Five mistakes that will break your company (1/5)

1. Choosing the wrong co-founder

There is only one super important decision that you have to make very early on in your venture – it’s choosing the right co-founder. And trust me you need a co-founder. Sure there are cases where a single founder built a successful company, but they are rare. Plus investors don’t like to put money into a one-man show. They invest in teams and your co-founder should be everything that you’re not. So if you’re the business, strategy, marketing guru, your co-founder should be the engineering and technology champ. Two founders with the same skills may not only be unproductive but it also creates the potential for severe conflict.

Choosing a co-founder is like marriage! You will spend unbelievable amounts of time together and regardless on how you decide to run the company, you will use your co-founder as your sparring partner, trusted adviser and friend. Think of your co-founder always as somebody that you would like to have on your board of directors.

I understand the importance of this very well, because I’ve seen how great it is to have the right partner and how bad it can be if you don’t.

My advise to you is to get to know your co-founder really well and follow your instinct. If you have only a slight doubt – don’t go forward with it. It’s like marriage – you need to be 100% confident that this is the one.