A lot of what I talk about is facing the challenges of building a company.  We tend to think of stuff like raising capital, bringing a product to market, and hiring staff as the biggest challenges.

But what about the challenge of dealing with the people around us?

A commonly overlooked challenge is the problems created by the people around us.  I'm talking about the friends you interact with both in and out of the office, the members of your family, and of course those working strictly against you.

Overcoming these challenges is as important as addressing any other aspect of your startup companies' growth.

Friends

Ideally the only people you consider to be "friends" are those that support you and push you forward.  But the world isn't always that altruistic.

Often your friends are competing with you in some way, whether you recognize it or not.  It's that feeling you get when your neighbor pulls up in his driveway with a nicer car than you have.  You're happy for him, but you also think about what you don't have.

Your friends will likely react to your success with mixed emotions, often propelled not by your relationship with them, but by their feelings of self-worth.  Maybe it's a guy thing, but I've often found that other entrepreneurs that have been successful seem to enjoy sharing great experiences far more than those that have been less successful. 

Even though you can't satisfy everyone, you can control what you inject into the relationship.  You don't necessarily have to drone on about your company (good or bad) in every conversation.  Stick to topics that have nothing to do with your company at all.  I have tons of friends that have no idea what I even do, and life works just great that way.

Family

The single greatest ally an entrepreneur can have is his family.

I don't know how strongly I can make this statement.  I'm really speaking about those that have a spouse and children at home, not so much the single set. 

Entrepreneurs have a full-time job of fighting battles and fires at the office all day.  The last thing they need is a whole new set of problems to face at home.  Don't get me wrong, everyone has challenges at home.  But if the family isn't truly aligned to support your goals, it's like scuba diving with lead flippers!

The key to getting your family's support is a ton of communication. 

I believe this starts with the support of your spouse.  Time and time again, the happiest entrepreneurs I know have supportive spouses.  The most miserable ones, no matter how successful their companies are, have spouses that never fully supported what they were doing.

Remember that your goals (financial, success-based, etc) are not necessarily your family's goals, nor are they self evident.  Your ten year old kid doesn't care whether your product ships on time and on budget.  He cares whether or not you made it to his baseball game.

If your family doesn't understand why you're killing yourself, and sacrificing the time between them, you're in for some trouble.  Not to get all Dr. Phil on you, but if you don't address this problem head on, like it was your biggest customer about to cancel on you, you'll deal with it forever in only increasing terms.

Foes

Dealing with foes seems self evident - just avoid them or kick their ass! ;)  But it's not that easy. 

Often the foes we are dealing with aren't our competition, it's the people in our own organization. 

It could be your overzealous and annoying partner.  It could be your boss.  It could be that one manager that never seems to take any direction and is constantly undermining you.

The ideal answer is to isolate and remove the cancer.  But often in a startup we don't have the luxury of removing people, because they are either hard to replace or are in some other way "baked into" the company.

What you can't do is ignore these people.  Ignoring your foes takes what would be a single uncomfortable confrontation and extrapolates it over what feels like an eternity.

A better approach is to deal with these people directly, setting the terms of what you will or won't do together.  If they are undermining you, call them out.  If they are annoying you, call them out. 

If you don't take the lead on setting the terms of the working relationship, they will be set without you.  And that's true agony.

Don't Go it Alone

Quite often I see entrepreneurs shun all those that don't support them and just go it alone. 

They do this because the time and emotional energy it takes to set expectations and communicate issues seems beyond them.

Consistently, I find that entrepreneurs that avoid these issues are miserable.  Entrepreneurs that attack these head on are far happier.

If none of these issues affect you, man you're fortunate.  If you're nodding your head while reading this whole story, you know what you have to do.  Good luck!