Evan Carmichael explains why entrepreneurs pick the wrong business partners and offers three strategies: recruit from your existing network where values align, show up in communities where your ideal partner hangs out, and test compatibility with a small project before splitting equity.
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How do you find a good business partner? I'm going to answer that question in today's episode of Lunch and Earn. So I recently got asked a question from one of my YouTube followers, love you guys, Chris Concrete, who wrote in to say, "I've been let down by business partners several times over the past couple years. I guess I wasn't using the right standards to value my business partners because they were my friends. I always seem to be the one to come up with great ideas and get everyone pumped up to achieve success." But then after a short time, I'm the only one still dedicated to the task. I suppose it may be different for every field, but could you make a video, if you haven't already, on how to find a good business partner? This is an amazing question and one that I don't think enough people put real thought into. The challenge is, at the start of a business, everybody's excited, right? You have nothing but hopes, nothing but potential, nothing but, you know, big dreams, and you're running on fumes and energy and adrenaline. And anybody who looks good, you're like, yeah, let's do this business. You're all excited to work together. The challenge typically is you find people who don't share the same values as you do. And so yes, you need to have people who have the same— who have complementary skills. You want to have people who complement your weaknesses. So if you're starting a programming company, you have someone who does the programming and someone who does the business side, right? A lot of the tech companies, the most successful ones, were started by co-founders. And it can really help boost your success to have a partner because it's so hard to do everything yourself, and if you can complement that with somebody else, it really helps shortcut that path to success. But having somebody with the right skills isn't enough. You need to have somebody who values the same thing as you do, works just as hard as you do, believes in the dream just as much as you do, and not enough people take the time to really find that right person, and instead they just dive in, and 6 months later they end up saying, "What did I get myself into?" So I'm going to give you 3 ways on how to find the right business partner for your company. Number 1 is look at people you already know. And I know you've been burned by friends in the past, and the challenge of working with friends is that you don't want to lose your friendship and ruin that relationship. But you need to be able to work with people who you can spend a good chunk of time with, right? The way to find a co-founder isn't just to put up an ad on Craigslist and say, "Hey, I need a co-founder for my business." It's looking at the people who are already in your circle of friends and your, you know, friends of friends, people who you have some kind of association with, to get a sense of, is this somebody that I can spend a lot of time with? Because you're probably going to spend more time with them than your wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or husband. You're spending a ton of time with these people, and it's got to be somebody who you can be around and shares those same values. And the easiest place to start is within your own circle of friends. Number 2 is hang out in the community that you want to be a part of. If, for example, you are looking for a programmer to help you, I would start hanging around places where programmers go. If you have, you know, if you don't know any programmers yet, you have zero friends in the programming community, start hanging around that community and you will start to meet people. Go to their events, attend their seminars, chat with them online, right? Just hang out and be a part of that community and let people know what you're trying to do and you'll start to attract the right kind of people to you to understand your business, to help you move your project forward. And so, as an example, I'm in the salsa business, right? I'm heavily invested in the salsa business now, and I've met a lot of great people through the salsa business. The person who I hired to run the salsa company is from the salsa community, and so by hanging around that community, I get to meet and know people who can then help me grow that business. And so the solution isn't just sit on the computer and do nothing and sit at home and be frustrated and upset that you can't find the right business partner. It's going out and making a new circle of friends where your target partner is going to be. Start hanging around those people, start making connections, start learning from them, and talk about your idea, what you're trying to do, and you'll start getting people gravitating to you, asking you questions, and want to be a part of what you're all about. And number 3 is start with a small test. This is the biggest mistake that I feel most entrepreneurs do. They rush into a partnership way too early, again because it looks so great on the surface, it looks so amazing, and there's nothing but dreams and hopes and possibilities. And then life gets in the way and you don't get the results that you want fast enough, and it's taking you longer, and it's more expensive and more time-consuming, and that's when things start to fall apart. And that's when you really discover who these people are. And so the easiest way to get started is not just to give up half of your company to your partner here is to do a small test. Work together on a small project, see if you like working together, see if it works, see if you're gelling off of each other, and then expand to a bigger test and then a bigger test, and then slowly give them equity in the business if they earn in, and if you feel like this is something that can really work. I feel most people don't test it, and I feel that's why most partnerships will fail. So look at the people that you already know, hang out in the community that you want to be a part of, and start with a small test. Believe. Thank you guys so much for watching. I would love to know how you guys have gone out and found a business partner, or any stories you have, good or bad, about business partners. Leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. Thank you for watching. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.
