How to pick (and keep) the right co-founder: 5 rules from a repeat founder

At our inaugural Co-Founder Matchmaking Event, serial entrepreneur Laurent Decrue, co-CEO of HolyCode, shared what he’s learned about building strong co-founder relationships. Laurent has built and scaled companies together with the same partner for more than 15 years and now leads a 400-person nearshore software development company working closely with European startups and scale-ups. He knows first-hand what makes founding teams work – and what breaks them. 

Here are his five practical steps for building a founding partnership that can survive the inevitable pressure of startup life, plus an extra perspective on how investors think about founder teams and a vital “meta-rule”: 

Start with shared values, not just a shared idea 

Most founding stories start with an idea: a product you want to build, a problem you’re passionate about solving. But in the long run, ideas evolve. Values don’t. 

Laurent’s first rule: get clear on your values early – and make sure they overlap. 

That means talking about questions many teams never explicitly address: 

• What really matters to you in life and work? 

• How do you make difficult decisions? 

• How do you define success – personally and for the company? 

• Where are your red lines? 

In his own founding journey, shared values around discipline, performance and radical honesty became the foundation that carried the team through tough moments. When things got stressful, those values acted like a compass: they didn’t always agree on what to do, but they agreed on how they wanted to behave. 

If you’re at an early stage and only have a few minutes with a potential co-founder, Laurent’s advice is simple: spend at least some of that time talking about values, not only about the business model or technology. If you don’t align together on the fundamentals, no cap table or org chart can save you later. 

Build a complementary, not identical, skill set 

Laurent’s second step is the one you’ve probably heard a hundred times – but many teams still ignore it: co-founders should be complementary, not clones. 

If everyone is great at product and nobody wants to talk to customers, you’ll struggle. If everyone loves strategy but nobody is comfortable running operations, you’ll stall. It’s not about one skill being “better” than another; it’s about being honest about what the company needs and who is best placed to take which role. 

Some practical ways to think about complementarity: 

• Map the work: sales, fundraising, product, tech, operations, people & culture, finance. 

• Assign ownership: who is ultimately accountable for which area? 

• Be honest about weaknesses: where do you need to strengthen the team, either with another co-founder or early hires? 

Complementary skills also make it easier to respect each other’s decisions. When you know your co-founder is better than you at something, it’s simpler to trust their call – and that reduces friction. 

Put clear rules and agreements in writing – early 

According to Laurent, many startups fail not because the idea is bad, but because co-founders fall out. And those conflicts often turn into legal disputes that destroy both the company and the relationships. 

His third step is therefore very pragmatic: agree on the rules while you’re still on good terms – and put them in writing. 

Key questions to address together with a lawyer: 

• How are shares distributed among the founders? Why? 

• What is expected in terms of time and effort from each co-founder? 

• What happens if one founder wants to step back – for family reasons, burnout, or a new opportunity? 

• Is there a vesting or claw back mechanism if someone leaves early or stops contributing? 

• How will you resolve disputes if you can’t agree internally? 

Laurent mentions that in his own companies, legal structures around vesting and buy-back options have been crucial. They protect the company, the investors and the remaining founders if one person leaves or stops pulling their weight. 

It’s much easier to discuss these topics when everyone is enthusiastic and optimistic. If you wait until there is a serious disagreement, you may already be too late.

Make feedback a trained team habit 

The fourth step is about something we all say we want, but very few of us are truly good at: feedback. 

Laurent’s experience is clear: you can’t build a high-performing founding team without honest, frequent feedback – but you also can’t expect people to magically know how to give and receive it. It’s a skill set like any other, and it needs training. 

His suggestions: 

• Invest in learning a feedback method you all use – for example, non-violent communication principles or another structured approach. 

• Create a shared language for feedback so nobody feels attacked when difficult topics are raised. 

• Normalize regular feedback sessions, not just once a year or when something goes wrong. 

In his teams, everyone goes through feedback coaching. It’s not an optional “soft skill”; it’s part of how the organization runs. The result is a culture where difficult topics are surfaced early, before they turn into resentment or silent disengagement. 

For co-founders, this is especially critical. If you can’t tell each other when something is off, small issues will grow into major conflicts. 

Don’t just coach individuals – coach the founding team 

The fifth step builds on the fourth: get coaching – not only for yourself, but for the whole founding team. 

Laurent points out that many companies invest heavily in individual coaching for founders and managers, but not in coaching the whole leadership team. When serious conflicts arise between senior leaders with similar personalities or overlapping responsibilities, it can be difficult to resolve them from the inside. A neutral team coach can help untangle what’s really going on and support more constructive ways of working. 

Key takeaways for founders: 

• Individual coaching is helpful, but not enough. 

• A neutral team coach can see patterns and dynamics that you’re too close to recognize. 

• The earlier you bring in support, the cheaper and less painful it is than dealing with a broken team later. 

In a startup, the founding team is the culture. When you invest in coaching the team, you’re not just solving a short-term interpersonal problem – you’re laying the foundation for how the wider organization will communicate and resolve conflict as it grows. 

Bonus insight: investors back teams, not solo heroes 

From an investor’s perspective, the strength of the founding team is often more important than the initial idea. Markets shift, products pivot, and business models evolve – but a resilient, functional founding team is what makes it possible to adapt. 

Several themes consistently come up in discussions between founders, advisors and investors: 

• Solo founders face a tougher path to funding. Even when your science or technology looks strong, investors worry about concentration risk. What happens if that one person burns out, gets sick or decides to leave? 

• Too many co-founders can be a problem as well – particularly if roles aren’t clearly defined. Two or four co-founders with complementary skills and a healthy working relationship are often easier to back than a larger group with fuzzy responsibilities. 

• Good legal and equity structures reassure investors. Vesting, clear buy-back options for departing founders, and transparent decision-making processes show that you’ve thought about resilience and fairness. 

Investors ultimately want to know: can this team navigate uncertainty together? A well-structured, well-aligned founding partnership isn’t just good for internal harmony; it’s a signal of professionalism and long-term viability. 

The meta-rule: always bridge the gap 

There’s one overarching principle that ties all these steps together: “Always, always, always bridge the gap.” 

In nearshore software development, there is often a physical and cultural distance between teams. Someone has to constantly work on bridging that gap: between countries, ways of working and expectations. 

The same is true for co-founders: 

• Bridge the gap between different personalities. 

• Bridge the gap between technical and commercial mindsets. 

• Bridge the gap between your idealized vision and the messy reality of building something from scratch. 

You do that by talking about values, defining clear rules, learning how to give feedback and getting help when you need it. None of this is a one-time exercise. It’s ongoing work – much like a good marriage. 

If you’re looking for a co-founder, or you already have one and want to strengthen how you work together, it can help to get out of your usual bubble and connect with other founders who are facing similar questions. 

We regularly host events for founders, innovators and startup teams in the Basel Area – check out our upcoming events! 

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