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Is it possible to run a start-up with divided leadership ? The company has two partners, Sam and John. Both come from a technology background and both are MS and experienced in almost same domain. Both share a common vision, at the same time both partners want to implement their ideas for making the company a big success.

1-Do you think in such a case dividing the leadership between the two partners can lead to success?

2- If not, then what can be the best way so both the partners can work cooperatively?

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Welcome to onstartups.com. You might want to review the FAQ since as it stands you are soliciting an opinion of from the group which can vary. – Karlson Aug 8 '12 at 17:47

4 Answers

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Is it possible? Absolutely! As long as there is a good operating agreement, solid division of duties, and process in place to help arbiter/mediate disagreements. There really should be a third person (usually independent with a small share in the company) who will cast a vote that breaks up a stalemate. As someone who has to mediate founder conflicts, I can't stress enough importance of those items. I have seen nasty lawsuits and broken companies after founder feuds.

P.S. I have deal with "rotating leadership". It was a case of two brothers (equal partners) who rotated CEO spot every 12 months. I probably can write a book about that disaster.

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ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
Look at RIM for perfect example
Your best bet if you can't decide, it to hire someone as CEO, and both of you become VPs, or C-Levels. Say you're good @ Databases, and he's good at coding, make him CTO and yourself CIO; or something along those lines. Problem with co-CEOs is things rarely get done, because even though your ideas are aligned now, they may not be as the company matures.

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up vote 2 down vote

Some additional info would be helpful.

  1. headcount: are we talking about 5 people or 50?
  2. company maturity stage: idea, customer traction, growth
  3. company focus: technology marketplace
  4. personality traits: is one more outward focused / personable?

Depending of the above information, one could functionally split the work between a CTO and a VP engineering title. But titles are worthless if the company size doesn't support it.

Regardless of the above, Chemistry trumps all - if they work great together, and can respect each others input - then division of labor will occur naturally if they are equally motivated to be successful.

IF there is a problem about who reports to whom and the company is just starting up, you likely have bigger issues then.

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up vote -2 down vote

I think a rotating leadership model (a few years span) will be better.

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-1 This is a comment not an answer. – Karlson Aug 8 '12 at 17:43

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