Working with a business partner is quite controversial. Many times this decision will make or break your business and I suggest you ponder this topic seriously before anyone starts a business.
Here is the criteria that a co-founder must fit:
- He or she must offset your skills. It’s important to have a co-founder who has different strengths than you, because it would be wasteful to have someone who has the same skills as you. It’s essentially giving away half your business because if you can do everything your co-founder can offer, than you should just do all their work yourself.
- Strong relationship. You can’t just meet someone online through a forum and start a business. It just won’t work. In one of Paul Graham’s essays, he writes that it’s important to know your partner for at least a year. I agree with this as well. The idea is that if you need to know your partner’s tendencies, you need his or her trust, and you need a strong relationship. Creating a business is no easy task and knowing and being able to trust your business partner is crucial to a business’ success.
- Have time. An easy way to kill a startup company is to have one person do a lot of the work, while the other person is busy with other projects. Lopsided time investments can easily kill any business, and its certainly happened to me. Here’s the story: I was super excited about a business, and worked long hard hours for about 2 weeks. I was getting tasks done, setting things up, etc. My partner was busy and had other activities, another job, and loved our business and was dedicated, but just lacked the time to invest. I became frustrated because I was doing all the work, and basically things dissolved quickly. Case in point: Work with someone equally dedicated.
- Motivation/Optimistic. Both partners must be motivated. I have been in both sides of the situation. One startup I was very motivated and passionate about the business, while my partner lacked such motivation. His lack of motivation killed my motivation, and the startup died. Another startup, it was vice versa.
Here is an excerpt from Paul Graham’s essay titled “Why to Not Not Start a Startup“:
Not having a cofounder is a real problem. A startup is too much for one person to bear. And though we differ from other investors on a lot of questions, we all agree on this. All investors, without exception, are more likely to fund you with a cofounder than without.
We’ve funded two single founders, but in both cases we suggested their first priority should be to find a cofounder. Both did. But we’d have preferred them to have cofounders before they applied. It’s not super hard to get a cofounder for a project that’s just been funded, and we’d rather have cofounders committed enough to sign up for something super hard.
If you don’t have a cofounder, what should you do? Get one. It’s more important than anything else. If there’s no one where you live who wants to start a startup with you, move where there are people who do. If no one wants to work with you on your current idea, switch to an idea people want to work on.
If you’re still in school, you’re surrounded by potential cofounders. A few years out it gets harder to find them. Not only do you have a smaller pool to draw from, but most already have jobs, and perhaps even families to support. So if you had friends in college you used to scheme about startups with, stay in touch with them as well as you can. That may help keep the dream alive.
It’s possible you could meet a cofounder through something like a user’s group or a conference. But I wouldn’t be too optimistic. You need to work with someone to know whether you want them as a cofounder. [2]
The real lesson to draw from this is not how to find a cofounder, but that you should start startups when you’re young and there are lots of them around.
Working with a business partner instead of working alone increases your chances of success because often an entrepreneur will have a period of no motivation, doubt, or fear of failure about his or her business, and having a business partner can counter those feelings that could potentially kill a startup business.
Related: What’s The Optimal Number Of Co-Founders For A Startup? 2.09!
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Dear, I am a student from Vietnam. Your writing is so great.
Woul you mind telling me which essay by Paul Graham from that you state”it’s important to know your partner for at least a year”
A lot of thanks