Working In Partnerships With Your Homeys

TechS

TechS

Memento mori
Nov 29, 2011
257
4
0
USA
At this point in my career of peddling smut on the internets I feel like its the right time to bring in some partners and help fill gaps in the skillsets I suck at.

For me, my weaknesses are organization, design, and coding.
I have a good friend and web designer, whose strengths happen to be organization, design, and coding.

Got him onboard. Fucking excited about it, having a right hand man to help me build sites and work out technical issues will be worth its weight in gold for me.

I figure the best way to get him and keep him motivated is to give him a percentage share.

Any of you guys have and experience or tips with working in this kind of structure?
 


mpbiz said:
Percentage share is stupid.

Just find a solid designer and pay him per job.
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This.

I've never understood why people are so eager to give away a percentage of their company. Unless you are really strapped for cash you should not be giving up a percentage of your company when you could've just paid a flat fee for the work.
 
mpbiz said:
Percentage share is stupid.

Just find a solid designer and pay him per job.
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For me personally, I feel like having a smart talented kid with some vested interest is worth it for me. If we can work together well and have some nice synergy the end result is going to be greater then anything either of us could do on our own.

Would you rather have 100% of 100,000 or 50% of 1,000,000?

I'm not just looking at bringing on a designer, this is a dude who adds real value in every sense. He has a good marketing mind as well and will provide some new angles and insights on monetization methods. Plus its more fun.
 
TechS said:
If we can work together well and have some nice synergy the end result is going to be greater then anything either of us could do on our own.
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That's a big if though.

Cardinal rule: Friends / family and business don't mix. Keep them separate, unless you don't mind losing a good friend down the road, which is what happens many of the times.
 
In my experience, this is the fastest way to lose a homey.

For the few hundred dollars I lost/shit work I paid for or had to do over, I would say it was a lesson worth learning.
 
TechS said:
For me personally, I feel like having a smart talented kid with some vested interest is worth it for me. If we can work together well and have some nice synergy the end result is going to be greater then anything either of us could do on our own.

Would you rather have 100% of 100,000 or 50% of 1,000,000?

I'm not just looking at bringing on a designer, this is a dude who adds real value in every sense. He has a good marketing mind as well and will provide some new angles and insights on monetization methods. Plus its more fun.
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You shouldn't have quit your day job.

It's more fun?

Good luck.
 
THE BEST PARTNERSHIP ADVICE YOU WILL READ

I've been running companies for over 10 years now. I've brought friends on and partnered with them on 4 occasions. Each time I've fired them and we no longer talk. And I'm not talking slap-happy lets build some sites either. These were nice sized companies, and the failouts caused huge losses financially.

They will take advantage of the fact you are friends... being like "It is a family emergency today" ect. They see you making money and are naturally dawn to it. But they don't want to put in the work for themselves, if so they would already be running a company.

When it comes to percentage based partnerships, the best way to do it is to promote from within. Only give someone a percentage if they have paid dues working up through your company. This will get you a partner that knows your company likely better than you, and will be insanely motivated to work for a 10% share. That's how fortune 500s do it.

Overall hiring your friends is a terrible idea. The only time I partner with friends is when they have an idea so good, I would do and plan on doing all of the work for the company. Also I assume our friendship is over.

I've been in your shoes, and you will just rationalize everything in your head to be like "this is a good move". You're already ignoring everyone's advice saying "don't do it."

This just shows how emotional invested you are already in your friend. Not good for the business.
 
ThePresident said:
You're already ignoring everyone's advice saying "don't do it." .
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Yep. If you don't have the skills or money or brains to do it yourself, fine get a partner and give him part of your company, good luck bub. You ask a bunch of businessmen about their experiences in business and then you argue against their advice when they give it, I don't exactly see the sense in that.
 
eVandals said:
Yep. If you don't have the skills or money or brains to do it yourself, fine get a partner and give him part of your company, good luck bub. You ask a bunch of businessmen about their experiences in business and then you argue against their advice when they give it, I don't exactly see the sense in that.
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I've done it myself already. If I want to expand and grow the next natural step is to get other talented people involved.

I am not ignoring the advice in the thread I def have a lot of thinking to do.
 
It's not like I am just cutting them in and giving this person a percentage of my current bread and butter earnings.

It is for a new project that we are going to be starting from scratch together. If that clarifies anything.

OK OK 9:30 Friday, time to go get drunk and embarass myself. Appreciate the advice from everybody for real
 
I've made a lot of successful partnerships, including about two dozen active ones. I've had 2-3 fail, but it was far from a "blowout". You should know your partner well, your worth well and don't take a partner in for something you can hire someone to do.
 
Good Advice!

:)

I have to agree, not a good idea, but give it a go. You have nothing to lose if its a new venture. Well only your friendship with ya buddies. But other than that....go for it :)

Let us know how it works out.
 
Don't put all your eggs in one basket, if you have small idea it's nice to do it with someone else while you have another projects running.
Keep the big ideas for yourself, you can do "brainstorming" with someone you trust, this is much more fun plus you don't share percents.
 
SEO-GIRL said:
Don't put all your eggs in one basket, if you have small idea it's nice to do it with someone else while you have another projects running.
Keep the big ideas for yourself, you can do "brainstorming" with someone you trust, this is much more fun plus you don't share percents.
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I don't want to sound rude, but would you mind to rescue this thread and show us your breasts? With spoon, maybe? Thanks.
 
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