Partnership In Business. Part 3 – Who can be a good match
This is an article #3 about partnership in business – a series of articles started in Part 1 – Your chances and Part 2 – Right questions. This time we are going to talk about who exactly can become a good business partner.
No friends, no relatives
Many people think that good personal relationships before establishing business is a perfect basis to start business partnership. Of course, if you are enemies, it is highly unlikely that you can be partners in business. But, nevertheless, some distance between partners is absolutely necessary. Partnership is a set of mutual obligations, and you will feel way more uncomfortable to disobey the obligations if there is some distance between you. To some extent, the more distance – the better.
Don’t get me wrong. Some of my relatives could be perfect business partners for me. But it is rather an exception. Such friend or relative must be very adequate and have enough sense of delicacy at work.
A great social technologist V. Tarassov says:
Friendship can be based on business, but business cannot be based on friendship (my 2 cents: otherwise you may lose either).
He or She must be a leader
Captain Obvious strikes back! But let’s first look what it actually means. In life we use the term leader intuitively, without actually thinking what it means. I guess, if I asked you to define what leader means, you would say that is someone who is number one in some contest or sort of that. But that’s not what I mean. There is another meaning. Please look at the picture below. We are going to define leadership in terms of “to-give and to-get” coordinates.
The terminology below is made up, to the best of my knowledge, by Radislav Gandapas.
How would we call someone who works rather to give then to get, or in other words, the one who struggles first for others, not for himself? It’s an altruist, or a Hero. Left top corner.
How would you call someone who never gives, only gets? The one who gets the resources for himself and never contributes to others? Dependent? It is a form of parasitism. A Parasite! Right bottom corner.
Many people make an agreement with themselves: I reduce my needs, I don’t dream about Ferrari and so on. But in return I don’t make efforts, and at half past five I go to pub. Deliberate asceticism? Radislav calls them Outsiders. As opposed to leaders. Left bottom corner, of course.
One last cell: the one who approximately equally motivated by giving to others and by getting for himself. That’s a Leader.
I think I don’t have to convince you that your partner must reside on upper cells, rather then bottom ones. Ability to give (or dedication in a way) is crucially important in business partnership.
Why leader, not hero? Well, first, heroes attract parasites, not leaders. And second, I think the leader (who also thinks of himself) has more balanced and strong motivation. Plus, in many cases heroes tend to have pure social entrepreneurial mindset, which stops them from building commercially successful ventures.
Same level of maturity
First lets explain maturity. With regards to many matters in life, maturity is a combination of your responsibility and initiative (of course, there are way more components out there, but these are two crucial ones). For a good and productive partnership partners should be in the same ballpark in terms of maturity. For example, for me a partner with high level of initiative but low level of responsibility (let’s call this classic high school attitude) is a misery. But for another “high-schooler” such partner can be a good match!
Skill Set
Business requires a lot of skills (practical things as opposed to theoretical knowledge): 
networking, managerial skills, people skills, entrepreneurial thinking etc. Nobody was born with such a skill set. So, both you and your partner should eager to get them equally. Your pace and motivation in learning must be comparable, otherwise one of you will turn into a dragging chute for your business.
Solvency
Even if you don’t make drastic mistakes and your business is not in red, still the process of its growth is very-very SLO-O-OW. So, each partner must be in a good financial situation. Otherwise you can’t afford it! Plus, everyday financial pressure will add more stress into your already tough life.
Some of my colleagues tell that their best motivation to make business was debt they had. Maybe this kind of negative motivation works perfectly for them, but I would refrain from being motivated by calls from collection agencies.
Self-discipline
If I was asked to stress out just one trait a partner should have, I would say it is self-discipline. 
In startup partners do not have bosses (you may argue that a VC can be such a boss in some cases). Classical discipline based on self-preservation instinct (fear to be fired) does not work here. And you may be surprised to see how many very disciplined people (when they had a boss) turn into unruly lazybones in no-boss environment. Be ready to witness such Jekyll-and-Hyde examples!
You and your partner must resonate
Even though some distance is important, and every partner stays in his lane all the time, but all the partners should be on the same page in terms of philosophy, attitude, thinking, world-building (of course, all with regards to business) etc.
Two more aspects. One – partners’ dedication and motivation also should be on the similar levels. And two, which is often neglected by our rationalism, partners should have similar levels of energy. Your potential partner can be knowledgeable but energetically on his last legs, and this may significantly downplay his contribution and/or hinder any interaction with him/her.
So, where?
I think that the best way to assess someone in advance is either to work or to study together.
So, the main sources of potential business partners:
- school, university;
- colleagues at work;
- pals (not close friends!);
- some experts in the realm (beware of too unequal partnership);
- somebody you may meet at conferences, forums etc.
- key employees of your business (unless they became key persons because of political games and unethical moves).
And beware of: close friends, relatives, bossy dictators, anybody lacking trust, someone who can pre-judge you (say, because of the difference in the age), somebody who got upper hand on you etc.
Check all this in practice
When you are at lunch with your colleagues and you are talking about geopolitics, business, investments etc. many people may seem to be a perfect business-match for you. But don’t rush to make conclusions. The devil is in the detail. Watch them. For example, minor signs of laziness at work can indicate that your potential partner works as Swiss watch only because he fears his boss. If so, it is very likely that he lacks of self-discipline, and this will become flagrant in your startup. Or your friend asks you to teach him about investments, but bails out after the first time: obvious lack of persisting. The same way you may notice some flavor of procrastination, irresponsibility etc.
Watch non-congruence in the behavior. This comes with experience.
Instead of conclusion
We see that finding a good partner is somewhat like finding a needle in a haystack. Moreover, not each needle will work for you. Nevertheless, don’t give up! Best of luck and all the success in your partnerships!
about whose position is stronger. For example, you plan to create a business in a realm, which is totally new for you. You find someone who is knowledgeable about the realm. His experience and your money should work together. Your position is stronger, right? Absolutely, till the moment you started a business, you have a freedom to pickup any specialist in the realm you like. But what happens when you already invested your money? Now you have no freedom plus now you have to blindly trust your partner. Still believe that your position is stronger?
Compare your goals in business and seriousness of intentions. For example, your goal in business is to prove that you are a real businessman (by creating a viable business and helping out thousands of your clients) and you decided that you are going to achieve that at any cost. Would you like a partner whose only dream is BMW M6 and he strongly believes that business is quick and easy way to achieving this goal?
times longer than your plan. But in our first startups we never really take this into a account. Discuss this with your partner, especially if the project is quite long. Do you really have resources, stamina and firm desire to complete the endevour even if it takes 3 times longer? What if you complete the project, but will not see any significant result? Say, you planned to work for 6 month to develop a revolutionary product. It took you a year (which is super fast in comparison to average). Finally you completed the development and your product is released. And voila! Nothing happens. In theory we all say that we will switch to plan B. In reality, the only plan you really had was: I release a product, it gives me tons of cash, I go to a dealership and buy a Bentley. Plan B? Sure, if I can’t afford a Bentley, I will buy a Maserati… And de-facto you are not ready for a plan B.
Let’s assume that you are down but not out. You take a pause and compose a plan B. Now you are smarter and your iterations are way shorter. And you completed an iteration B (according to your plan B). And then iteration C and D. But still no significant result. How long will you be able to continue? How many iterations would you promise to your partner to partake?
quickly sell my share of our business. If you don’t buy within one week, I’m going to sell to other people…”
repeats over and over again till the last straw breaks the camel’s back. And in response to the rebuke he or she says: “Oh, I never thought that it is so important to you!” Here I will omit what you think and say in return, it is obvious that such partnership cannot last long.
thing, and then may feel very disappointed when this setting of our world-view collides with the reality!
too much. In fact, you are pedaling singlehandedly, say, 70% of time. Carrying double weight, of course. Do you still think that such a partnership is beneficial for you?
example. I know it is a thankless job because here we refer to rather myths and legends, but nevertheless. Do you think Steve Jobs had really equal partners? I ask about the last couple of decades. Not about the very beginning, when Steve Wozniak was such a partner, but about the Pixar-and-later times. Can you name anybody? I disbelieve that, and the reason being: Steve Jobs became such an utmost entrepreneur, that it was almost impossible for him (and even not needed) to find anybody comparable to him. Moreover, other business gurus, comparable to him, they run their own very successful businesses. In truth, after you reached quite high level of entrepreneurship, it becomes like among the immortals: “There can be only one”.