Co-founder search: projecting role and casting the right partner
lone wolf or team player?
Initiating, building and managing a brand is just like producing a movie with one major difference. In the filmmaking process, you have more than one leading brain. The film producer handles the business side of the filmmaking process from coordination, budgeting, crew hiring to marketing. The film director oversees and operates the creative process of the movie meaning controlling the film’s artistic and dramatic aspects.
However, business founders often find themselves lone wolves in the process of sculpting and crafting their business idea. Writing the script, finding actors, leading them, stirring the creative direction, revising the progress, keeping everything together and moving is a permanent commitment. Thus, at some point, solo founders happen to realize that they can’t make or don’t want this to be an individual commitment anymore: they want a partner.
Co-founder compatibility can MAKE or BREAK a business.
Whether this takes place in the starting phase of your brand’s journey or further down the line, deciding to share ownership is a critical moment. Obvious or not, co-founder compatibility and characteristics can MAKE or BREAK a business. Finding ‘the one’ is nowhere easy, but it all comes down to asking the right questions.
Let’s start with the alphabet. There are three important questions you need to consider before arranging the actual casting.
A: Why do I need co-founder?
Well, it is most certain that you want to share the workload. But the ‘why’ here encompasses the exact reasons for which a partnership would be a solution. Here you outline the exact set of complementary skills you look for in a possible partner. Every co-founder should be indispensable, essentially compensating for abilities that the other lacks. These could be hard skills (technical abilities, analytics or marketing) or soft skills (leadership, tenacity or communication). This is the moment to sketch the competence profile of the desired co-founder.
B: Who do I want to be co-founding my business with?
This is not about hiring. You’re going to build and drive the whole thing together through blood, sweat and tears. Make sure you understand the impact of getting someone on-board to lead with you. It is vital that your visions align and that you have mutual value systems. Furthermore, true of commitment is another essential pillar for a collaboration. How many working hours are you dedicated to invest on a weekly basis? And what about the long-term time investment?
C: How am I going to find this co-founder?
Now that you’ve established the portrait, you can begin your quest. Scrutinize all your network, offline and offline/ personal and business.
- Consider family and friends
- Get the word out through your social media accounts
- Widen your network via events, conferences and other business fairs
It’s all in the first-touchpoints.
Prepare thoroughly the first touch-points. With a bit of luck, a few interested parties will emerge for you to organize an informal kick-off meeting. Be clear, be open, be honest! In order to explore your compatibility and work synergy, work on a trial project together.
Provided the collaboration is successful, congratulations! You’ve found your co-founder.
Kajola is dedicated to creating solutions for international hospitality and food start-ups. We’re devoted to making the hospitality and food scenes richer, more diverse and more rewarding for food lovers and experience seekers everywhere.
