Starting a Business: Choose the right partner

By Pachi | Aug 2, 2008

It is always a better idea to start a venture with a partner, than doing it single handed. But, not so, if you choose the wrong one!

A wrong choice here might prove is fatal. You choose a wrong partner and certainly you are on your way to the doom-land.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Is he trust worthy?
Is he valuable to the company?
Is he as hardworking as you?
Is he worthy enough(contribute enough) to own a part of your company?

If the answer to all the above questions is “YES“, then you may proceed. If answer is “NO” to any of the above questions, then it is a strict “NO” for making him/her your partner.

If he is bring in money, contacts and other resources which have value to the company and help it grow. You may consider him after a check on his attitude.

It is better to choose someone who compliments your skill set, than someone who is exactly like you, even though we might be choose the latter. Complimentary skill set goes a long way in helping you concentrate more on your core and directly results in the quality of the output.

One of the common mistake we do when choosing a partner is to choose someone who we think will listen to us and assist us rather than someone who is equal or better than us, maybe because of insecurity. Do not do this.

Think twice before you choose your Boy Friend/ Girl Friend as your partner, unless they have a degree from Standford or Harvard.

Liked the post? Consider leaving a Comment and Subscribing to Arbit Blog by Email

10 Comments so far

Yatin August 3, 2008 10:02 pm

nice. as always.well put. it goes beyond the concept of partner actually. a lot of Indian companies have posts created just to pamper and satisfy interests of relatives and friends. didn’t find the pic in the post very relevant though. could have put a better one. how about a post putting light on investments? before and after, pros and cons…
Yatin August 3, 2008 10:06 pm

hey i got that wrong. i wanted to say about the pic in the other post. the one about the back up plan. this pic is very appropriate. sorry for the error.

Yatins last blog post..No pants in the middle of the night
Pachi August 4, 2008 2:53 pm

@Yatin
Thank you for leaving a comment

I have a made on that, will blog on “pros and cons of investment” soon…

The pic in http://www.arbitblog.com/2008/08/starting-a-business-always-have-a-backup-plan/ is of a damages computer…. thought it will stress the importance of keeping a backup.
Yatin August 5, 2008 10:45 am

ah….i saw it…got it now…din look like a cpu before :)…sorry…

Yatins last blog post..No pants in the middle of the night
Richa August 12, 2008 5:45 pm

Hi,

I am Richa from SiliconIndia. I am also an avid blogger for a while now and participating actively in Indian blogosphere. I read your blog posting and found them very interesting and informative. We would love to see a copy of your blogs posted here, whenever you are posting it on blogger.com. Here are some of the benefits of posting your blogs here:

We have a strong community of 500,000 Indian professionals
Best blogs of 2008 to be published in a book “SiliconIndia bLoG PrinT”
Best blog to be printed in SliconIndia & SmartTechie magazines each month
Chance to be featured on homepage everyday

We appreciate your community initiative here and in helping build a more powerful India! Also, if you have any ideas or want to volunteer to help for SiliconIndia, we would be more than excited to get your help. Pls mail me back at richa@siliconindia.com with your suggestions and feedback.

Richa
Blog Editor – SiliconIndia
Narayanan Hariharan August 15, 2008 3:33 pm

I guess there’s one more thing that a person has to look into too.. Your right partner should find the right partner too Let me narrate what happened in my case.
I found the right partner for my business - he was trust worthy, he was very valuable, very hardworking and obviously worthy enough to own a part of your company?. But then things did go wrong. He got engaged and subsequently married. And that brought a rift into the business. The woman of his life wanted a bigger share of the pie and so on and went to the extent of the both of us not talking for quite a long while apart from a split in the business.
I guess it is a must to keep business and personal matters separate. And that must be made clear in the beginning of business. In my case, we never expected problems to occur. But unfortunately it did… and from unfortunate quarters..
Sainath Gupta October 16, 2008 3:31 pm

Interesting article,
but remember, one may need to take some untrustworthy partners, then the best way to deal with them will be having a trump card up your sleeve (i.e customer Contact info only with you), showing him that you are in disposable also sometimes showing him that he risks more if he throws you out !

Sainath Guptas last blog post..How to Clone a Hard Drive
the_ego_has_landed October 31, 2008 2:47 pm

hi,

I agree with you, about choosing someone lesser than us. That is wrong. What u’ve said makes sense about complementing skill sets. Very true.

the_ego_has_landeds last blog post..Ironic questions & thoughts
How not to lose a Business plan competition? | Arbit Blog February 23, 2009 4:25 pm

[...] This is one of the most important, at the same time, the most ignored section in a Bplan. You might have an ordinary idea, but if the team is good, the chances of it working is more. You might have identified the right market, right product and even got investment, but if the team is not competent, all the effort you have put in goes waste. Have already blogged about choosing the right partner for your venture. [...]
Ed Video April 1, 2009 3:06 am

This is really a good question,
it like a wedding