Is it better to start a business on your own or with a partner?

This is a very loaded and complex question, with answers that will vary greatly depending on your situation and your prospective partner’s situation.

Generally speaking, if it’s your first time starting a business, don’t get a business partner. Triple that emphasis if it’s also the prospective partner’s first time in business.

Starting a business for the very first time is an incredibly unique situation that none of your prior work is going to make you ready to start. It requires a wholly unique skill set and nuance that will leave you never fully prepared. As a great mentor of mine once said “You can be prepared, but you’re never ready. No one is ever ready.”

It’s a lot like learning how to walk for the first time. You’re going to get up, on not steady legs and fall down. You’ll get up and wobble and fall down. You’ll get up and fall forward into a full on face plant. You’ll get up someone will help hold your hand for a little bit, then you’ll fall on your butt.

You’ll fall over and over and over again until one day you “get it” and you’ll wonder why you didn’t start 10 years earlier and how easy everything is.

The last thing that will serve you in this situation is another partner whose also going through their first learning experience starting a business. Now instead of you getting up and falling over, you’ll both be trying to get up, bump into each other and fall over. One of you will get a scrapped knee and start crying, then the other will get a scrapped knee and stress out. Meanwhile, neither of you are both totally focused on the business, so you’re both wandering around in different directions worried about life outside the business.

Even worse, expectations are probably not properly set so one thinks they should be doing X, the other thinks they should do Y and blow ups ensue.

All of this put on top of the building the thing up from the ground means you’re probably going to bust.

First time entrepreneurship is the biggest roller coaster you’ll ever encounter because you’re not just worried about the business, you’re also worried about:

• Money, e.g. how am I paying my own bills and growing this thing.
• Failing, e.g. am I doing the right thing? Do I have the right product/market fit?
• Envy, e.g. watching other people who you used to know in day jobs ‘succeed’ while it seems like you’re just stumbling over everything.
• Loneliness, e.g. none of my old friends who are working jobs are running a business, so I don’t have anyone outside I can talk to about it.
• Outside negativity, e.g. “maybe you should get a job, you seem to be struggling.”

You’ll have to evolve as a human being and develop thick skin and a healthy tolerance for risk - and dealing with someone else’s emotional roller coaster at the exact same time is absolutely something you cannot do.

Plus, until you get in the trenches and learn the art of starting up a business, you have no idea what you really need in a partner or who to fit in that can complement your strength. You’re basically just saying “hey, we’ve been pals, this’ll work out!”

You two may work together extremely well in a different environment (e.g. in a workplace, at university or a club), but that doesn’t translate to this situation in the vast majority of cases.

IF you are a new business owner, and the other partner is an experienced person in starting a business, then that can make sense - this is kind of like that person that is more experienced who takes your virginity…it’s probably not going to be amazingly enjoyable for them, they’ll have to have a lot of patience, and forgive you for your total awkwardness, and they’re hopeful that it’ll pay off in the future.

This can work if you’re willing to be a team player and play by what they’ve tried and tested to get the business to work and go all in on doing your best to provide your value and build up from there to get your experience in order and it’s gotta be someone you trust and/or look up to implicitly, otherwise you’ll get resentment at some point.

IF the other person is new to starting a business, but you’re experienced at starting then see above, except reverse. Expect to have to set very, very clear expectations and they’re not going to “get it” right away. It’s going to take time, they’ll be awkward and you’re going to have to hand hold them and guide them. Most of the time this is worth it when someone’s looking to help someone get a start or for reasons beyond simply “starting a business.”

IF you’re both experienced business owners then you should by now know what to look for in what could be truly valuable as a partner to your business and a sense of what will be needed to get the job done. This can often be a fantastic way of building up a new business that’s aside from the one you currently own or just sold, etc.

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If you need follow-up questions contact me on my Facebook or Instagram at Jaoladdigital