This is true in every relationship: It’s difficult to perfectly express something that we believe is wrong and should be seriously taken into account by the person(s) involved. It’s even more difficult to act towards the right pace of change.

It requires a fair dose of intelligibility, tangibility and adaptability in order to pass the right messages at the right times to someone but also patience, resilience and tolerance to really help people solves their issues.

In my VC-Founder relationships, every time I have witnessed obvious mistakes or detected low-level signals that could later be the cause of more or less impactful consequences, I have asked myself how I could trigger or enable the right problem-solving process. And I must admit that I have been tired of my mediocre-self in those situations lately where I have pointed out the right issues but only partially or without the degree of excellence that I would have required from a founder.

After giving it some thought, I’ve come up with a simple framework to better address any given issues with founders and their companies.