Ask HN: Texts to share with my co-founder re time-management and teamwork?

1. You are not a founder. A founder is there at the beginning...when the company is founded. You are a business partner. It's a very different dynamic. The business is a machine in your eyes and a child in your partner's.

2. Are you sure your partner actually wants the business the grow? Sounds to me like you are treating a lifestyle business like a corporation. You are swimming against the tide.

I would hire somebody else who can deliver in the way you expect them to and let your partner keep doing what he's doing at his pace. Build the business around him.

Or...you know...stop wasting your time trying to scale a lifestyle business.

You are assuming he will go to the trouble of reading these texts because somehow being given textbooks about how to work with other people is less patronizing? As gently as I can, I want to suggest that this might not be a realistic expectation.

You don’t go into a lot of detail except to say that you hit a stone. The first thing that comes to mind is that he is literally stonewalling you — this is a term that describes a dysfunctional emotional tactic in relationships.

I don’t think you have a knowledge problem. You have an emotional and relationship problem, which is far more complex, and requires different tools and skills. For some people, for example, they shut down (and stonewall) when the task at hand or the area under discussion overwhelms them, or makes them feel inadequate, or mirrors something from their childhood, or or or — the possibilities are literally endless.

I’m going to assume you didn’t sign up to be this guy’s therapist. But if he’s not meeting you halfway in trying to engage with these issues, even by just acknowledging that these are issues, you have to find some way to speak to that.

I’m hoping other people have more specific advice for this situation, because my advice would be not to go into business with someone who doesn’t have the emotional regulation skills to handle failure with growth. (And stonewalling is absolute a sign of a lack of regulatory and relationship skills.) but correctly identifying the problem is probably the first step.

No, that's like giving your wife a book on weight loss, the onus is on you to triple the sales and then the hobbyist starts wondering how his going to get that done.

Sounds like a personality conflict to me, and you're using the techniques that would work on you (textbooks) to try to adjust his behaviour. That's not a healthy dynamic; you'd be better off trying to empathise with the guy and understand his perspective. Why isn't he enthusiastic to do what you want to do? Seems like he's dragging his heels and giving him information on time management isn't going to change his level of motivation. If you understood why he is not motivated then you could try to help address it.

Your post is a bit vague so I can't tell where the issue really is.

However, I disagree with the posts suggesting all the ways to force change. Instead I'd suggest that you consider whether the things he's doing aren't "wrong" but just aren't your preference.

For instance, perhaps he works 11-5 and you disagree and want him to do 9-5. He isn't wrong.

You say he doesn't want to use Discord. That's not wrong, it's your preference. Lots of companies use other tools. Perhaps you could learn to use whatever it is that he uses.

You say you want a common way to manage your priorities. Is that necessary? Why not just agree on the current goal and trust him to take care of his part?

After all you did say that he's at least relatively successful. And you did decide that you wanted to partner with him so you do see value in the company and at least some in him too.

Furthermore, it might even be great if you were the one to provide all the structure needed for the rest of the company that would give him the flexibility to do what he's good at. It'd be a great strength if you were able to work together separately.

Forcing change is difficult. Since you are partners even more so. There's only so much change capital you can expend so it's better to use it on the truly important things.

Hope you don't mind my frank opinion, but there are a lot of yellow (ostensibly red) flags in your post that give me cause for concern. You ask for a text to share with your co-founder regarding time-management and teamwork, but that presupposes that your cofounders weak spots can be ameliorated by him simply reading and applying lessons from a textbook. I think this is optimistic, to put it lightly.

As you have stated, your co-founder doesn't have much experience working in a structured corporate setting where teamwork, clean communication, planning and scheduling is expected and required. He has been a small business owner, and so he has specialized on the skills to do that. Now, it's possible that he can grow beyond that, but it's equally possible that he can't, or won't.

You don't have any evidence of his capability to break away from doing what he's been doing for a very long time, and indeed, he doesn't seem to be interested in it (you can't get him on a team discord). So that leaves you with a couple options:

1) Explain to him how what he's doing limits the business and determine whether he can be coached through his limitations. You can't just ask him. You have to provide an actual task which tests his ability to do this and gives you a concrete outcome/data point one way or another.

2) If he cannot be coached through his limitations (lack of ability or desire), determine if you can hire a report or team of reports which he can guide and which will be the glue that connects him to the team and the rest of the organization. This is an expensive and bureaucratic way to solve the problem, but if he adds enough value to the organization, it's probably the most practical solution to your problem.

3) If he cannot be coached through his limitations and it is not ROI positive to hire a team around him, you have to seriously consider whether you should separate. This may not be what you want to hear, but you have to consider this possibility. It is a common way that cofounder relationships end.

In the future, it's important to test for these kinds of incompatibilities upfront -- if you can do some kind of a small projecting or contract with someone else to test the working relationship prior to committing to essentially a business marriage, you'll be a lot more prepared to underwrite the risk of working with this other person. Best of luck.

Like others, I agree this is not a facts problem. This is a relationship problem. You should find a therapist with business experience or an executive coach. Commit to going weekly for at least 6 month.

From the way you describe it though, it sounds like his approach life has always worked for him. People rarely change in that situation. So in your shoes I'd be asking myself a) whether according to his values and desires he's sufficiently motivated to make a deep personal change, and b) if not, what relationship structure would work for everybody?

As an example of the latter, if he's not emotionally ready for business partnership, is their a relationship that lets him generate value without messing up the wider system? E.g., what if you were the 51% owner and CEO, with him being Founder and Chief Scientist or some other title that implies prestige but no executive authority? Then you give him an assistant and a series of things to get done so that he can be happy and productive, but he can't actually block the kind of structure you need to run a business at scale.

> So, no - giving him something to read would not be accepted as patronising, he would gladly accept. The alternative is long lectures from me and I don't think I am so well prepared or structured.

I'm skeptical that either of the solutions you've settled on are the right ones - both, for me feel a bit broadcast mode. When I read your post I worry about the level of trust and psychological safety between you both, so thats what I'd be working on. I think you'd be better served having open two-way chats about work; sharing fears, hopes and dreams as a start.

I get its not always neat determining how things start - as others have said there are a few smells there. To be blunt - its unclear to me if the other person in the relationship will 100% see it the same way as you do in the partner vs co-founder thing. You think there is a problem with terminology, but think he's got the same definition of co-founder as you? I'm skeptical - but only you can truly appraise what type of relationship you have and if the distinction really matters to you.

You picked a cofounder who has never worked on a team or had a structured job in his life?

He’s unwilling to install Discord to communicate with the team but you expect him to read and absorb time management and teamwork books?

Sorry for the snark but what the heck are you thinking ... sounds like you have an intern, not a business partner.

You don’t need a book; you need to find one tiny example/experiment where putting in place a simple, visual information system will make things better according to them.

Then, build from there. You’re not going to get him to make a large change to, from his perspective, accommodate your need for structure.

Get a small whiteboard and make some kind of magnetic status system for jobs or whatever. Nothing that uses a single transistor or has a manual to explain it.

It sounds like you would both benefit from reading The E-Myth Revisited. I posted some notes online about this book: https://www.briansnotes.io/book/the-e-myth-revisited/

But I wouldn't recommend just sending someone a book or article to read. You need to approach this situation with more empathy.

Hmm I think this big focus on management without having gotten results first would be a red flag for the other founder. I'd say grow the business first, then you'll have more credibility in managing things the way you'd like to.

I would look at the Rockefeller Habits and the One Page Strategic Plan method. Put it up physically in the office, and make a daily and weekly review together, then someone (you) can share it digitally with everyone else.

_Deep Work_, Cal Newport.