Hi folks Dave Waring here again with fitsmallbusiness.com and today's lesson
of the day in our last lesson we continued our series on how to start a
successful business with a look at how to test your business idea in today's
video we're going to continue that series with a look at how to choose a
partner for your business so let's get started do you need a business partner
those who make their living investing in new companies will tell you that
businesses with multiple founders are more likely to succeed however there are
also plenty of successful companies with single founders and this is especially
true in the small business space reason number one to have a partner or multiple
partners is to fill a skill gap there are four things that every business must
have in terms of skills number one is the ability to deliver your product or
service obviously if you can't deliver a high-quality product and/or service you
won't make it past the first step number two is sales and marketing it doesn't
matter how good your product or service is if no one knows about it number three
is that you have to be able to collect from customers pay vendors and employees
and keep track of the money and finally you have to be able to be the boss
beyond this you have to decide what other skills are important enough that
they must be possessed by a partner and which can be handled by employees or
outsource for example if you're a software company then you will likely
want to have a programmer as one of the founders if you are not in the software
business but need things like a website then you will likely not need a founder
with programming expertise reason number two to have a partner is the support
that they offer when you first start a business you're going to have to be able
to wear many hats this is especially true if you have a small budget to start
with and can't afford to hire staff initially having someone there to divide
and conquer tasks with can be a big help having someone around you that you can
bounce ideas off of and to provide emotional support during the inevitable
ups and downs of running a business can be equally important also for many
people knowing that there are other people in the boat with them makes them
work harder and also makes them less likely to give up
by far the best place to find a business partners through your existing network
the more you already know someone the less likely it is there will be
surprises down the road here are some great places to find people from and
broaden your existing network people that you work with people who work with
people that you know industry events linkedin.com
meetup.com if you're not able to find a partner from your existing network then
there are several sites devoted to helping startups find partners such as
techcofounder.com, founderdating.com and cofounderslab.com Choosing a
business partner is very similar to choosing a spouse you're going to be
spending lots of time with this person and they're going to be able to affect
your life like few others can here's how you can get to know a potential business
partner work on a project together not something for the existing business idea
before a charity or some other source lists out your core values and compare
lists out your motivations and goals for starting a business and compare for
example if you're looking to flip the business in a few years and your
potential partner wants to pass the business down to his children then
that's a problem ask them for and speak to their references about the qualities
we're going to outline next don't just talk to the people that they've
recommended you talk to use LinkedIn to find people they've worked with in the
past and talk to them as well each of you should submit to a background check
each of you should also submit to a credit check ask if they have a
non-compete in place with their existing employer or company once you've gotten
to know them here are some other questions you should ask do they
actually have the skills that you're looking for
consider personality conflicts you want someone with different skills than you
have but you still have to get along with the person do they share your
passion for the business do they share your work ethic do you have the same
vision for the business do their actions inspire trust do they have any personal
baggage is it easy to communicate with this person are they self motivated
you're not looking for an employee we that you have to manage are they
willing to adapt startups often go through several iterations before
finding a successful direction for the business
do you agree on exit strategy after going through the above process it
should be pretty clear if someone is a good match as your potential business
partner however issues are still likely to arise in the future this is why the
next step you should take once you've chosen a business partner is putting
together a partnership agreement which will be the topic of the next video and
this how to start a business playlist that's our video for today if you have
any questions or comments please leave them in the comment section below for
more free advice on how to start and run a successful business visit us at
fitsmallbusiness.com today thanks for watching
you