The Boss of You

I should really have written about this yesterday in honour of my beloved business partner’s birthday, but alas the day did not go that way…  So,  one day late, but still in honour of  her I offer up some advice on business partnerships.

A lot of would-be entrepreneurs or folks in the early stage of their businesses ask Lauren and I if we think they need a business partner/how to find the perfect business partner/what to look for in a business partner. Usually this is in response to us commenting about just how grateful we are to have a business partner and to not be the sole captain of the ship. I’ll start by saying it’s a pretty tough question to answer. Both Lauren and I feel extraordinarily lucky that we found one another, and frankly I think it was a bit of a fluke/fate kind of happenstance that things fell in place the way that they did. That said, here are some tips on how to evaluate choosing a business partner:

• Trust:  This is likely the biggest one. Lauren and I are both pretty comfortable with admitting that we’re control freaks. One of the things that makes our business relationship not only possible but also frankly awesome is that we have a really deep trust of one another. Trust that if we leave something in the other’s hands it will get done and done well. Trust that we can be basically entirely dependent on one another when it comes to our financial livelihoods and well, just a whole mess of deep down, from the bit of your soul trust.
• Complementary Skill Sets: One of the big reasons that a lot of businesses seek out partnerships is to bring on-board someone with a set of skills that the initial entrepreneur doesn’t posses. Maybe you’re a genius with the design end of things and your partner is great at production. Maybe you’re the idea person and your partner is the finances/business development person. In our case, both Lauren and fell into more of the “generalist” category, each of us being able to take on most aspects of website design and development, and both of us willing to expand our knowledge were we needed to. That said, it was really nice to know we didn’t have to. While I would have needed to really hone my design skills if I were flying solo, Lauren wasn’t too keen on taking on sales/networking. Knowing that I could pass off one side of that to her, while I focused on a different area of the business made things much easier.
• Job Sharing: If you’re pretty sure you don’t have the time/energy to run a business solo, having a partner to share the load is great way to go, provided you both understand how much time you can each commit to the day to day operation of things. Many, many of the business women we speak with are starting businesses as they come off of a maternity leave or when their children are young and that’s a great example of what I’m talking about. They’ll see an opportunity to build a business, know that they don’t have the resources to make it happen full time but be very willing to share the project with another person in a similar situation.
• Finances: This is kind of like complimentary skill sets, but different in that it’s not so much a skill set you might be looking for but some assets, namely: money. Now depending on which side of the economic coin you’ve been living on to date it may seem darn near impossible that there are people out there looking to invest some spare cash in a brilliant young business, but it’s true. Now, the same rules apply when you’re looking for a business partner who is also a primary investor. You need to trust that person and both understand how much time, energy and money each partner is putting into things to even the scales.

Ultimately, picking a business partner is kinda like finding a roommate but with much higher stakes. You’re going to share a lot of time, your entrepreneurial dreams, and your livelihood with this person. You must proceed with caution. And you must have a partnership agreement (more on this in Part 2 later this week).  I think the biggest piece of advice I can give when evaluating a business partnership is to make sure that you both share similar values around work and money. Afterall, while your business will have other qualities — creativity, working with people, etc. — all businesses are about work and money at some level, and if you don’t share those values you’re going to find yourself in a very sticky situation. Lauren and I were lucky in that we met working together, so we were able to see first hand that we did share the same values and ethics about work, and through some very frank conversations were able to suss each other out on the money front as well.