Founder Friday is a weekly guest post written by a founder who is based in or hails from the Silicon Prairie. Each month, a topic relevant to startups is presented and founders share lessons learned or best practices utilized on that topic. March’s topic is working with friends and family.

About the author: June and Bobby George are the co-founders of Montessorium.

It’s difficult to describe how we work together. It’s more of an intuition, or a posture, than anything else. Nonetheless, we thought we’d share a few thoughts on the process, how we envision our collaboration, charting out the strengths just as much as the weaknesses. We’ll also sprinkle in a little bit of the “why,” which is, in many respects, the driving catalyst for everything that we do.

It is our hope that these brief reflections lend a certain perspective, or perhaps an inspiration. Of course, these are merely observations and insights that work for us. We’re certain that you have your own magical stories to share, and we’d love to hear them. Please feel free to send us a note. Let us know by what trajectories you proceed.

In a way, we consider ourselves artisans. Not in the traditional sense of a master, but in the sense that our work is never complete. There’s always, to be sure, work to be done. That’s the place from which we start, adopting an attitude of possibility, not reward. Art, no less than relationships, takes great effort. It requires strength, courage and fortitude, lessons that we’ve only recently relearned from our friends at Best Made. Believe in what you’re doing. With fervor, the rest will take care of itself.

As with so many things, working together is a constant process of experimentation and discovery. It’s the platform from which we launch: finding what works, and discarding what doesn’t. Collaboration humbles you just as much as it empowers you. After all, you never know in advance what direction a project might take, or where it might take you, so you must do your best to be prepared. At the end of the day, that’s all you can do. Regardless, there’s abundant excitement to be found in that sort of anticipation. Sometimes there’s also despair, which is part of the adventure. Our advice? Learn to become scientists of collaboration. Find what works for you.

For us, we take great pleasure in our work. We take even greater pleasure in working together. Basically, we love what we do, doing what we love. There’s just something magical about the process. It’s so much more rich and fertile when we accomplish, or put in motion a task together. Working individually can be rewarding too, but in a completely different way.

Take tennis, for instance, one of the greatest games ever invented. There’s a certain rhythm and force of life to be found in a match. You watch the ball traverse the net, back and forth it goes, until a player strikes or retreats, or circumstances take an unexpected turn. Perhaps a mishap is incurred, or a dominance is exerted. The exchanges are as methodical and precise, as they are erratic and controlled. They operate within a certain, pre-set framework. Someone wins, and someone loses.

Yet, when you engage in team sports, there’s an entirely different dynamic at work, which is not just brought on by multiple players. For example, knowing your opponent, is not just knowing your self. It’s also understanding how your team will respond to situations, knowing where to place the emphasis under a specific, undefined set of circumstances. Collaborations are open and porous, predicated on trust and a willingness to sacrifice, just as much pounce.

In a way, and even before we learned how to complement one another as a couple, we were always, individually, fascinated by the process of collaboration. Not only were we more enriched at the end of the day, we felt like the project that we were working on was just that much better too. It’s an incredible sensation. Sometimes we even come to work, unbeknownst to us, dressed the same (above). Yes, it’s that kind of playing field: choosing our options, before our options choose us.

An important point to note, and a constant reminder when we collaborate: for us, it’s never about the result of the collaboration, it’s about getting our hands dirty in the mud, trusting each other. Here’s an example. She’s driving. He’s riding. “Is anyone coming your way?” she asks. “Nope. You’re good to go,” he responds. Without taking an extra second to confirm his assessment, she pulls out, fully confident in his judgement. Things are just that much further along.

You see, we’ve come to learn each others proclivities. Like a double-headed tightrope walker, we learn to balance each other out, adjusting to the rope, and the audience as we go along. Step by step, we survey the landscape, assessing situations, trying to flesh out when we should accelerate, taking note of when we should learn to take the fall.

How to describe the “figure of collaboration”?

Do you remember the primordial, mythological creatures that Aristophanes describes in Plato’s Symposium? They were portly and robust, with a certain unwieldiness. Unless, of course, they operated simultaneously, with the same vision.

Conjoined at the back, they had four arms and legs with two faces that looked in opposite directions, sharing a rather large, otiose head. Needless to say, these creatures were connected in strange and mysterious ways. Some by the sun, others by the moon or the earth. At least, that’s what Aristophanes recounts.

Free-spirited and courageous, they roamed with ease until Zeus felt that they’d become too powerful, too adventurous, and decided to split them in half. For many, this is the origin story of soul mates. We’re constantly looking for our other half. We’re not sure about the sun or the moon or the earth. But, we are certain about the love that working together demands. It helps keep us apace. We love what we do. We also love who we do it with.

When we’re working together, when we’re firing on all cylinders, we feel so connected and powerful, as if we had all four arms and legs running in the same direction, tumbling towards the future. We feel almost unstoppable. Perhaps we even look as enflamed and awkwardly hopeful as the creatures Aristophanes depicts. The opposite, to be sure, could just as easily be said. Sometimes we find ourselves moving in radically different directions, each of us pushing forward with just as much conviction as the other, at the exact same time. More often than not, though, we’re looking around just to be sure Zeus isn’t nearby.

How to find a way forward? It’s about riding the flow, finding the recesses and the give and take, pushing the limits, and then receding once more.

Credits: Photos courtesy of June and Bobby George.

About the Author: June and Bobby George, from Sioux Falls, S.D., founded The Baan Dek Montessori, the first accredited Association Montessori Internationale in the state, and Montessorium, an app company. More than anything, they believe in the power of “and”.

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