What makes a great co-founder or business partner relationship?

Well, a lot of things really.

But as we know, your personality is the engine behind a lot of your behaviour and how you connect with others – and there are a number of key traits that really make an impact for Founder relationships.

Last week we talked a bit about your personality and how it impacts your approach to risk, optimism and uncertainty (check it out here if you missed it, super relevant for business today).

Risk is one of the key traits along with two others – Emotionality (aka Neuroticism) and Openness to Experience – that really help to understand how Founders will work together, and how they will connect with the internal and external team around them.

Today we’re going to deep dive into the three key traits to watch out for in a co-founder relationships.

Are you a founder or co-founder? If you want to be one of the first to try TALY’s Founder profile – bespoke insight on your personality and how it informs your approach and team building, get in touch!

After years of playing in the start-up eco-system, we want to help Founders understand how to build great teams.

Let’s start with exploring Risk, Emotionality and Openness.

We’ve conducted extensive profiling with small businesses, start-ups and founders, and the results are pretty consistent – these three traits really matter.

But before we get into it, an important reminder that personality is complex. The interplay between all the dimensions in your personality is important – which is why TALY brings together Five Factor profiling and Emotional Intelligence into the one profile.

So while these key traits help to understand co-founder relationships, don’t just look at one element in isolation.

Let’s get into the traits…

Risk

Last week’s deep dive into the TALY risk metrics highlighted the four key dimensions that describe how an individual is likely to approach situations with risk or uncertainty.

Founders are usually natural risk takers – you have to believe that taking a chance to create new value matters, or you wouldn’t start in the first place.

Emotionality

Emotionality (or more technically Neuroticism) describes the fluctuations an individual feels in their emotions, either of their own accord or in response to other things going on around them. These are traits like anxiety, moodiness, impulsiveness and more.

A low level of Emotionality tends to describe someone who is more calm, level-headed and balanced, and potentially more emotionally resilient. A high-level of Emotionality can see much more variance, and a tendency to emotional responses in different situations.

There is no right or wrong here (in fact we see a high level of founders with high emotionality relative to other groups) – but where you sit helps to understand a lot about you.

Openness to Experience

The last trait – Openness – describes the mindset and individual brings to different situations and whether it is open, imaginative, curious, progressive and creative, or if it is more traditional, conservative and established.

People with a low level of Openness may bring a more conservative mindset, focused on the here and now and respecting the existing and how things have been done in the past. People with a high level of Openness may bring a more progressive mindset, bringing creativity and imagination and a level of curiosity around building a new future.

Why on earth does this matter?

As with all areas of personality, a high level of self-awareness and openly sharing our underlying drivers is essential to build alignment across the team.

Founder relationships in many ways are like personal, close relationships. You’re in it together, you need to ride the ups and downs and support each other, you need to balance each other out and find ways to get through. And, of course, to be able to celebrate and enjoy each other.

The first step in any successful relationship is open communication and a level of mutual respect and understanding (and appreciation) for who we are and what we bring.

For Co-founders, understanding alignment and differences can be super important in a number of key ways…

Where do we align?

Areas of alignment can be great, especially with respect to your vision for the business. In areas of personality where you naturally align and think the same way, you’ll be able to get in a grove and deliver.

These areas can be your super-power. For example, if you are both highly open individuals, you’re ability to bounce ideas off each, to push the conversation forward, to create and innovate, will be a breeze.

What are our blind spots?

However, the flipside of alignment is your blindspots. Imagine two co-founders who a both strong risk takers. In any situation, they’ll both bring a level of confidence and optimism that encourages them to jump in, back themselves and take a chance.

But who is bringing the alternative perspective?

Taking a chance can be a great thing, but your personality can skew your perspective – so who brings the balance you need?

Where do we differ?

Differences between co-founders can often be a critical strength – but also the most likely source of tension. Being open about different working and thinking styles, and finding ways to work across these and find alignment can be essential – before things go off the rails.

Building a new business is high stakes, high pressure and demanding – and communication breakdowns in the midst of this can wreak havoc and just make it worse.

By using your personality data as a starting point, you’ll have a clear understanding of your differences and the implications of this, helping you to build processes to manage this.

Where do we need help?

Advisors and mentors can often play an important role for any founding team. Finding mentors and advisors that balance out your personality traits, that will bring a different perspective, and that will challenge you, can often be a great way to help make sure they push the conversation forward and help build a sound business.

How can we build the right team around us?

And obviously this also feeds into how you build the right team around you. Who are the right first hires for the business that will either compliment or balance out your personalities? How will your personality traits impact on how you connect with these people, how you lead, how open you are to different perspectives?

Founding teams often have a very strong and entrenched working and collaborating style – and how this evolves and opens up to bring in new team members can often be a challenge!

The key to co-founder success – understanding

At TALY, we talk a lot about empathy and understanding.

In the challenging world of start-ups, the co-founder relationship is under a constant state of pressure – and simply taking the time to get the right data and information, to understand where you align and where you differ, and what the implications might be for your relationship and for those around you, can be quickly and easily alleviate some of this tension.

If you want to find out more about TALY’s personality insights on co-founders and our co-founder profile, get in touch today and be sure to follow TALY Australia on LinkedIn.

The TALY approach to personality profiling brings together a unique mix of Five Factor and Emotional Intelligence profiling to help organisations, hiring managers and teams to make better decisions about recruitment and teams.

Get in touch to find out more… we love talking about this stuff! Or Book a Demo today to see how easy it is to start using TALY in your business.