🤖 #33: Vivian's Deeptech Insider: How to Avoid a Co-founder Divorce (the #1 startup killer)

Hello and welcome to #33 edition of the fortnightly Vivian's Deeptech Insider.

Last week, I had coffee with a founder whose company just hit £5M ARR. Great news, right?

Not exactly. His co-founder had just walked away, citing "fundamental differences in exit." The kicker? They never actually disagreed on the exit itself.

This story isn't unique. Research by Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman shows that 65% of high-potential startups fail due to co-founder conflict, not market conditions or product issues. Yet most founders spend 90% of their time obsessing over product-market fit and zero time on founder-market fit.

The Anatomy of Invisible Misalignment

Here's how the slow-motion car crash typically unfolds:

Month 1: Perfect alignment. You're finishing each other's sentences, sharing the same late-night pizza, building toward the same dream.

Month 6: Small cracks appear. One founder gets excited about a partnership opportunity while the other prefers bootstrapping. No big deal—you're both "being strategic."

Month 12: The revelation hits like a freight train. Founder A has been building toward a $50M acquisition in 5 years. Founder B is planning a $500M IPO in 10 years. Same company, completely different movies playing in your heads.

The hidden tragedy? Both exits sound ambitious. Both sound "right." But they require fundamentally different companies, strategies, and decisions.

Why Smart People Make This Mistake

The root cause isn't personality clashes or ego—it's the absence of deliberate communication systems.

In startups, you're learning at breakneck speed. Every customer conversation shifts your understanding. Every market signal changes priorities. But without structured ways to capture these learnings and realign the team, people start making decisions based on their own interpretation of where you're heading.

Think of it like two GPS systems that started with the same destination but gradually accumulated different route data. Eventually, you end up in completely different cities.

The 4Ps Framework: People as Your Operating System

This is why "People" is the second pillar in my 4Ps framework for startup success:

1. Problem - What you're solving

2. People - How your team operates and aligns

3. Product - What you're building

4. Profit - Identify your sales levers and how you scale revenue

Most founders start with #3, jump to #1, skip #2 entirely, and wonder why #4 falls apart.

3 Communication Systems That Prevent Founder Divorce

1. The Weekly Alignment Check

What: 30-minute weekly session focused on recent learnings and immediate decisions Format:

• What did we learn this week from customers/market that changes our approach?

• What decisions are we each making this week and why?

• Where are we seeing things differently right now?

• Use my "learning calculator" from newsletter #29 to quantify which insights should shift priorities

Why it works: Catches tactical drift in real-time before it compounds.

2. The Quarterly Assumption Audit

What: Deeper quarterly exercise to surface fundamental beliefs about the business Format:

• Each founder independently writes down core assumptions: market size, timeline to profitability, exit strategy, role definitions, company culture, hiring philosophy

• Compare documents line by line

• Update shared "founding assumptions" document with aligned positions

Why it works: Ensures your foundational beliefs stay synchronised as you learn and grow.

3. The Tension Rewards System

What: A culture that celebrates early detection of misalignment Format:

• Regular check-ins that ask "What aren't we talking about?"

• Rewards for surfacing uncomfortable truths early

• Clear escalation paths for resolving disagreements

Why it works: Creates psychological safety around difficult conversations.

The Compound Effect of Misalignment

Here's what most people miss: misalignment compounds exponentially.

A small difference in assumptions about market timing becomes a chasm in product development priorities. A slight divergence on company culture becomes a fundamental conflict over hiring decisions. What starts as a 5-degree difference in direction puts you miles apart after a year of execution.

By the time you notice, you've already lost months of momentum—or your co-founder.

The Board-Level Question That Changes Everything

In every board meeting I attend, we ask one critical question: "Does this company have the right team to execute and operate this plan?"

If the answer is no—or if there's hesitation—everything else becomes academic. The best strategy in the world can't overcome a broken operating system.

The strongest startups I know treat relationships as their core infrastructure. Get the people dynamics right, and you can pivot through anything. Get them wrong, and even perfect product-market fit won't save you.

Speak soon,

Vivian

P.S Was this forwarded to you? Read past issues and subscribe here.

P.S.S Are we connected on LinkedIn? I’m here.

If you have gotten value out of Vivian’s Deeptech Insider, please help us grow by sharing it with your friends!