Article · ~20 min read

Renew Your Co-Founder Vows, and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup

Rachel Lockett (via First Round Review) · First Round Review Free Intermediate

This is the exact playbook behind our answer. Executive coach Rachel Lockett prescribes a cadence of relationship-only meetings that never touch the roadmap: weekly 45-minute 1:1s for team dynamics and unspoken concerns, quarterly two-hour offsites outside the office, and an annual three to four hour session on direction and how each founder's role should evolve. It also gives you a structure (Nonviolent Communication: observation, feeling, need, request) for saying the uncomfortable thing before it festers.

• Book recurring relationship check-ins (weekly 1:1, quarterly offsite, annual review) that exist only for the partnership, separate from any product or roadmap meeting.
• Write living 'co-founder vows' (your North Star, decision rights, how you'll handle conflict) and revisit them quarterly, so drift shows up as a document you can point to.
• Get an outside coach or board member while things are still good, because you cannot see your own blind spots once you are inside the conflict.