1) When starting a business with a partner, it is important to have clear agreements around roles, responsibilities, and how profits will be shared from the beginning to avoid later conflicts. 2) Both partners should create individual plans for their personal and business goals to ensure they are aligned, and have a process for resolving disputes or separating if needed. 3) Even very successful business partnerships will eventually separate as partners' priorities, circumstances, and knowledge change over time. Partners should plan ahead for how to separate amicably while still on good terms.

1. Does Your Start Up Need A Friend?
Does Your Start up Need A Friend?
When I started my business (35 years ago) I had a business partner. We didn’t have any clear
agreements between us about who was doing what, or how we saw the business making money, or
what it would take to do that.
Within a year, we were arguing all the time and eventually we went our separate ways. It took a lot
of time, negotiating, heartbreak – not to mention legal fees to sort it all out.
What I have learned from my own experience and from the clients and business friends I have
known in the 35 years since then is:
1. Make you own personal plan about what YOU want to achieve
2. Make a business plan that relates to that:
o So you can see how the business can take you there
o So you can identify what actions need to be taken
3. Get your partner to do the same –separately to you
4. See if the two plans for your lives and your business have anything in common.
o You can then decide if you are so far apart you are not really partners
o Or you can work on the plan to bring you to an agreed set of things to do
You may imagine that if you are doing half the work, your partner would think you will be getting half
the money. This was not my experience. This is partly because other people don’t really know how
much work we are doing (or we them). It is much better to sort out at an early stage:
1. Whether you are going to share profits equally regardless of who does what
2. Whether you are going to have a notional salary for the job you do and then share profits
3. If neither of you are going to be paid, is it OK for you to work elsewhere to make the money
you need to live? How are you going to handle driving your business forward?
4. How you are going to know when each of you is doing your ‘job’ in the business
5. How you are going to handle disputes?
6. How you are going to separate if either of you feels the need?
7. Who is going to ‘own’ clients, designs, the assets of the business if you separate?
Step back for a moment, and realise that even the most successful business partners will separate
at some point. It is inevitable that:
1. Your priorities and goals will change
2. Your circumstances will change
3. Your knowledge will change
4. AND SO WILL YOUR PARTNER’s.

2. Make sure you set out a real way to separate well while you are both still in agreement (and still
friends). .
Be Clear About Expectations
If you are thinking your friend or family member is helping you because they love you and want you
to do well, but they are thinking they are business partners helping you build an empire and sharing
in the work and the potential rewards, you can see how that would lead to misunderstandings,
arguments, and even losing a valued friend.
We know our friends, so it can be tempting to think they know what is in our hearts and minds and
already agree with what we have not said.
If you want to avoid losing a friend or having a long standing problem with a family member –
be doubly clear and formal when you get them to help you. Each of you has an existing
relationship, and you will each expect things without discussing them with each other – and that is
where the trouble begins.