Co-founder conflict consulting
Feeling stuck in your relationship with your co-founder? Let’s get you unstuck.
Common co-founder conflicts
Communication challenges
Poor role definition
Unequal time and resource commitment
Vision misalignment
Power imbalances
Compensation + equity split
Persistent relationship conflict when running a business just makes everything miserable. It destabilizes your team and makes investors more anxious and controlling. Whether you’re seeking help preventatively and you simply want to gain new skills, you’re stuck but don’t want to split, or you’re assessing whether you in fact do need to split, I can help. I’ve personally lived each of these conflicts and have since developed a 6-week process informed by clinical psychology and HBR research to get you and your co-founder unstuck.
Hi, I’m Patch
I’m a former ad man turned relational consultant, as well as couples and group therapist. I spent a decade as managing director and founding member of three successful boutique ad agencies, as well as investor in multiple startups. On the business side, I know first-hand what makes partners thrive vs. break up. And guess what, it’s the same with married couples. Conflict mediation was my bread and butter in advertising - whether between agency and client as Head of Accounts, between business partners as Managing Director, or between founders of startups we invested in. Today I’m a licensed couples therapist and now have all the research and training to back what I already intuitively did as an ad man. I’m not a therapist with no lived business experience, nor a coach with no clinical licensure or training - I’ve lived the full circle.
What we’ll build together
✅ Clear understanding of your communication pitfalls and their antidotes
✅ Repair old disputes, build trust, and move on
✅ Tools that empower you to tackle conversations you’ve been avoiding
✅ No B.S. confrontation of power imbalances
✅ Clear roles + responsibilities
✅ Alignment and united front on where you’re headed
✅ Systems that operationalize new learnings
Relational Partnership Method™
Phase 1: Data Gathering + Diagnosis
Week 1 & 2
Phase 2: History and Repair
Week 3 & 4
Phase 3: Skill Building and Tools
Week 5
Phase 4: Operationalizing + Systems
Week 6
My process is informed clinically by the biggest names in couples therapy: Terry Real and the Gottmans. I’m certified in RLT and am Gottman L2 trained.