From strangers to co-founders: These entrepreneurs took a leap of faith to launch their business

Fuzz Wax Bar started because of a “granny knit” sweater, says co-founder Jessie Frampton.

In 2012, Ms. Frampton was thrift shopping at Value Village in Toronto when she came across the sweater. Uncertain whether to buy it, she tapped the shoulder of a stranger to ask their opinion. That stranger was Florence Gaven Rossavik, a film industry professional who had moved to Toronto from France, and who would soon become Frampton’s co-founder.

Ms. Gaven Rossavik encouraged Ms. Frampton to buy the sweater. The two women exchanged phone numbers, later meeting for a coffee. As their friendship grew, Ms. Gaven Rossavik asked Ms. Frampton if she had recommendations for a quality waxing salon. The two quickly realized there was a gap in the market, and within three to four months, they were working on a business plan to launch Fuzz Wax Bar, a membership-based skin care and hair removal company.

“Our full-time job became meeting every single morning from nine to five, doing market research,” Ms. Frampton says.

Their hard work paid off: just eight months after meeting, the pair had opened their first location. Since opening its first location on Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood in 2012, Fuzz Wax Bar has expanded to 19 locations across Canada, with 10,000 members and a fast-growing franchise model.

Ms. Frampton says that their two roles were clear from the start: where she was interested in branding, culture and public relations, Ms. Gaven Rossavik was interested in administration, finance and operations. “We naturally fell into our worlds,” Ms. Frampton says. “There’s a dash of ‘meant to be’ in our story, which I think is really fun.”

Honest conversations, even when it’s hard

Studies show that entrepreneurs benefit from having business partners; for example, a Harvard Business Review report indicates that 94 per cent of tech executives view innovation partnerships as key. But business partnerships can fail; one survey from the U.K. found that 43 per cent of entrepreneurs had to buy out their partners because of rifts and power struggles.

There can be benefits to partnering with someone who isn’t a close friend or family member. For example, there isn’t the emotional baggage that can come with entrenched relationships. Choosing a partner based on their skills and their passion for the business might be a better move than choosing someone because you grew up together.

But research also shows that entrepreneurs who have a prior working or personal relationship are more likely to have a successful business partnership, says Shari Hughson, adjunct lecturer and entrepreneur adviser at Queen’s University Smith School of Business.

“Co-founders are like a marriage,” Ms. Hughson says. When you get into business with someone who is new in your life, “it’s like you’ve married someone who you’ve only known for less than six months.”

For a co-founding team to succeed, it must be clear how much time each person can dedicate to the venture, Ms. Hughson says, which often boils down to each founder’s personal cash runway. However, “people aren’t usually very honest about money when [they] don’t know each other,” which can cause problems down the line.

Another important conversation is around sacrifice, Ms. Hughson says. Are all co-founders willing to sacrifice not only their time and money, but possibly also their relationships and hobbies? Partners need to be able to have honest conversations about these sorts of issues, “even though it’s going to be real hard.”

To overcome these challenges, Ms. Hughson recommends hiring a facilitator to guide early discussions and then to sign an agreement. She adds that her “number one recommendation” for any co-founding team is that no matter how long they have known one another, nobody gets shares in the first year – and beyond a year, shares are only given if certain individual goals and milestones are met.

That way, “if someone doesn’t live up to their obligations, you aren’t trying to buy [them out],” she says.

Personalities that fit

Unlike the serendipitous meeting that sparked Ms. Frampton and Ms. Gaven Rossavik’s partnership, Jaelin Lee met her co-founder Linda Nedell through a co-founder matching platform in July 2024.

Ms. Lee is the CTO and technical co-founder of SAYge Link, a subscription-based platform connecting women who have gone through similar life experiences. Once matched, the women, alongside personalized coaches, can support each other through everything from mental health to career challenges.

After two months of attending an accelerator together, Ms. Lee and Ms. Nedell decided to partner as co-founders for SAYge, which Ms. Nedell had been working on for the past three years. Approximately two months after their decision, the contracts were signed.

Before Ms. Lee came on board, Ms. Nedell, who is the company’s CEO, had tried to collaborate with a handful of different co-founders, but “somehow it didn’t work out,” Ms. Lee says. Their partnership is going well, despite the fact that Ms. Lee lives in Ottawa while Ms. Nedell lives in the U.S.

Ms. Hughson says that a key aspect of a successful business partnership is to ensure that co-founders’ values are aligned, but that their personalities are different. This ensures that everyone brings something different to the table.

Personality is a factor in Ms. Lee and Ms. Nedell’s partnership. For example, Ms. Lee says that Ms. Nedell is the “softer” of the two, describing her as a “great, lovable person” who can leverage her wide network to bring users to the platform. “I’m more like, ‘I need structure, I need a goal’ – I’m pushing to get things done, putting things into the market,” Ms. Lee says.

‘It’s like a sisterhood’

Ms. Frampton and Ms. Gaven Rossavik hadn’t been searching for a co-founder when they first met – in fact, neither had worked with a business partner before, so “we didn’t really know what it meant to not trust the other one,” Ms. Gaven Rossavik says. “I think that’s pretty special, and I don’t think that happens in a lot of partnerships.”

Ms. Frampton says that their shared values have been their “North star” – “and not just [our] values for today and tomorrow,” she says. “This company is growing. If you want that growth, your values have to [align] for five years, 10 years.”

It’s been 13 years since the two co-founders first met, and while their relationship began as strangers, it’s developed into a deep bond. “It’s like sisterhood at this point,” Ms. Frampton says. “We argue like sisters. It’s just this closeness that has always come very naturally to us.”

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