ARTIFACT: The Values Worksheet the Graphite Founders Swear By

This season of Spotlight On, we’re inviting guests to share artifacts—decks, emails, agendas, dashboards—from an inflection point in building their business. Together, they offer a wealth of wisdom on how great companies navigate pivotal moments.  

When you're first starting out, it's easy to underestimate how much work maintaining healthy co-founder dynamics should take. But your co-founder relationships are too important to wing – if things go well, this will be one of the most important relationships in your life. We're impressed by how intentionally the Graphite co-founders – Merrill Lutsky, Tomas Reimers, and Greg Foster – cultivate their relationships with one another. That started with being thoughtful about why they chose one another as co-founders and is maintained by rituals like weekly Monday dinners and co-founder “therapy” sessions. They recommend all early-stage founders consider co-founder therapy; it allowed them to make hard decisions quickly, stay aligned on the same values and goals, and scale nimbly.

Below, they share a Values Alignment worksheet their therapist, Tracey Horst, LMSW created for them that they said helped to set the foundations for growth. You can hear more about the journey building Graphite and navigating co-founder relationships in Merrill's Spotlight On episode.

‍