Ignorant or Ignoring?

TL;DR

Hey, I’m Tim! ☕

It blows my mind how many cofounders don’t agree on whether they’re ignoring an issue or if they’re ignorant of it.

Ignoring is a lack of acknowledgement; ignorance is a lack of awareness. At any given point, you’re only one conversation away from reaching a clearer source of truth.

Here’s the one thing to remember: a star can shine brightest right before it dies.

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Let’s get into it ⤵

DEEP DIVE

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” — Confucius.

Bubble Burst

The peaks of stock market bubbles, so obvious in hindsight, are deceptively difficult to time. There’s no single metric that signals when the clock is about to strike 12:00.

Cofounderships on similar trajectories are plagued by the same uncertainty.

This explains the abundance of generic advice for both. The Barnum Effect leads you to mistake vague, one-size-fits-all recommendations to be personally meaningful.

As a cofounder, it’s your job to address your blindspots before the bubble bursts.

Based on the cofounders I’ve worked with, these are the common issues that obscure deeper problems when things are going well. In another edition, you’ll read about what to do when things are in free fall.

1. Success masks cracks.

   When the business is doing good, you assume your cofoundership is solid. In the same week as Twitter’s IPO, the book Hatching Twitter was published and exposed the juvenile backstabbing between the 4 cofounders. Despite the financial success, their friendships dissolved in a pool of jealousy, passive-aggressiveness, cursing matches, and secret coups to oust one another.

2. Little things add up.

   Small annoyances accumulate tension. In the moment, you have more urgent and important matters to handle, but over time, this makes you avoidant and defensive. Garry Tan talked about his experience starting Posterous in detail in this YouTube video. At first, he didn’t admit it to “keep up the fiction that they were good cofounders for one another.”

3. Never had a fight.

   Cofounders who begin with somewhat equal decision-making power are at risk of a major conflict because you’re used to consensus. It’s a red flag when you claim to be equal but own different areas like business and tech. Overlaps between the areas is what leads to disputes. While AirBnB and Google cofounders had similar equity, they used a weighted voting structure.

Spotting the iceberg is one thing; steering your ship clear of it is what actually matters.

Here’s how.

TIM’S TAKE

Blindspot Bias

Stock bubbles are created by irrational thinking: FOMO, herd mentality, and over-speculation.

This brings me back to my point about ignorance vs ignoring. When companies or sectors become overhyped, you ignore certain truths that contradict the hype. The more you do that, the more you neglect research, and the more ignorant you become.

Cofounder bubbles are also created by irrational thinking: overconfidence, echo chambers, and the IKEA effect.

• Ignorant

  This is perhaps the lesser evil of the two. You may be ignorant of concerns that your cofounder has, and vice versa. That’s why Han Wang, cofounder of Mintlify, recommends weekly “emotional debt” meetings. Think of it as clearing the air before it clouds the cofoundership.

• Ignoring

  If you’re dodging tough conversations, don’t let shame hold you back. You want to hide behind things that are going well — that’s human. The first step is to acknowledge the avoidance. Then, I like to write down a list of opinions and facts, and avoid absolutes. Use that to drive the conversation.

I recently met with the former Head of Marketing at AngelList, Plaid, and Quora, Head of Enterprise Marketing at Dropbox, and Head of Vertical Marketing at Facebook.

She now runs a fund that only backs companies led by technical cofounders and driven by product growth — ironically delaying the need for marketing. Marketing to her is what cofounder relationships are to me.

We agreed that cofounder conflicts often happen immediately after a major event: fundraising round, pivot, key hire, etc. This tends to be when cofounder bubbles pop.

The analogy she gave me was “you might not be training for a marathon this year but you can still go on a walk everyday.”

And that how you should think about building good cofounder habits.

A booming business doesn’t guarantee a solid cofoundership. But a booming cofoundership leads to a solid business.

Related Resources

• If you’re building the future of enterprise software, fintech, or commerce and want GTM expertise, check out Phenomenal Ventures.

• Searching for a cofounder? Check out StartHawk for an online platform and join LFC.DEV's in-person meet-ups in NYC for face-to-face connections.

• Both Superpowers for Good and FundingHope share incredibly powerful stories about companies doing social good. Yours could be next.

LAST LOOK

Make sure your cofounder sees this — either pass it along or get them to subscribe. A solid relationship takes everyone's effort.

Looking for a cofounder coach? Hit reply.

PS: I recently came across an essay about building intuition. It’s something I’ve pondered about before but I’ll let it simmer in my mind in regard to cofounderships.

Tim He
Founder & CEO