We are regular followers of the Wall Street Journal’s entrepreneurial blog The Accelerators. When we came across this week’s discussion, “The Pros and Cons of Co-Founders,” our own Co-Founder, Michael A. Morell had a few words of wisdom to share with other aspiring entrepreneurs. In a guest article shared with The Accelerators, Michael retells the founding history of Riviera Partners as well as the dynamics between he and Ali that has helped the company grow and thrive. Throughout the post he discusses the challenges surrounding growing a business and highlights key moments when having two different perspectives can help keep the company dream alive.
(WSJ – The Accelerators) – GUEST MENTOR, Michael A. Morell, co-founder of Riviera Partners: If I started a business all over again, I wouldn’t go at it alone. When you’re an army of one, it’s hard to be successful on execution. If you have two sets of eyes on a problem it’s always better than one. But for us, three ended up being too many.
Too Many Cooks
Our company started out with three founders, and there were benefits to that. We all had very different backgrounds and skills that were still synergistic. We settled on unexpected solutions to problems, which benefited business in the beginning. The problem was that we had varying levels of seniority, so the group was unbalanced. But most of the struggle came from the fact that any decision was either unanimous or two against one, and the latter leads to some weird dynamics.