Partnership Coaching.
Is This Co-Founder Therapy?
Here's the Difference.
People often search co-founder therapy when what they're actually looking for is more specific: structured help for two people who own a business together and are stuck in a pattern of conflict neither can solve alone. That's what Partnership Coaching is built for.
Business Partner Conflict · Business Partner Counseling · Cofounder Coaching
Business Partner Coaching for Recurring Conflict and Trust Strain
Business Partner Coaching is ongoing, private work for partnerships ready to do something real about recurring conflict or trust that's taken a hit. Every engagement starts the same way: with the Partnership Diagnostic. Before anything gets recommended, you'll know exactly what's driving the friction, at what level, and what it will actually take to address it.
Built for Business Partners Who Are Still In It
This is for partnerships still working at it, whether that means finding a way to keep building together or finding a way to end well. Both are situations this work can hold. What it requires is two partners still willing to look at their own part in what's happening, not just their partner's.
This includes partnerships in direct, ongoing conflict. Partnerships with competing visions for where the business is going. Partners carrying more than their share, for longer than makes sense. Situations where accountability or trust has eroded. If the partnership is draining more than it's building, this is built for that.
How Business Partner Coaching Starts: The Diagnostic
Every Coaching engagement begins with the Partnership Diagnostic: $2.5K for two partners, plus $500 for each additional partner. It's the same instrument and the same price whether you complete it on its own or as the start of Coaching.
From there, Coaching pricing is scoped from what the Diagnostic actually reveals. Some partnerships need repair before anything else. Some need structural clarity. Most need some combination, in a specific order. Coaching is priced and shaped once that's clear
What Comes After the Diagnostic
Repair Work
Repair is different from moving on. Real repair produces something moving on never does: a stronger partnership even under pressure. This stage of the process addresses trust that’s taken a hit and hasn’t fully held, misunderstandings that were patched over but not resolved, agreements that were broken and residue left over from hard conversations.
Communication Practices
Instead of communication training, Coaching focuses on the structures that let partners address issues earlier, slow escalation, and have an honest conversation instead of a circular, never resolved, one. You’ll learn a Partnership Meeting container that catches issues before they compound, a Repair Protocol that turns rupture into a reset, and aDebrief practice that turns difficult moments into growth opportunities.
Structural Clarity as Needed
This stage of Coaching addresses where unclear roles, unassigned decisions, or missing agreements are amplifying relational friction. The aim is practical clarity about who ones what and how decisions get made, to reduce your daily friction load.
Ongoing Assistance Available
Partnerships don't stop needing attention once the immediate friction resolves. New conditions keep arriving as the business grows, and each one surfaces something the partnership hasn't built yet. For partnerships that want an advisor alongside them for that, not just the initial repair.
Partnership / Cofounder Coaching is a Good Fit If…
- You’re frustrated, but not terrified. Friction in the partnership is wearing on you, but isn’t yet a crisis.
- You can hear hard things about your own contributions to relational patterns without shutting down or needing to defend yourself immediately, and…
- You're willing to look at your own contribution, not just your partner's.
- You want depth and frameworks, not just a place to vent.
- You'd rather address issues now than wait for them to get worse.
This work isn't for partnerships looking for someone to take a side. Both of you will be asked to look at your own contribution before you look at your partner's. If that sounds undesirable, my coaching isn't the right match for you.
This also isn't the right fit if either partner is in an active legal dispute, has already decided to leave and is primarily building a case, or isn't willing to look at their own contribution at all. If that's where things stand, I'll tell you directly, and give you a more useful referral.
If broken trust is your biggest concern, Trust Issues with a Business Partner dives into what rebuilding trust actually looks like.
Ready to See if This Is a Fit?
If what's above sounds like your situation, the next step is a short pre-qualification questionnaire to determine whether this is the right fit before either of us spends time on a call.
If it looks like a potential match, we'll schedule a complimentary 45-60 conversation. During that call, we’ll dig into your challenges and goals to better discern if my approach is a match, what will best fit your needs, and next steps to move forward.
Sunny Sabbini, M.A.
(415) 895-0786
San Francisco Bay Area
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