"When you're building a company together, every decision has downstream effects. Your team watches how you handle conflict. Investors notice tension. The pressure is different from what couples face. Couples can take space. Cofounders usually can't-at least not cleanly. You have a company that needs both of you. You have to find a way to work together even when you're furious with each other."
"You're not dealing with romance or whose family you're spending the holidays with. But you are dealing with power, ego, and the fact that your professional identity is tied to this other person. Sessions jump between psychological insight and business reality. One minute, we're talking about why you shut down in meetings. The next, we're working through a firing decision. You need someone who can hold both."
Cofounder coaching adapts couples-therapy modalities such as emotion-focused therapy, the Gottman method, and Imago therapy to address startup-specific pressures. The coaching integrates psychological insight with concrete business decisions, recognizing that every cofounder interaction has downstream effects on team morale, investor perceptions, and company operations. Cofounders often cannot take relational timeouts, so coaching focuses on practical ways to collaborate while emotions run high. Effective coaches combine therapeutic training with deep startup experience to navigate power, ego, and professional identity entanglement. The timeline is compressed compared with romantic therapy, requiring faster, actionable interventions that resolve interpersonal patterns blocking business progress.
Read at Psychology Today
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