Cofounder relationships are like all important relationships in your life- they require care, time, attention, and I believe skill, in order to maintain. Rupture and repair is the cycle we all experience with our functioning relationships. Humans are imperfect creatures. What we do and say or fail to do and say can hurt the people around us. That is rupture. It can be big or small. Frequent or infrequent. Implicit or explicit. Repairable and not repairable.

In the relationship of cycle of rupture and repair, there are three stances between cofounders: Facing each other, Chasing each other, and Quitting each other.

Facing each other: When people use phrases like “healthy conflict”, this is part of what I envision. It means when cofounders have a conflict, small or large, they bring it to the other and they deal with it. Dealing with it could be with a lot of relationship skill or not, but the point is it gets addressed. Nothing festers. Resentment does not grow. Rupture is repaired, the relationship is reaffirmed and cofounders continue on.

What this stance sounds like in startups: “Hey, I have something I need to talk about with you, is now a good time?” or “I hear your concern that [insert issue], let me take in your feedback and get back to you. Can we connect again tomorrow?” or the more direct but effect, “Hey, when [X] happened, that wasn’t cool. Can we talk about it?”

Chasing each other: In this stance, one partner withdraws from dealing with an issues or issues. The oth