Co-Founder Dreaming

There is a time in the inception phase of a startup as an idea takes shape and a team assembles when a shared dream emerges. By dreaming together, co-founders lay the foundation of a shared vision, an understanding of each others’ inspirations and motivations, and the beginnings of trust.

Before you form a company, there is an exploratory phase as the potential founders investigate concepts, do early customer discovery to validate value propositions, check out feasibility, and seek to evaluate the likelihood of success of a possible startup. As ideas swirl, sometimes the various threads coalesce into a workable initial concept of a new company. During this process, one of the critical success factors sometimes missed in the analytical work of trying to ask all the business and technical questions is rooted in the people involved exploring their compatibility, motivations, risk tolerance, and goals. By dreaming together, co-founders can explore these things and hopefully create a strong foundation for their startup team, increasing its likelihood of success.

At this point, I have been forming startups for over 20 years. Five times I have reached the point with co-founders where we pulled the trigger and founded a new company. There are at least an equal number of times when I/we seriously explored a possible startup and ultimately decided not to proceed down that path together. While sometimes a business just does not have the requisite elements to be successful, as I reflect on these various formation-stage experiences that had the business essentials, it is clear to me that likely all 10+ of these business concepts could have been successful. But at a certain point, finding alignment between co-founders was the critical factor differentiating whether we made the leap or abandoned the attempt.

At a primary level, each collaborative team validated an unmet need and formulated a dream of what we could build that would be a breakthrough that would make a difference. For example:

• The dream of using safe ultrasound to blast away unwanted tissue in a human body noninvasively
  
  
• The dream of creating a drug that can change clinical practice for the better by being simultaneously efficacious, safe, easier to use, and more cost-effective
  
  
• The dream of 3D ultrasound images collected from a single transducer
  
  
• The dream of changing critical care medicine by leveraging biomarkers and microfluidics to get fast risk stratification insights
  
  
• The dream of translating streaming physiologic data into meaningful clinical information that provides novel insight to save lives
  
  
• The dream of building a powerful, affordable, easy-to-use research tool that empowers individual research labs to pursue scientific breakthroughs
  
  
• The dream of innovative wind energy generation that could change the game offshore
  
  
• The dream of creating new software that automates rote tasks out of the hands of human caregivers so that they can spend more quality time on the human aspects of care

All of these dreams had actual business potential. But not all of them were actually launched. Of those that did not make it out of the starting blocks, in almost every case, the blocker was some “people/team problem”:

• Sometimes as we worked together for weeks or months, we discovered that we just did not get along or like each other. When you co-found a business, you will spend enormous amounts of time together. Think of it like a business marriage. You really should be compatible and like each other!
  
  
• Sometimes we could not agree on a vision for moving forward. There were misalignments in timing, commitment levels, and goals that meant we would start a business with conflicts already built in.
  
  
• Sometimes when push came to shove, one or more potential co-founders could not get comfortable with the risk of a new business.
  
  
• Sometimes there were differences in integrity standards or motivation levels.

Sometimes, when a concept did come together, and a business was ultimately formed, I noticed that some critically important conversations happened as the team worked together to vet the idea. I call those “dreaming” conversations. They often seemed to occur at the end of a long day or possibly over a meal together when there came a moment when someone started sharing what they found personally exciting about what we were thinking about. People shared their hearts – and the other hearts in the room resonated on the same wavelength.

• I like these other people. I could spend long days with them and enjoy the process. I like their values, their passion, and their dreams. I value their experiences and their insights into the underlying dynamics of the invention and innovation. I want to work with them!
  
  
• The inventors who dream of having something they discovered and developed go the distance, and I dream of helping them realize their dream. We are all attracted by our hope and conviction that this is one worth pushing for – our best shot!
  
  
• There is a sense of trust that develops as we work together. We can trust each other’s skills, experience, work ethic, and integrity and find ways to combine our capabilities and complement one another. I believe in you!
  
  
• We are aligned on timing, level of commitment, personal financial risk, and other factors so that the plan feels likely to be fair. We can come up with reasonable solves to make each person’s participation viable in the context of their responsibilities. We support each other and solve sticky problems together!
  
  
• We share a common vision of what this business could be in terms of direction, strategy, roles, and funding approach. We are all convinced that our target customers care a lot about having this solution come to market!

These dreaming conversations where we can share our hearts are essential to the whole co-founding team because it is a common understanding of each of our respective “why” and our  alignment in values and goals that keeps everyone going and supporting one another through the inevitable tough times.

Knowing that each startup run will typically soak up five to ten years of our lives, each of us has but a limited number of shots on goal—a few opportunities to make a difference and be part of a game-changer in some sphere. We must select which ones to invest our time, passion, energy, creativity, and resources in – and it is worth trying to understand who you are climbing into that startup boat with to make sure you have in your hands the potential to be a complimentary, collegial team working with dedication to achieve the dream together. When you find the opportunity with both the business fundamentals and the team you can dream with, it may be worth taking the leap and creating together.