Hisham Sarwar
Becoming a great entrepreneur has no limits. You can become successful and go places even if you do not have a college degree, money or if you belong to poor family background. However, you need to have a great vision, decision-making skills, and a drive to pull things off for your business.
Though big money is not necessary to operate a business, one can not deny the fact that it is the heartbeat of every business. At one point or another, one needs capital to take care of daily business chaos. You want to stop worrying about money in order to focus on the core operations of the business and think about the growth.
Same as in the case of skills, vision, drive, and synergy. If you can have a business partner who has some of these skills, has integrity, get them on board to run the business together. The best resource to do that would be someone you already know, a friend would be just about perfect to step in. One of the ways of starting a new business on the right foot is to have the right partner.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” —African Proverb.
The reason why big companies flourish is because of people with great minds on the top. They are the ones who are at the helm of the affairs, make important decisions and share the most the revenue together.
According to Jim Rohn, You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
It means one should choose their friends wisely. Your friend should be able to bring in value in your life, a friend in need is a friend indeed. A good friend pushes you to get things done, makes your life better. There is no harm in changing your friends if they don’t talk about business, wealth and opportunities.
When you decide to start a business with your friend. the following should be kept in mind.
- What skills do you possess and what are the skills of your friend?
- Where does your passion lie and what is your friend inspired off?
- Where is your area of expertise?. What specialty does your friend have?
- How much are you willing to invest in the business? How much can they bring in?
It is very important that your friend believes in your vision and the company’s growth plan for the future. There is no point in having a resource plugged in that doesn’t align with your work scope and vision for the future. This is why Steve jobs fired his most important resource in a famous board meeting.
Two friends, if they share the same success goals could actually end up doing great business together and not only change their fortune but also the destiny of the company employees as well.
Following are the strong points you need to look for in your friend before offering them a business partnership.
- Do they align with your vision?
- Do they have integrity? It is the most important part as it is one of the 7 habits of highly effective people.
- Are they egoistic?
- How is their work temperament?. Are they a doer or just a talker?
- How strong is their work ethic?
- What value are they bringing into your business? Skills, Capital or knowledge?
- What will be the revenue sharing percentage?
- Exit plan, in case things do not go well together.
Business often fails in the beginning, the temperament of partners is tested through hard times. It is important to understand that every organic object has a tipping point and has to go through a natural process. A seed does not become a tree overnight, the growth underneath the soil is hidden, not visible but, if the roots are strong, a plant grows out of the soil and grows exponentially tall as a tree.
Failure is a learning process, Jack Ma has shared his experience of failing at different ventures before starting Alibaba and now becoming the richest man in China.
Bill Gates started Microsoft with his best friend Paul. Larry page started Google with his best friend Sergey.
Jack Ma started Alibaba with his 16 friends.
Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook with his friends.
What are you doing with your friends?.
