Partnership Assessment.
Looking for Mediation for Business Partners?
Here's What Comes First.
Searching for mediation for business partners? Start with my Partnership Friction assessment. It's a way to get a clearer, more specific, third-party read on the conflict pattern in your partnership before deciding what to do next. It takes about 10 to 12 minutes.
Business Partner Conflict · Business Partner Counseling · Cofounder Coaching
The Source of Cofounder Conflict Is Usually
Different Than It Looks Like From the Inside
The Friction Assessment gives you a clear, private read on what's actually driving it, in about 10 to 12 minutes.
Not sure your partner's ready to look at this yet? Many people start alone. See Your Partner Doesn't Know You're Here Yet.
Sunny Sabbini works with business partners and cofounders across the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally, on the recurring conflict that drives a wedge between partners and never resolves no matter how many times you’ve talked it through.
If you're here, it’s probably because of something specific. A fight that keeps happening. A decision has been stuck for weeks. A conversation you've been avoiding, because you already know how it goes.
The Friction Assessment is a short, private way to identify what's actually happening between you and your cofounder, instead of just guessing. It’s not a generic quiz, but a diagnostic tool built from patterns seen across hundreds of partnerships. It only takes about 15 minutes.
You'll get a plain-language evaluation on what's driving the conflict and next steps based on your specific challenge, with the goal of getting you working together again as allies, not adversaries.
What This Assessment Actually Does
The real root of cofounder conflict is rarely what it feels like when you’re stuck in the pattern. Most of the time, the problem isn’t that you and your partner are fundamentally incompatible. Rather, it's a pattern that you’ve fallen into while doing the hard work of keeping a business running. Patterns are fixable in a way that “we're just different people” never is. This assessment names the pattern and its symptoms.
The assessment also checks for something most conflict quizzes miss. Sometimes what looks like a personality clash is actually coming from something else, like a decision that's been left unmade, or a direction the two of you haven't actually agreed on. When that's what's underneath it, naming the relational pattern alone won't fix it. The assessment flags both the pattern and its root cause, so you know what you're dealing with before you decide what to do about it.
What's Involved
One partner, about 10 to 12 minutes, no login required.
You’ll be asked about what's happening between you and your cofounder, and also what you think your partner would say if you asked them. Identifying a gap in perception can be the most useful thing the assessment surfaces.
Your answers won’t be shared with your partner unless you choose to share them.
If You're the Only One Looking Right Now
Many people take this before their partner even knows they're looking. That's a normal place to start, not a sign you're doing something behind their back.
Looking to bring this to your partner without making it a whole thing? Start with Your Partner Doesn't Know You're Here Yet.
Why Now
Business stress didn't create this conflict. It ended the deferral, the quiet managing-around-it that used to work well enough.
Whatever's been easy to postpone gets harder to postpone once the business is under real pressure. That isn't a sign something's newly wrong between you. It's a sign the margin for waiting has shrunk.
What You'll Get
You'll get a plain-language description of the pattern you're in. Not a label you have to defend against. A description you can recognize.
You'll also see whether something outside the relationship, like a stuck decision or an unresolved direction question, is adding to it.
And you'll get a next step, sized to where you are: on your own, through something like Partnership OS, or with more direct support, through Partnership Coaching.
The goal is simple: to stop feeling like you're wrestling with an adversary and start working again as allies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Contact
Sunny Sabbini, M.A.
San Francisco Bay Area
Remote Sessions Nationwide
(415) 895-0786