So business and friendship don’t mix?
Tell that to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two PhD students at Stanford University, California who went on to create Google.
Actually, the Google story tells us that two didn’t get on at all when they first met.
“When Sergey and I met, we both thought the other was really obnoxious,” Page told BusinessWeek back in 2004.
But the two Trekkies shared a dream of building a computer as fast as the one on the USS Enterprise. So they managed to bury their differences and became close associates as they went on to develop the foundations of the world’s most famous search engine.
Still, as a rule, it’s not usually a great idea to go into business with a friend, unless you are prepared to lose a friend.
Partnerships raise a whole lot of questions. Do partners have to like each other in order to work together? How do you work out who does what? Does one partner have to be in charge, or do you split it 50:50?
To my way of thinking, partnerships are like marriage. Take out the sex, and you both still have to sort out issues of power conflicts, money, and resolution where you can hammer out your differences.
And like any marriage, that’s hard work and requires lots of mutual support.
Yes, there are always problems starting a business with a friend but there’s a real advantage when two people have a rapport. And if you want to go places, it’s always better when you don’t have to do it on your own.
That’s what interested me when Forbes decided to provide us with some good tips on How To Mix Business And Friendship.
They are just a matter of common sense: don’t split it 50:50, create an arrangement where one partner can offer to buy the other one out, put in place a lengthy vesting period of say 4 to 7 years so that one of the partners doesn’t slack off or throw it all in when the going gets tough, get someone to value the business, make sure you have the first right of refusal to sell a stake to an outsider if your partner quits, have an involuntary sale arrangement that allows you to buy your partner’s stake if he or she dies, and work out how much control you are prepared to dilute if you want to raise capital.
So does friendship and business mix? Have you had any experiences there and what advice can you give? How much of a rapport do you need for you to work with someone? And how do you know when it’s over?
