Business partners

[ritchie]

A few years back, my good friend Wallace (not his real name) entered into a partnership with his childhood friend. The business was retail in nature, and involved clothing. It was very successful but within a few years. the two partners decided to part ways, citing a huge difference in priorities. From then on, I'm very careful when it comes to entering into such joint ventures.What are your thoughts?

 

[marsh]

Partnerships involve a lot, and so do sole proprietorships. My take is that if you have to do business jointly, ensure that you seal all loopholes that may arise later. Capture everything in a document and ensure that your partner share the same interests and/or principles.

 

[Swisslist]

Partnering up with someone like this requires that both know the difference between personal feelings and business decisions. You have to keep personal issues out of the workplace. If someone can't see that difference, I wouldn't do it with them.

 

[tulip]

There are many good examples of people who've pulled resources and started successful enterprises together. However, everything has to be laid out from the onset. Personal feelings should be completely left out of business.

 

[Dusart]

Well, those are all valid points but personally I would never consider a partnership. Been there, done that, and all the rest. I think that if at all possible, it's best to go it alone because invariably there will be differences of opinion which may lead to bigger problems in partnerships.

 

[Britney]

I don't know, Dusart. It's not always going to end in problems or fights - some partnerships become really great and they achieve stuff that individually they could never have dreamed of. Two brains are always better than one in my opinion.