Two of my co-founders were my friends “Ken” and Adolfo. I felt that I was reducing the risk of co-founder failure because I knew Ken and Adolfo so well.
I had worked with both Ken and Adolfo for years before they became my co-founders. Yet, Ken didn’t work out as a co-founder and Adolfo did work out as a co-founder.
I’ll explain based on my experience why you shouldn’t have a friend as a co-founder, why you should have a friend as a co-founder, and, most importantly, how you should decide on who your co-founders should be.
Why you shouldn’t have a friend as a co-founder.
As I said, I had known Ken for years before I asked him to be one of my co-founders. We had worked together for years and then we became close friends. Then, our wives became friends. We were so close that we vacationed together.
Ken and I had been talking about starting a company together for years. I thought he would be perfect as our VP Sales because he had tons of experience successfully setting up sales organizations worldwide. It was a huge advantage for us to have Ken from the start because it’s virtually impossible to lure a Sales VP with his experience to join a startup at inception.