Are you ready for the ‘marriage’?
Entrepreneurship is a journey like marriage, and is often shared with others. Choosing the right partner is of paramount importance, because this choice can make the difference in how things will shape up in the future. Infact, some VCs consider the business idea secondary to the founding team itself.
There is no set equation or a formula to help you find the right person but these tips will help you zero into your search better.
Familiarity (read – ‘trust’)
Always prefer a person you have known prior to your co-founding association. This doesn’t mean that you always have to try spotting a partner in you childhood friends. You will mostly by chance come across people you can almost instantly trust and get comfortable with, those will be the people you can bet your life and money with.
No “Yes Men”
One should always be able to introduce the elephant in the room to the other. It should be a partnership on principles and rightly aligned to the goals and values of the company and not a ‘mutual admiration society’. Co-founders should be able to highlight and raise flags whenever needed “CONSTRUCTIVELY”
Remember, “dialogues can be heated but the people should remain cool”.
Drive
A start up for an entrepreneur is the reason to get up in the morning and not be able to sleep in the night. When the magnitude of your’s and your co-founder’s drives are equal you move faster.Imagine a chariot being pulled by a strong and a weak horse, after a while both the horses will be exhausted, worse, never reach the destination. Co-founders should be able to inspire and infuse zeal and confidence not only in the teams but in each other as well and keep the momentum up at all times.
Opposites attract
Its a yin yang situation, if one splurges, the other holds back. If one is impulsive, the other is calculative. If one is out going and aggressive the other is more mellowed and subdued.
According to these attributes, the co founders should also distribute their roles and responsibilities and hence be able to compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Skill & Grit
Once you have the idea, you should be able to pursue it to the ‘T’. Even against all odds, you and your co-founder should be focused and aligned towards one common goal to make the start up successful.
When investors evaluate a team, they want to be completely confident that the team believes in the idea and will do everything possible and beyond to make it a success even in the most adverse environment.
While there are endless reasons for partnering in ventures and being co-founders, the most important of them all is to be able to become a team that is inseparable and is always up for the task”Together”. Though like true love, you can’t make it happen, it will happen on its own, so the best and only thing you can do is to surround yourself with trustworthy, honest and smart people.
Thank you for taking out time to read, you can write back on twitter@prateekb11
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Reads on the same topic:
Important things to consider while choosing a co-founder
How to choose a co-founder in a startup
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