I’m excited to officially roll out the first of several Traction podcast episodes in partnership with Reboot. Theirs is a tremendous organization coaching and counseling entrepreneurs through the ups and downs of building a startup. They’ve recently expanded to working with investors too, as our own Rob Go joined Reboot founder Jerry Colonna, fellow VC Brad Feld, and several others at their very first VC Summit. (His thoughts are here.)

In our podcast series together, Reboot and NextView will focus on communication and leadership challenges facing startup founders specifically.

Below, I’ve included a bit of background context on the collaboration and first episode, but if you can also jump right into listening if you prefer:

Channel links: iTunes | SoundCloud | Stitcher

In today’s first episode, we dive into a terrible situation: When you’re certain there are some issues between you and your cofounder(s), but you’ve let them linger unspoken for awhile, what do you do? Is it too late? Can you reign them back in and salvage the relationship(s)? Should that even be the goal?

Reboot’s Dan Putt joins me to break down this complicated situation. (You’ll hear from us both during each episode as we discuss one big issue at a time.)

I’d also highly suggest listening to the great Reboot podcast.

There is so much content out there about being a founder, and for whatever reason, “soft” skills like communication, leadership, and mental well-being are either considered second-tier topics or, unfortunately, they’re criticized outright. (“Startups are hard! Deal with it!”) We all believe this to be utter crap. They’re not soft skills, they’re hard skills to both develop and teach throughout your organization. And yes, startups are hard, but doesn’t mean we shouldn’t create communities of people (online or off) where challenges can be discussed and worked through openly — especially when someone’s mental health may be at stake.

So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy the first of several episodes we’ve created on these topics. Thanks for listening!