Finding a Co-Founder for your business.
Finding a Co-Founder for your business
It’s difficult to know where to begin to find a business partner. Although there are several professional sites available, it is far better to begin your search closer to home. The six key stages in the business partner search are as follows: planning, reaching out, testing the relationship, and closing the deal.
Planning
Ensuring you have a solid business plan in place is the first step to discovering how to find a business partner. Write down your ideas and be honest about where you are in the development stage. If you want to find business partners who can help with the ideas process, state this clearly in your search for a candidate. Once you’ve taken your business plan as far as you can go it’s time to assess what you want from a business partner. Think about your strengths and weaknesses, and who you’ve worked well with in the past. What skills do you need to help run your business and what do you already have? Make a wish list of skills, expertise and personality traits before you begin your business partner search.
Also, ensure that your online presence is up to date and portrays you in the best light possible. Although you may be focused solely on your business partner search, they will be just as interested in learning more about you on both a professional and personal level. If you don’t appear on any of the top search engine results pages, see if you can link to pages and websites that do. Your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook profiles should all include links to your company’s website.
Reach out
Reach out to your peers for advice on how to find a business partner. Discover who among your current contacts has a business partner and how they met in the first place. Reach out to entrepreneurs and business leaders you’ve worked with in the past. A friendly email or LinkedIn message can go a long way.
Once you’ve exhausted your current contact list, it’s time to reach out to entrepreneurs and leaders within business communities that you haven’t contacted before. Again, it really doesn’t harm to ask someone how they went about their own business partner search. Also, you don’t only have to find business partners online. Don’t give up on word of mouth, just yet.
Research
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential candidates, it’s time to look into their backgrounds to see if they’re a good fit for you. Examine their online presence. Inquire about similar projects in which they may have been involved in the past. Read over their CV or ask a few questions via email to get a sense of how they communicate and respond. Contact former employers and request professional and personal recommendations.
Meet potential candidates
Once you’ve thoroughly vetted your candidates, it’s time to meet them in person, or if that’s not possible, over Zoom or Skype. Make a short list of questions and one or two potential scenarios that you could find yourself in. You’re not trying to fool the candidate; instead, you’re trying to figure out how their mind works. Could they be someone you’d want to work with every day?
Also, keep in mind that you are just as much a part of the process as they are. Relax and engage in a conversation to determine whether your core business values are on the same page. You don’t want to give too much away at this point, but it doesn’t hurt to brainstorm some ideas. If you have other team members, introduce the partner to them and solicit their feedback. Another person’s professional and personal opinion can often be very illuminating. Especially if they’ll be working with each other as well as with you.
Compatibility check
Before you head straight onto a signed, sealed and delivered business relationship. You need to find out if your potential partnership works in practice first. Having a trial period or working on a smaller project is the best way for both of you to find out if this is going to be a success, long term. If you have other projects on the go or if you’re carrying out work for other companies, hire the candidate to see how they get on. Working on a different project to the one you originally have in mind might also unveil some hidden talents that you can utilize, or some character traits that you’d never have noticed at an interview.
Closing the deal
It’s time to put pen to paper after you’ve seen your business partner in action. Create a contract outlining the business’s structure and how you intend to collaborate and share profits. Include your joint targets, goals, and responsibilities, as well as intellectual property rights and what happens in the event of a dispute. It’s also critical to spell out exactly what happens if the partner decides to leave. Like a prenuptial agreement, it can be beneficial to spell out in writing what will happen if the worst happens.
Remember that even if you’ve found “the one,” business relationships, like personal relationships, require a lot of work. Don’t be content to sit on your laurels. There are some excellent books on interacting with others available, such as Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards. In addition, there are several online articles that will teach you how to form a strong business partnership.
