have an agreement about what happens if you have irreconcilable disagreements with your cofounders. Every single startup advice book tells you to do this, and nobody does it because they think they are special, but you aren’t special. Even if your cofounder is your best friend and you are perfectly value-aligned, you should still have an agreement about handling irreconcilable disagreements.””
Coming from a legal background, this is the source of so much frustration. If you’re best friends you need the agreement even more, because it allows the friendship to survive a major disagreement by having procedures. Not having an agreement like this turns a multi-hour mediation session into a multi-year court battle.
If your friend baulks at making such an agreement, it doesn’t bode well for handling other uncomfortable conversations.
Concerning the rest of the post, I’ve been fairly flabbergasted how many orgs with so much funding have almost no standardised internal policies and procedures. Hire a lawyer for a few weeks guys. It’s much less expensive than a court case, where you’ll be needing them for years.
Coming from a legal background, this is the source of so much frustration. If you’re best friends you need the agreement even more, because it allows the friendship to survive a major disagreement by having procedures. Not having an agreement like this turns a multi-hour mediation session into a multi-year court battle.
If your friend baulks at making such an agreement, it doesn’t bode well for handling other uncomfortable conversations.
Concerning the rest of the post, I’ve been fairly flabbergasted how many orgs with so much funding have almost no standardised internal policies and procedures. Hire a lawyer for a few weeks guys. It’s much less expensive than a court case, where you’ll be needing them for years.