Suster cautions anyone considering shared leadership to discuss up front the details of how they will resolve conflicts like funding, risk, performance, and exit plans. "I meet far more second or third time entrepreneurs who wouldn't do a 50/50 (or 33/33/33) partnership ever again than you would imagine," he wrote in a blog post. Venture investor Mark Suster of Upfront Partners is particularly critical of what he calls the "co-founder mythology." Most co-led companies experience criticism for their leadership structures, and in the case of Whole Foods and Deutsche Bank, company shares jumped immediately after appointing a sole CEO. But each have since abandoned their dual-CEO setups. Meanwhile, major tech companies like Salesforce and Oracle both had two CEOs, as did companies such as Chipotle, Whole Foods, and Deutsche Bank. Another direct-to-consumer startup, Warby Parker, as well as candy-maker Sugarfina, have seen tremendous growth led by their co-founders sharing the top post. Harper Wilde is far from the first company to have two CEOs. That there must be some kind of tension between the two of you." Co-led companies have been successful And a lot of what's implicit in 'No, you can't be co-CEOs' is that two people can't work as equals and it actually work out. "It's so dependent on how the two of you work together and what works well for you. "When you think about marriages generally, in real life, no one comes in and says, 'Hey, no matter what you two are like, no matter your background, no matter what your relationship is like, this is the one way you two should function,'" Fisher said. Kerner and Fisher said they are open and honest with investors about their partnership, which Fisher compared to a marriage. "But really what it came down to was what we knew worked best for the two of us." "We had a lot of people, professors and just generally investors who said that's not a sustainable way to structure your partnership," Fisher said. The entrepreneurs said their idea faced criticism initially, and they were turned down by an investor who was skeptical the two leaders could coexist together. The co-CEOS launched Harper Wilde in 2017, and in 2018 secured $2 million in seed funding from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm CRV.īut not everyone was on board with their dual-CEO structure. Harper Wilde closed a $3 million round of funding in May 2019 with CAA Ventures and GingerBead Capital, and Fisher told Yahoo Finance in December that sales grew 300% for the year.īut Fisher and Kerner told Business Insider that the road hasn't been easy, comparing the business relationship to a marriage, and offered perspective on how to know if co-leadership is right for your business. Their complementary interests gave way to their eventual decision to run the company together, and so far it is working out. "That was remarkable and fortuitous, and really set the stage for how we would craft our roles later on in a co-CEO capacity," Kerner told Business Insider. The two entrepreneurs realized early on they excelled at different areas of running a business - for Kerner, it was managing a website, user experience, and branding for Fisher, it was designing the physical product and managing operations. The pair met in 2015 as graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and within a year were drawing up the concept for their business. Kerner and Fisher are the cofounders and co-CEOs of Harper Wilde, a direct-to-consumer bra startup that aims to make shopping for intimate apparel easier for women. That's a gamble Jenna Kerner and Jane Fisher are willing to take. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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