How to Choose the RIGHT Business Partner | 5 Minutes

How to select the right business partner. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, Guru Kalyan, who wrote in to say, "Hey Evan, how's it going? Watched a couple of your videos, your advice is great. I'm a 14-year-old whose passion is to become an entrepreneur. I'd like to know more about selecting the right business partners as I have a friend who's talented in the way that I want, but I feel confused whether to trust him and I feel he may betray me or be more clear, not be the right person to work with." "Problem is I'm not sure that I would find someone else who will share the same thoughts as mine." So this is a great question and one that a lot of entrepreneurs go through, right? You're trying to build this thing up, you realize you can't do this all yourself, and you want help. You want somebody to help you build this thing. And when you're on the same page with somebody, when there's somebody who has complementary skills as you, it's really wonderful. You know, you know you're not in this all alone. You have somebody who's feeling the same pressures and pains as you and kind of understands what you're going through. So it's great. I love that part of partnerships. The thing about partnerships is people rush into it too soon. A lot like marriages, right? This is like a marriage. Having a business partner is like having a wife or a husband. You're going to probably spend more time with your business partner than you will with your wife or husband, as sad as that may sound. So you guys better get along. You know, you better be on the same page, you better want the same thing, and you better date before you get married, just like you would with a husband or wife, right? Don't just rush into it. It's so easy at the start, you know, "I have this great idea." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree too, this is great." And then you launch into it, and then you realize all these things about each other that aren't going to work. And anybody can be friendly and happy when things are going well, but what about during the crappy times? You know, when you're not making money, when you're not hitting the marks you thought you were going to hit and you're struggling. Are you still going to get along then? And so you need to do two things. One, you need to test somebody out. If you're starting a business with somebody, there has to be things that you work on in a small scale first. So the people who I've worked with in the past, even people who I just do joint ventures with, revenue shares with, not big, you know, here's a piece of my company, that big picture. I'll always start on the smaller thing first just to see if you can work together. So start something smaller, work on some projects together, see if you can handle working with them or not, see if you're on the same page. You'll figure out pretty quickly if it's working out or not. The other thing is you have to trust your gut. One of my favorite thoughts on this comes from Robert De Niro in the movie Ronin, where he was saying, "Whenever there is doubt, there is no doubt." Meaning that if you are questioning yourself, then you know what to do. It's not the right decision. So if you're worried about this person, you know, being not a good person to work with, who might stab you in the back, go behind your back, whatever, then you know, you already know, that's the answer. You cannot work with this person. It's not a good decision. And you don't want to let the fear, because it's the fear, right? You're like, "Well, what if I don't find anybody else? This is the only person who I've ever found." You can't let that fear force you into the wrong decision. Imagine getting married. You're with this 14-year-old. I mean, you're not thinking marriage yet, I hope. I don't know. But if you're a guy, you're with some girl and you know she's not right for you, but you're like, "Well, I've never been with anybody else and I don't know if I'll ever find anybody else." You don't want to let that fear of not finding the right person force you into making a lifelong terrible decision. Right? That other person is there. There are people who want to help you, who believe in the same things as you, whose personality matches yours, whose value matches yours. You'll be a much better fit to work with. And that's who you need to go out and find. And the way to do it is start hanging around those circles. So say you need— I don't know what your roles are. Say you need a programmer. Okay? You need somebody to program your ideas. You should be hanging around programmers. Go to events where there are programmers. Go to meetups. Go to conferences. Hang out in online forums where there are programmers talking about things. You want somebody— here's your ideal fit, okay? You want somebody who has the same values as you, who treats people the same way as you, who sees the world in the same way as you do, who loves what you stand for. Whatever business you're trying to create, they have the same vision, they have that same passion. So those things match up, and then they have complementary skill sets. So they're the programmer while you're the CEO or whatever your role is, right? So you need to get those people who have the same vision, same values, want to do this thing, but also have the complementary skill sets to support you. And until you find that person Don't let other people take a piece of your pie. Believe. For those of you watching, I'd love to know how you found your business partners, success stories, failure stories. Let me know in the comments below. Share your story to help inspire other entrepreneurs who are going through the same thing. If you guys like this video, thumbs up below. Click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.