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Tag: Co-founders

  • 5 Common Questions Asked in ‘Co-Founder Couples Therapy’ | Entrepreneur

    5 Common Questions Asked in ‘Co-Founder Couples Therapy’ | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    No one but your person knows exactly what you’re going through. You take the same risks and want the same things. You’re legally bound by a contract, ideally (more on this later). I’m talking about your co-founder.

    Like real marriage, co-founder “marriage” is an intense partnership, a big investment at the mercy of human connection, communication and flaws. Many entrepreneurs consider the mechanics of this dynamic before the emotions, though both aspects are equally important.

    Your psychological health, and that of your co-founder, are paramount to the success of your company.

    As a clinical psychologist, by the time I see co-founders in my office, where I advise entrepreneurs, some personal grievance has already occurred. Inevitably, the business also suffers. Co-founder couples therapy, or thinking actively about the health of your relationship, can prevent a bad breakup — or worse, a bad exit.

    Here are the five most common questions asked by my co-founder clients, from whether friendship is a requirement to the ideal cadence of communication.

    Related: 4 Sane Strategies for Maintaining Healthy Co-Founder Relationships

    1. Do we need a prenup?

    The short answer is yes. Ideally, your lawyers draft a contract outlining roles, stakes, and, importantly, exit plans. Things tend to implode when one co-founder wants to move on but there is no clear structure in place to do so.

    I always advise not to split operations 50-50, and instead, designate one person as a final ruler on key decisions. Many people find this tricky, but in my experience, it’s the best arrangement for the long-term health of the business and the working relationship. Making one person an authority also prevents stalemates.

    2. Do we have to be friends?

    It would be great if you liked each other. It’s far more important to gain the mutual trust and respect that comes with combined effort, integrity and professionalism. It is possible to run a business alongside someone you wouldn’t choose to spend time with outside of work. The reverse does not apply: It’s not a great idea to just be friends, to launch a company with your college roommate because you get along so well.

    Complementary skills and designated roles are more important than friendship. One of you is technical, and the other is an expert in sales, for instance. If you work well together, chances are, you’re going to like each other. Stress and shared goals will naturally create a bonding experience.

    Related: How To Know When It’s Time to Break Up With Your Co-founder

    3. How do we know if we’re compatible?

    I get many questions about compatibility and how to crack it. Personality tests, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, can be helpful frameworks. These tools facilitate a better understanding of a partner’s personality and judgment. You can also learn a lot about yourself that will inform your own relationships. I recommend Sally Hogshead’s book, How the World Sees You and the CliftonStrengths Assessment (formerly StrengthsFinder).

    You could look to the zodiac if that helps you, but when it comes to compatibility, three things matter most:

    • What is my co-founder’s working style?

    • What is my co-founder’s communication style?

    • How does my co-founder react to stress?

    At a roadblock, will your partner disappear and try to solve the problem solo? Talk endlessly about solutions and distract others in the process? Become agitated and reactive? It’s helpful to anticipate your individual and shared reactions to plan accordingly.

    4. What if we’ve had a bad falling out, but still work together?

    Once you determine that the relationship is not worth saving (there are many steps before this), it’s often best not to work together too closely. In this case, you might sell the business using a broker. This is, of course, easier with an online operation.

    You might hire a CEO to run daily operations so that you and your co-founder only need to meet when the CEO transitions. Finally, one of you could buy the other one out. That would involve lots of interaction up front, though it does ensure a clean break. If you had a plan to dissolve the business when you launched, the terms of a sale should be easier to negotiate.

    Related: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Personal Dynamics As Co-founders Of a Venture

    5. How often should we talk?

    Successful co-founders I work with have regular functional communication, frequently on platforms like email and Slack. I would also suggest a designated meeting in real time, even 30 minutes per week or 60 minutes every other week via phone or Zoom. Daily communication can become white noise, especially while working remotely and asynchronously.

    In-person (or e-person) check-ins make for more seamless decision-making and allow space for both vision planning and small personal updates. In a face or voice, you can better see or hear the excitement or stress in your co-founder’s demeanor and catch potential problems before they spiral out of control.

    Co-founder relationships are complex unions that are often fraught. How you navigate this dynamic can have permanent consequences for your business. It’s best to be proactive about the emotional aspects of this relationship, not just the logistics.

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    Sherry Walling, PhD

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  • 5 Priceless Lessons For First-Time Entrepreneurs

    5 Priceless Lessons For First-Time Entrepreneurs

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The road to entrepreneurship isn’t as glamorous as what’s portrayed on the #entrepreneur side of Instagram. The formula for success doesn’t contain any jets or fancy clothes or cars but rather a ton of grit and conviction. Growing a company from a two to 30-person team had several challenges. Things like iterating the product, funding and even hiring people to join the journey posed as mountains that had to be conquered by our team. If you’re looking to start a company — you’re in for a wild ride!

    I’m not claiming to be an expert, but I wanted to get these thoughts out there to help anyone in the thick of business ownership. (Or even on the cusp of it!)

    Here are five lessons I’ve learned as a first-time female founder.

    Related: Avoid These 3 Common Entrepreneur Death Traps

    Don’t wait for “perfect.”

    It’s wishful thinking to wait for the stars to align to start moving toward your business goals. You may feel a case of overthinking, but when you’re building a business, speed of iteration will be your best friend to success. Start somewhere. No decision is perfect, and few decisions will result in the death of your company. It’s a matter of making small actionable steps daily to reach your goals.

    Perfection is the enemy of progress. The first iterations of the product will likely be rocky. But getting your product out to the market with beta testers led us to a product we are incredibly proud of today. Without feedback, it is impossible to iterate effectively. I ask myself regularly, “what can I do today to make us better than yesterday?”

    Related: Perfection Does Not Exist. Here’s How to Stop Wishing and Get Your Business Started.

    Bring in the right folks

    Easy enough, right? I believe good people build good teams and good teams build good products. Building your team is one thing that’s vital to the success of your business. The secret behind Smartrr’s growth is the team we’ve built. Finding that talent from scratch was one of the most challenging things I’ve faced. I know I said never to wait for perfection. Still, it’s essential to clarify the type of culture you’re looking to build your business around and focus on aligning the right people that will add value to the specific culture.

    Starting a company is a challenge; having misalignment internally will only distract you from your goals and can be your downfall. Take your time in selecting who is in your inner circle. This includes your team but also all other stakeholders as well; your investors, your partners and your customers. Surround yourself with well-intentioned, ambitious and intelligent people, who are dedicated to solving the problem you seek to build around, and success will follow.

    Then, align those folks behind a customer-obsessed mindset. It sounds simple enough, but it is so easy to get distracted by who has the latest shiny object or clever marketing campaign in the space. Be relentless in surfacing your customer’s pain points and feedback, avoid looking at what other competitors are doing and set your sails toward what needs you can fulfill for your customers and prospective customers.

    As a result, we continue to develop innovative solutions and stay aligned with our mission and goals internally. If there’s one thing you should take away from this piece is that everyone in your company (regardless of what product/service you’re providing) needs to be laser-focused on the end consumer.

    If you get this right, the team will not only build something incredible, but your team will inspire one another every day and drive a strong culture, better productivity and a stronger business.

    Reflection is vital

    Everyone will have a different path to subduing various levels of anxiety caused by day-to-day business tasks. For me, the two things that help are sleeping — that’s more of a short-term solution — and reflection.

    It’s easy to block bad calls, days, etc. That said, confronting the good and bad through reflection gives you the privilege of growing and maturing. With time, you will look back at the same event that made you sick to reflect on and laugh at what once ruffled your feathers (trust me, we’ve all been there. You are not alone.). With every misstep, misfortune and mistake you make, the one before doesn’t look so bad.

    As a founder, you really don’t have the option to stop when things get rough. Again, I’ve been there. Once you get through the next challenge, you look back and know you are better for it. Reconcile the bad, and even laugh at what triggered you in the past when you can. When faced with a new challenge, take those steps forward and focus on what you can control — those previous challenges will help you know that you can get through another. More often than not, you’ve accomplished greater feats.

    Related: 8 Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Discern Reflection From Regret

    Capital isn’t the only thing you can gain funding for

    I can write a whole other article on how to raise funds for your business effectively, but with the space I have, know that there is so much to gain from being in a room with investors with years of experience in your space. A good investor relationship, in my mind, is not based on the foundation of capital provided.

    In our early stage, our “best” investors are those with whom we have a true partnership. They are the ones we can call for help for whatever reason. They are not investing merely to fill an investment thesis bucket. They are excited by what you are doing and take the time to learn about you and your vision for the company. They don’t wait for you to reach out. They’ll take the initiative to introduce you to a potential client or just to see how founder life is treating you.

    When you are actively fundraising, remember this: just as much as you are telling them your vision, they should be telling you theirs. Do your due diligence, and ask hard questions; find out who they support, their current portfolio companies, who they can connect you with and their stances on trends in your market.

    Create goals outside of your business

    You will undoubtedly be tested and pushed outside of your limits and challenged to push through many mental barriers. Another helpful way to grow is to create accomplishments outside of work. What I’ve found particularly helpful while working on Smartrr is to challenge myself to find purpose beyond work. Being so focused on something so large as scaling what we hope will continue to be a thriving business, short-term wins are essential.

    One example of that is hiking on the weekend: getting fresh air does wonders, but getting to the peak of a hike, “winning,” in a sense, is a great win that helps fuel my mind for the next week ahead. Hard to believe when you are deep in the trenches, but wins won’t always come from your business. Set goals and crush them, both in and out of your organization!

    As a first-time founder, these five lessons have brought joy and success into the entrepreneurship journey. This is not your “success formula,” but lessons I hope you can take, practice and fuel your growth in business and life. Remember, success isn’t linear nor manifests the same way for all instances, but please apply these principles to how you see fit in your day-to-day. Get clear on your goals, and I hope you start your 2023 off great!

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    Gaby Yitzhaek Tegen

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  • How These Friends Started a Lucrative Charcuterie Side Hustle

    How These Friends Started a Lucrative Charcuterie Side Hustle

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    Starting a side hustle? It might pay to find yourself co-founders who have something you don’t.


    Courtesy of Platterful

    That’s what Ryan Culver, Caroline Elston and Lowell Bieber, the Indiana-based friends behind charcuterie subscription service Platterful, discovered when they teamed up to launch their venture last year — and made $40,000 in their first month.

    Culver and Bieber previously partnered on a health-and-wellness subscription box, which they successfully scaled and sold in September 2020.

    This time around, Culver’s logistics and shipping experience and Bieber’s operations expertise proved to be the perfect pairings with Elston’s background in digital marketing and burgeoning charcuterie business.

    Entrepreneur sat down with the trio to learn how they built their meat-and-cheese side hustle — and continue to fuel its growth.

    Related: Meats and Cheeses and Olives, Oh My! How this Veteran Launched a Successful Charcuterie Franchise

    “We really didn’t have any idea of how to pair things well together — certainly not how to create a board.”

    Culver and Bieber wanted to start another subscription service after the sale of their first, and recognizing the gap in charcuterie offerings, saw a prime opportunity.

    “We definitely wanted to repeat the subscription model,” Culver says. “We could’ve just created this brand [that had] standalone products that you could buy, which we do offer as well. But really the crux of the business is tied to that subscription model. We were both still highly interested in the recurring revenue that comes in each month. It’s almost like a guaranteed buffer to keep the baseline cost of the business covered.”

    The only problem?

    Culver and Bieber didn’t know anything about the business of meat and cheese.

    “We had no knowledge of charcuterie,” Bieber recalls. “We just knew it was a growing space and that we liked to eat meat and cheese. But we really didn’t have any idea of how to pair things well together — certainly not how to create a board.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: How Subscription Services Are Changing Brand and Consumer Habits

    “Meeting Ryan and Lowell [who already had] all of that operational background on subscription boxes and fulfillment was like the perfect timing and the perfect marriage.”

    Culver and Bieber began looking for someone to help them get their venture off the ground. Their search led them to Elston, a marketing professional who also operated a grazing-table side hustle serving events like weddings, birthday parties, bridal showers and more.

    “I love meat and cheese as well — no surprise there,” Elston says. “I loved cheese boards and would get them at restaurants. They were starting to catch on two, three years ago, so whenever people would come to my house or there were family gatherings, I would always make a board.”

    Elston continued to get creative with her boards in 2020 for her college friends’ 30th birthday celebrations, and when people suggested she go into business for real, she decided to do just that. From there, it “caught fire;” Elston would craft 10-15 small boards every weekend in addition to five to six grazing tables for larger events. She was also about to become a parent.

    She knew it wasn’t sustainable.

    “Meeting Ryan and Lowell [who already had] all of that operational background on subscription boxes and fulfillment was like the perfect timing and the perfect marriage,” Elston explains, “because it was a way that I could continue this creative outlet that I found and fell in love with, but I didn’t have to run all over the city of Indianapolis to do so.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: 12 High-Earning Side Hustles for Creative People

    “We took a month or so to build out our website, and that blew up in December, which was great to see.”

    Platterful planned a crowdfunding initiative on Kickstarter to gauge market interest but had to pull the campaign at the last minute when the co-founders learned their business was considered “reselling” — “even though it’s much more than that,” Elston says.

    But with a quick pivot to Indiegogo, Platterful was back on track.

    “The Indiegogo did well,” Bieber says. “And then we took a month or so to build out our website, and that blew up in December, so that was great to see.”

    Platterful did $40,000 in sales during its first month, and despite being a “very seasonal business” with spikes in popularity around major holidays, it’s been able to sustain that growth. This December, the business is poised to at least double last December’s earnings.

    Culver’s logistics company Lessgistics fulfills Platterful’s orders. “So I kind of see both sides of [the process], which is interesting,” he says. “It gives us full control over the shipping experience, which we like.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: Here’s How You Can Grow in the Logistics Business

    “One of our big 2023 goals is just to ensure our packaging and presentation looks very nice when customers open it.”

    But Platterful’s journey hasn’t been without some challenges. Even though Culver and Bieber had subscription experience, the co-founders did have to contend with a new complication: cold shipping.

    “Some of the meats are shelf stable, but all of the cheeses need to be refrigerated,” Bieber says. “So we have to make sure that they’re arriving cold, and that [brings] a whole new set of challenges that are frankly kind of expensive. We had to figure out how to still offer good value to the customers at an affordable price.”

    That’s meant constantly refining Platterful’s packaging.

    “We’ve gone through six or seven iterations of packaging so far,” Culver says, “and we’re still working on that now, continually making that better. One of our big 2023 goals is just to ensure our packaging and presentation looks very nice when customers open it. So it’s always been kind of a work in progress.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: 5 Creative Packaging Ideas to Delight Your Customers

    “[With co-founders] you have other people to lean on — if you’re having a tough day, maybe someone else is having a good day.”

    Of course, balancing full-time jobs with a fast-growing side hustle is no easy feat either. But having dependable partners to fill in the gaps makes all the difference.

    “We all have our core jobs, but there’s also still a lot of free time, pockets at night or in between lunches, breaks, whatever,” Culver explains. “So we stay in contact throughout the day, each day. Not Saturday and Sunday, that’d be a little too much. But Monday through Friday for sure.”

    Platterful also has two employees in the Philippines who handle significant portions of customer service and corporate outreach.

    “We’re all in and out all day long,” Elston continues, “and very stressed with a lot to balance. [But it’s] a blast and stuff I really want to do. So we all make time for it because it’s like our baby, and it’s going very, very well, and we’re all very committed to making it work.”

    Bieber agrees.

    “I feel like it would be really hard to do [these things] alone,” he says, “because you don’t have a support system. [With co-founders] you have other people to lean on — if you’re having a tough day, maybe someone else is having a good day. That balancing act of having three different people going in it together, plus the rest of the team, is what makes it sustainable.”

    So for those breaking into the subscription box industry? Find yourself a complementary set of business partners first.

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    Amanda Breen

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