Institute for Founder Dynamics  ·  Nonprofit Research  ·  501(c)(3) in formation

Cofounder coaching is where couples therapy was in 1955.

The Institute for Founder Dynamics advances the science and practice of founding team health through rigorous research, validated assessment, and the professional development of practitioners who serve founders at every stage of company building.

Join the Network → Read the founding argument
83%
of VC-backed startups have multiple cofounders — none have a validated instrument to measure their alignment
35 yrs
The field's most-cited statistic comes from a 1989 study. Not a single early-stage cofounder was interviewed.
0
Peer-reviewed studies in a psychological journal that examine the co-founding relationship as a primary unit of analysis

The Problem

A field doing serious work without a scientific foundation

In 1942, a small group of professionals — physicians, clergy, social workers, and educators — formed the American Association of Marriage Counselors. They were doing important work solving a real problem. They had no shared theory, no common vocabulary, no validated instruments, and no research base. They were, in short, doing exactly what today's cofounder coaches are doing.

The need is urgent and costly. A growing cohort of serious practitioners — executive coaches, therapists, advisors, and organizational consultants — are doing meaningful work supporting founding teams. But the field has no shared theory. No validated diagnostic instruments. No credentialing standards. No professional body to set them. No research base to ground them.

Read the full founding argument →

What We're Building

The coordinated infrastructure a field requires — built with the urgency the moment demands

01
Validated Diagnostic Instruments
The Cofounder Diagnostic Index — IFD's primary assessment instrument, in active development and early-stage piloting — is the first psychometrically validated tool for measuring founding team alignment. Modeled on the WAIS scoring architecture, it produces a composite Founders Alignment & Resilience (FAR) score across five levels, 23 subdomains, and 93 construct clusters. Without measurement, there is no science.
02
Longitudinal Research
The Gottman Institute's longitudinal research transformed couples therapy from art to science. IFD's Year 1 research program — a structured pilot of 40 founding teams across university MBA and accelerator cohorts — is the first attempt to generate comparable data for cofounder relationships. What patterns predict founding team dissolution? What early warning signals are the "Four Horsemen" of cofounder failure? These questions have never been systematically answered.
03
Practitioner Standards & Training
The AAMFT established that conjoint work required specialized competencies that individual therapy training does not provide. IFD's credentialing program will define the equivalent for cofounder coaching: the ability to hold the relationship as the unit of intervention, to manage neutrality in a two-plus-party professional relationship, to work across internal, interpersonal, and operational domains simultaneously. These are teachable competencies. They are not currently being taught anywhere.
04
Field Convening & Professional Home
The AAMFT's most lasting contribution may not have been its credentialing standards but its role as a professional home. Three practitioner groups currently work in isolation — therapists, coaches, and advisors — sharing no common language, no training pathway, and no professional community. IFD exists to be that place: a shared table where isolated practitioners become a field.

Who We Are

Dr. Matthew Jones
Co-Founder
A Licensed Psychologist trained in psychoanalytic and Gottman methodology, Matt has spent six years working directly with founding teams at the intersection of clinical psychology and entrepreneurship. He is the author of The Cofounder Effect — the first book to bring clinical psychology's insights systematically to the cofounding relationship — and the founder of Cofounder Clarity.
Licensed Psychologist, Gottman-trained clinician
100+ founding teams: YC, a16z, Sequoia, Google Ventures
Featured: TIME, Psychology Today, Business Insider, Inc.
matt@cofounderclarity.com
Annie Garofalo
Co-Founder
Annie brings a rare combination of academic training and practitioner depth to IFD's institutional work. Her Harvard Neurobiology degree followed by joint MBA and MA in Sociology from Stanford — where she studied how relationship science applies to business partnerships — grounded five years of direct work with founding teams through her advisory practice, Confidante.
Stanford MBA + MA Sociology (entrepreneurship & organizational behavior)
Former founder, investor, C-suite executive
Advisor: Harvard iLab, Harvard HealthTech Biodesign, Stanford StartX, Columbia Lang Center for Entrepreneurship, 1871
annie@confidante.info

Join the Network

If you're building in this space, we want to know who you are.

IFD is in active formation. We're building our founding network of researchers, practitioners, funders, and ecosystem partners who believe the science of founding team health matters, and who want to be part of shaping what the field becomes.

We review every submission personally.

    We're looking to connect with

    • Academic researchers in organizational psychology, founding team dynamics, or entrepreneurship
    • Practicing coaches and clinicians who work with founding teams
    • Foundation program officers and institutional funders
    • Accelerator leaders and university entrepreneurship faculty
    • Venture investors and ecosystem partners who see founding team dynamics as a priority

    IFD is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in active formation. Pro bono legal counsel: Jeff Koh, Reitler. All submissions are treated with discretion.