You’re right, in many ways, friendship does make everything easier at the start. You come into it with a shared understanding, trust, and genuine care for each other, and that means a LOT when you’re in those early stages of building. It’s also incredibly motivating - when you care about your co-founder as a friend, you want to succeed for them, not just for you.

But over time, that same closeness can blur boundaries. It’s something I see a lot with my clients, and have experienced myself. I started my branding agency with one of my closest friends (here we are in the pic on this page), and I learned that being great friends doesn’t automatically make you great business partners. I mean, we are a bloody great team now! But it’s taken intention, commitment, self-awareness, and a few tricky conversations along the way. 

By nature, business partnerships require a different balance of skills, communication, and emotional dynamics. You just don’t realise it until you get there.

When you say the friendship is starting to strain, I’d get curious about what that really means. What’s causing the tension? How is it showing up in how you work together? And have you talked about it openly? Sometimes, one person feels the strain more than the other, and that mismatch can quietly widen the gap.

Step one is creating a shared understanding that something needs to shift. This isn’t about fixing or blaming. It’s about saying, “I think we could benefit from putting some structure and focus into how we work together as business partners, to really support us going forward. What do you think?” Frame it as an opportunity to evolve, rather than a problem to solve.

From there, think about what this might look like: emotionally and practically.

• Emotionally, what would help you protect the friendship while showing up as a strong business partner?

• Practically, how do you want to draw those lines? For example, if you’re messaging on Sunday, do you want to talk about work or not? 

This is about designing a partnership where both sides of your relationship - friendship and business - can coexist without competing. Because when you get that balance right, you don’t lose the friendship; you actually strengthen it, and it can continue to be a superpower for your business.