The partnership is one of the most baffling topics in business; The partner’s entry into the business represents a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, it may be the turning point that pushes the company forward, and on the other hand, it may be the reason for drowning it in an endless series of debts.
However, partnership as a decision is not an option for some organizations, but rather a necessary step to complete the growth and development of the project, so if you are wondering how to choose the right partner for your startup? Let’s take you on a quick tour of the most important rules to keep in mind when choosing your ideal partner.
How to Choose the Right Partner for Your Startup?
The process of choosing a suitable partner for your startup is neither easy nor quick.
Ideas, especially succeeding ones, are considered a favorite property of their owner, and it is difficult to see others controlling it or interfering in the way it was raised.
The same applies to the partnership situation in your start-up project. Here, you will not bring a partner who will only share his money and experience with you.
Rather, he will share everything with you, starting with the decision-making process, profits, and losses, as well as achievements.
From the moment this partner enters into your project, it will no longer be your project, but it will become a project of both of you, and the project that was your idea from the beginning, will turn Your title in it is to the founder, and the project will become an entity owned by both of you.
And if he makes a mistake in understanding or managing the project, the consequences will not only be on him, but it will be your fault together and your losses too!
This means that the partner is like an invader who steals the effort and money expended and attributes everything to him, and in the end, eliminates the green and the dry and leaves the project sparring in its last breath?!
Of course not, dear reader; The partner is not in such a dark picture, but sometimes the partner’s entry into any work is a kiss of life to the project and a turning point that makes it thrive and succeed in new horizons that it would not have stormed, but between obtaining the first version of the results or the last, the process of choosing the right partner occurs as the critical step between this and that, so how to choose the right partner for your startup:
11 Successful Strategies for Choosing the Right Partner for your Company
Trust Comes First
Trust is the first step in making a professional and financial partnership decision, so how do you entrust your project and its successes to a person who does not bring you the minimum level of trust, but rather this trust must be deep to help you cooperate together without worrying or thinking carefully before every step or before each decision.
Sometimes the situation in companies is so chaotic that you have to leave the full responsibility to the partner and you are interested in solving another problem.
If you are unsure of the way he is managing the project or have some doubts about his financial or moral integrity, all of these things will represent an obstacle to administrative stability and the success of the company.
Give Your p=Partnership an Experimental Phase
The partnership decision, like other decisions, needs time to reach the best model for its stability, so do not be surprised that some problems occur at the beginning of the cooperation.
Not based on these initial differences, but you must give your partnership some time, so that it is subject to a trial period, in which both of you can measure the extent of what the other can give and whether it is commensurate with giving him with what he asks for or not?
If you find that the amount of power and authority he takes is directly proportional to the amount of experience and relationships he is granted, then you can upgrade the level of cooperation to reach an actual permanent partnership.
But if the trial period is full of conflicts and looking for ways to obtain hidden gains or build side interests, You can then quickly dissolve the partnership and avoid further losses.
Both of You Have the Same Values and Principles
A person cannot coexist with people whose principles do not agree with each other, and this is in the small pictures of normal life, so what about working within a company and managing many departments and individuals?
Some may tell you that principles and values should stay away from work and that ethical considerations are not in the marketplace of commercial competition, but this talk should not be taken care of, of course; Trade is the first thing in which we must pay attention to ethical considerations, from the way employees are managed and dealt with, to the type and quality of products offered to the public.
What if you can build a strong loyal relationship with your workers based on your good personal relationship with them, then this strict and rude partner, who transgressors in word and deed, came to destroy all of this?
Soon, you will find your loyal customers are leaving you and looking for another company that will appreciate their skills that you have worked so hard to develop.
It’s the same when you are used to offering products with high quality and expensive raw materials, then your partner intervenes in the decision and forces you to buy less expensive materials, then quickly the audience discovers the difference and your brand reputation deteriorates with it.
So it is important that you choose your partner from the start so that it is consistent with both your principles and your moral values, no matter how much his experience or how much benefit he will give your project, soon your office will turn into a battlefield with every decision, and it won’t be long until both of you discover that this partnership is a loser and must be dismantled as soon as possible.
Your Partner Should Bring Something Different to the Table
That you and the business partner agree on moral principles and values is one thing, and agreeing together on the same type of experience and management is another thing.
The first is benign for the stability of the work environment, and the second is harmful to its success.
Business partners must differ from each other so that the first partner completes the lack of experience of the second, and the second partner’s financial ability helps implement the ideas of the first partner.
beyond their reach, so that they settle reality wisely and seize opportunities early without any haste or mistakes.
You Have a Common Prior Professional History with Your Partner
It is important when choosing the right partner that there is a previous professional relationship that brought you together.
The person is only truly recognized when he is involved in a business or a personal matter.
Otherwise, your judgment will be confused and influenced by the ideas and experiences of others.
Yes, people may praise this person and add poetry to him, but his actual reality will only appear when working and conflicting interests together, so when limiting the circle of options available to you for partnership, I always make a priority to the person with whom you shared a previous job or freelance work and based on what I saw from him during this experience, can you come to a good decision regarding his partnership or not?
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Can be Relied Upon in Crises
As we said earlier, business management can be chaotic at times, and the situation can be random to the point that you make quick decisions that do not accept discussion or take time to think.
So, this partner must have enough responsibility that makes you confident in his ability to deal in this particular difficult time, as here the responsibility will be shared by both of you, and it must be carried by people who have sufficient strength and balance to bear the consequences of their decisions and who can direct the shore of the project towards safety with caution and intact thinking.
Separates Personal and Professional Life
When it comes to how to choose the right partner, it is better to be away from your close personal circle, and if it is necessary, it is better for him to have a high intuition in differentiating between personal and professional matters.
Although this is difficult to achieve, especially in long relationships such as a financial partnership, but it is possible to train this ability from the beginning and honed by many experiences and life situations.
If you see any intent to combine personal matters at work, you have to grab the attention of your partner that this is completely unacceptable from the beginning, and if you feel this mistake from you, you should overcome your pride and talk to him and separate your personal problems away from business.
You Can Benefit from His Network of Relationships
The ideal partner should enjoy a network of relationships parallel or more than the one you own, so that both of you can collect these resources together and exploit them for the benefit of work.
As for the partner who does not have any social network in his work, this indicates the weakness of his experiences and the level of his management of his social relationships with others, but it will not represent any additional value to your company, but will benefit from your relationship network and invest it for his benefit.
The Partner Should Have Financial Stability
It is very important for a successful business partner, to have a large and stable financial capacity in the long term, it is unreasonable to enter into a partnership with a person who is exposed to a financial crisis and is threatened with repayment of loans or paying fines or distracted due to the many financial challenges facing, on the one hand this kind of thinking will not help you on growth and development, on the other hand, may drag you into his problems and push you to be another losing version of him.
Don’t Leave it to Randomness
Yes, you and the chosen partner share a kind of trust and a long mutual experience, which is a good thing, of course, but let us agree that it is not everything, trust is one thing, and managing the work professionally is another.
It is important from the first moment you decide to enter into a partnership with someone that you document every small and big thing that is agreed upon between you and him, so that the responsibilities and duties of each individual are defined from the beginning.
In addition to the percentage of participation in shares and profits as well as losses, this type of agreement is not done randomly or verbally.
Rather, it must be documented in official papers and contracts, and together they reach an agreed comprehensive management model, which helps, on the one hand, to know the functional and administrative hierarchy of the project, and on the other hand helps to put things in cooperative perspective from the first point.
Make a Plan in Advance for Exit Scenario
No one wants to exit from a successful partnership relationship, but let’s agree that things like this always happen, your interests may conflict with each other, one of you may want to build his own independent business, and the other may want to enter a new adventure after he has achieved what he wants.
The relationship of breaking up the partnership is not always a list of intractable disputes or disagreements.
Rather, it can occur quietly and without any prior introduction, the important thing here is how to manage this exit professionally to achieve minimal losses?
by making an exit scenario plan; Like it or not, the business partners must initially agree on the road map for the project if one of them decides to separate at any time, and this roadmap must be detailed and include all the steps that must be taken in detail and through numbers and calculations.
However, this plan, which is developed early in the life of the partnership, must be developed periodically to match the developments and growth of the company.
It is unreasonable to determine the value of the partnership upon separation the same as its value at the beginning of the cooperation, and it is also unreasonable for the separation to take place without regard for the impact made by the other or its good moral and financial appreciation.
The Conclusion
In the end, the answer to the question of how to choose the right partner for your startup is manifold with answers and strategies used, but the typical answer can always be boiled down to this equation:
Right Partner = Experience + Trust + Network + Organized + Strong + Financially Stable + Moral + Has a good vision
If you can find these above qualities as a starting point in your chosen partner, you can start working together and test the strength of this partnership for a while.
If you find that things are going well and that the partnership has really added to both of you on a professional and personal level, you can continue with this partnership.
But if you find it difficult to adapt and manage it in the presence of a partner, then i advise you to research again, but this time after studying a course on how to choose a partner.
Its content will help you to know the most famous mistakes you made in your first time and how to avoid them in what is to come, and how to draw a typical general framework that helps everyone to add and influence the company positively.
