As you probably know, Jay and I are in a partnership developing sites; I usually try to get him involved in anything I’m doing online because we generally have the most success when we work together. The only reason he’s not involved in my latest project is because he didn’t like the start-up costs of paying a writer to develop the content. It’s probably the most cost-heavy site I’ve launched in recent history (I also have secondary motives regarding this site as well, Faith writes the content for the site…and I wanted to get her out of the dead end food-service job she was working).
We’ve been working together for quite some time and we’ve run into our fair share of problems, but it’s been fairly beneficial at the same time. Here’s a run down of the pros and cons of working with a partner, focusing on my experience working with Jay.
Cons
1. Sometimes I want to stab Jay’s eyes out with a rusty spoon.
I’m sure he feels the same way too, but working with a partner can cause a lot of waves when opinions differ. When working in a partnership, someone really should have the leadership role to make final decisions. We’ve become more or less accustomed to running things as equal partners, but we definitely spend a lot of time debating decisions. If you’re a lone wolf, you make all the decisions and no one complains (unless you are schizophrenic).
2. You have to split the profits.
That’s right, a partnership has two mouths to feed: every time we take money out of the business, it gets more or less split between Jay and I. This is definitely a huge con to having a partner, but when I’m getting a grand instead of two, I try to remind myself of the pros of our partnership that have made getting paid possible.
3. If things go south, it will most likely get messy.
I know if Jay and I ever decided to part ways and we had to split our properties it’d be a huge mess, as we’d both probably want the same choice properties. Also, if we ran into a situation where one member wanted to exit, buy-out price would probably cause a similar mess.
Pros
1. Two heads are better than one.
While some of our best sites are the result of my vision, our most successful endeavor (the fan sites) were brought about by ideas both Jay and I brought to the table. Additionally, working with Jay on my ideas has amplified the success of the resulting websites. One of the first sites we partnered on was earning me about $40 a month or so - I gave Jay an amazing buy-in offer (basically profits from the site would pay off his buy-in cost) and together we were able to build it into a site that makes us about $500 a month. I attribute a most of our success to us working together.
2. Two sets of hands are also better than one.
Regardless of how much time you devote into your business, having a partner doubles the amount you can accomplish since there are two of you. Unless, of course, you partner with a lazy good-for nothing like me. One technique that is very helpful, is that if you’re working part time, you can schedule after-hour work periods like Jay and I do to get stuff accomplished together.
3. Trust.
This doesn’t come into play, unless you are in the situation shared by Jay and I. We have basically known each other since we were ten, so there is a trust built in there. I mean you still do due diligence, but I am about 95% sure Jay wouldn’t liquidate our assets and hop on the next flight to Bolivia. I think we may overlook the importance of this in our partnership, but it rings true for me because I spend a lot of time during many of my web design projects ensuring that the client I am working for can’t screw me over.
So there you have it, the age old partnership debate with a bit of a spin on my personal experiences. While I may want to strangle him sometimes, I do think we’ve found a beneficial situation that works well for both of us - and hopefully my experiences can be helpful to you, should you ever seek to partner with someone in business.
Good Profits.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I have a few things to add.. Naturally :p
Our partnership is an odd one, I think most of our arguments are started by me because I tend to get annoyed by something and then a month later small tiny issue brings it out either that or I just have a bad day and take it out on Dave, which I blame at least partially on the fact we chat mostly online which makes it very easy to forget that the person I’m annoyed with is actually a childhood friend and not some sentences that pop up magically on screen.. Needless to say Dave has to put up with alot of crap from me.
On the other side though it’s very hard to change Dave’s mind unless theres a glaring provable flaw which is why I think when we do argue it’s rarely a minor thing.
We’ve debated the whole leadership role issue, which does work in a scenario where 1 person has invested more money or if one partner knows what he’s doing while the other party is more of an investor but in our scenario I feel we’re both on equal ground so it’s hard for me to submit to Dave and likely Dave feels the same way about me.
So at the end of the day I think if you want to make it work you just accept that you will argue, fight and even hate each other from time to time but as long as you can sleep on it and in a day or two be back to normal it’s all good! Yes it’s not an efficient way to do things but I have yet to see a single efficient governing body whether it be a dictatorship or democratic.
On the positive side I think partnerships between two reasonable people has 1 big advantage, you have someone to filter out your bad ideas, I mean lets be honest it’s easy to get excited with something and not ask yourself the right questions, when you have a partner theirs someone to point out the flaws in your thinking you have have glossed over.
Overall if you have the skills and motivation to do things yourself it’s probably easier in the long run, but if you have someone you can argue with and still be friends with afterwards then a partnership may be something to consider!
April 25th, 2007 at 6:24 am
I agree with everything you said. I’m starting a business with my twin brother, and we were told by a CEO in my area that we should agree upon certain things before we started up our business. Lets say we knew we were going to get in an argument that “One works more than the other, because one just recently got a girlfriend” He said that we should plan ahead and agree upon something along the lines of neutrality, because there would be times when the other is slacking for some other reasons. He said in the end that most likely since you’re brothers it will all equal out.
April 25th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Thats solid advice Glenn and best of luck with your new business :)
Anyways I’m off to Bolivia!!