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Hey, I’m Tim! ☕

Every Mon and Fri, I help you become the cofounder your startup deserves.

• Actionable advice: Practical tips you can start applying today.

• Relatable stories: Real-life experiences from people just like you.

• Unique insights: Fresh perspectives that you won’t find anywhere else.

Cherrytree is the blueprint for building your dream cofoundership.

PS — If you really want to answer the unGoogleable questions, book time with me for free. I’ve coached dozens of pre-seed/seed stage cofounders.

The IKEA Effect

The past 5 editions were a series called “Help! My Cofounder is [toxic trait].”

My top 4 Linkedin posts this month have gotten 1.5M impressions, and they were all either about not being able to find a cofounder or finding the wrong one.

Today, let’s talk about something positive -IKEA- because who doesn’t like IKEA?

Imagine you and your cofounder both work a 12-hour day. At the end of it, you feel like you carried 70% of the load. But they feel the same way. How’s that possible?

It turns out, people are terrible at judging their own contributions relative to others.

You overvalue things you’ve put effort into. Building an IKEA bookshelf makes you irrationally attached to it. You built it, so it feels special, even if it’s a little janky.

Cofounders do this with their work.

If you poured effort into something, you assume it’s more valuable than it actually is. And because you’re hyperaware of everything you did but only vaguely aware of what your cofounder did, you naturally feel like you contributed more.

It’s a Trap

• Invisible Work Feels Nonexistent – You remember every email you sent but don’t really notice the four meetings they took.

• Cognitive Effort Feels Like Physical Effort – Even if you didn’t move a muscle, thinking deeply about a problem makes it feel like hard work.

• You Experience Your Own Setbacks More – When your task is hard, it feels extra significant. But you don’t feel your cofounder’s struggles.

You both end up feeling undervalued, underappreciated, and overworked.

Why This Matters

Cofounder resentment rarely explodes overnight. It builds in tiny, daily moments of unspoken frustration:

• Why am I doing more than them?

• Why aren’t they acknowledging my effort?

• Am I being taken for granted?

If you don’t address it, you go from partners to scorekeepers. Once you’re keeping score, the partnership is already damaged.

Use It As Your Advantage

Here’s the positive part.

Most people talk about the IKEA Effect as a flaw. What if, instead of inflating your own contributions, you used the IKEA Effect to strengthen your cofoundership?

The more effort you invest in the business, the more deeply you believe in it. And the more effort you invest in your cofounder, the more you value them too.

• Build Together = Believe Together — Startups feel so magical because you’re building from scratch. If you ever feel disconnected, build something new together. A feature, a pitch deck, even a new tradition.

• Appreciation Compounds Over Time — The more time you spend solving hard problems together, the more irreplaceable your cofounder feels.

Years ago, when I was cofounding my first startup, my cofounder and I stayed up until 5 a.m., grinding out a business plan for a competition.

In the moment it was such a pain because we saw it as a distraction but we were already so far into the competition and we wanted to win some free money.

Either one of us could’ve written it alone, but we did it together for fun. It ended up being one of our favorite memories.

A couple inside jokes were born that night.

That’s all for now,

Tim He

BTW, I’m launching a coffee company for founders so keep an eye out for that.

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