110 What you need to know before you form a partnership

Reinventure Me

Having partners in your business or to help advance your ideas is great… until it isn’t. Here’s what you need to know before you form a partnership.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from Janine Ogg and Jo Foster, two moms who help other moms become entrepreneurs:

“Just one great partnership with the right person can have an incredible impact on your business success.”

In this episode, Leary and Armin discuss how partnerships can benefit us and our ventures—if they involve the right people and are set up well. They also talk about how taxing partnerships can become if certain things are overlooked, and share strategies and tools to help avoid those partnership pitfalls.

Quotes from the show:

• “A good reason to bring in a partner [is] to complement your skill set and allow the business to be more successful.” —Leary
• “One of the biggest mistakes people make is to think that a good friendship translates into a good partnership. But partnerships are very different from any other kind of relationship.” —Armin
• “You can make friends out of partnerships, but you often lose friends in partnerships.” —Leary
• “Even if the business is successful, it doesn’t mean that the partnership will be…. You can have a healthy, successful business, but you can lose a lot of your sanity in the process…. A successful lifestyle is contingent upon a healthy partnership, regardless of whether the business is successful.” —Armin
• “One of the biggest mistakes that is made in partnerships is that early enthusiasm is never codified in a written document. If you start a partnership, you really need to think through it—especially while everyone is in agreement.” —Leary
• “Do they bring a necessary core competency to this partnership or are they just another you?” —Armin
• “Are they complementing you? Are they bringing something that I can’t outsource? ….If they don’t bring something that’s core—that you couldn’t just outsource and get, that’s more or less commodity—I think you’d be foolish to enter into a partnership.” —Leary
• “Bring someone in who is core and central to your business, who will advance your business. If you don’t know who that is yet, then wait.” —Leary

This week’s Challenge Me:

Have a pre-partnership meeting with your prospective partner. Cover all of the key questions (see below resource) before you get into an official partnership. Do not wait to have this conversation until after money, sacrifice, assumptions, and other commitments have been made.

What do you think of this topic and episode? Share your comments or questions below.

Resources mentioned in or related to this podcast episode:

• “Questions to Evaluate Fit of Prospective Partners” by Armin Assadi.