The cofounder effect
relationships end within four
years.
It's all the small ones that piled up.
Noam Wasserman, author of The Founder's Dilemmas
The same argument, again
Maybe you still haven't found the real disagreement.
Pre-meeting dread
Your body knows the conversation won't feel easy.
Interrupting more often
Are you listening, or waiting to respond?
The conversation you keep avoiding
The longer you avoid it, the heavier it gets.
You explain their actions
to yourself.
Something feels off.
But instead of asking,
you explain it in your head.
You give them the benefit of the doubt.
So they never know it bothered you.
Then it happens again.
And it goes on the list.
They don't know there's a list.
Then one day, something small happens.
And you snap.
To them, it came out of nowhere.
To you, it had been piling up.
The fix isn't in the moment.
It's on the calendar.
The research points to one simple habit:
A regular sit-down.
Just for the two of you.
Not to talk about the company.
To talk about the relationship behind it.
A place where small things get said
before they pile up.
Not "are we on track?"
But "are we okay?"
Research by Dr. Matthew Jones.
We turned the check-in
into a simple game.
both doing, beyond the chaos.
A 15-minute conversation between two co-founders. Once every quarter.
Check it out on our page @seesaw.social
If you're curious to read more,
the book goes deeper.
Effect
The Cofounder Effect
Dr. Matthew Jones
The clinical psychologist who founded the field of co-founder coaching.
Most co-founder relationships don't break in one big moment. They break through small things that never got said.
