MBA1080 Q&A Wednesday: What are the advantages to having co-founders?

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Hey O. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show. You have business questions and we have answers. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes, I answer a question from you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over@omarr.net or we'll make sure we answer your question right here on the show on Q and A Wednesdays. Today's question is from Brad and Brad asks what are the advantages of having co founders? As you might know, I have a co founder, Nicole Baldino, so I have firsthand experience of how it is to have a co founder. I also started businesses without a co founder so I can definitely highlight some of the advantages that make your life so much better and make your business better by having a co founder. This is not saying that if you don't have a co founder your business is doomed to fail, but there are distinct advantages of having a co founder having somebody by your side through the journey. Now I want to say firsthand that this doesn't mean it's going to make your life easier, but I believe it does help you build a better business and helps you become a better entrepreneur. And I'll explain why in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. From 2002 to 2012, I had businesses on my own. I didn't have any co founders, I had employees, I had managers. But I didn't have somebody with me making the ultimate decisions together. I didn't have that responsibility shared with somebody else. But from 2012 to the present day, I've had a co founder. And for me the advantages are crystal clear. So I hope by sharing my experiences that will help answer today's question by Brad what are the advantages of having a co founder or co founders? Let me start with the number one advantage. I believe this is the most important advantage of having a co founder or co founders is they will push you to become better. When you have somebody that is equal to you, that's at your level, that shares the responsibility of the business that especially if they have a shared equity or share ownership, yes, responsibilities are shared, but they're gonna push you to be better. They're gonna challenge your beliefs, challenge your opinions, challenge your decisions. Now this may be uncomfortable at first and to be quite honest, it was for me cause I was a, you know, lone rider or a lone wolf per se. But even in the movies the lone wolf dies at the end. So it's great to have co founders to support you and to push you to become better. See, when you're building a business on your own and you're only co founder there and the business is still growing and you don't have a board of trustees or anything like that, or investors, you really are only accountable to yourself. I experienced this myself when I was building my businesses up to 2012. But now that I have a co founder, Nicole, when we discuss when we make decisions, when I have an idea or want to make a decision, I'm not saying I'm being challenged every single time, but I often I am challenged. I have to explain and sell my ideas to somebody other than myself. And if I can't do that, then maybe that idea is not worth pursuing. Maybe it's not enough for me just to think it's a good idea in the moment. I need to explain the long term strategy as well as its effects on the whole business. And if it's the smartest move to do. When you have a co founder, you're not living in your Head, you have to work with somebody else to get to the result you're looking for. So in my opinion, the number advantage is that it pushes you to be better, it pushes you to make better decisions, solid choices, because you have somebody questioning, challenging, giving you a counter argument, not always, but often enough for you to be on your toes. Now I mentioned this in this point, but also shared responsibility, that's a great advantage where not the whole business's pressure and load is on your shoulders, you're sharing it with somebody else. Now with our business, say for example, we take a look at the hundred dollar mba. Nicole's responsible for the production of the show, but I am responsible for the actual content recording the show. When it comes to our software business, webinar Ninja, she is in charge of operations, I'm in charge of leadership and development. So our responsibilities are split and we feel a shared responsibility because there's only so much pressure you could take. And when it's all on your shoulders, it can get too much. Or what happens is psychologically you tell yourself, I don't wanna grow too big because the pressure's getting too much. This could be subconscious and I've experienced this myself where I just don't wanna take the business to the next level because I'm swamped as it is and I feel the pressure. But when you have co founders or even just one co founder, you could split that pressure. So one day I may feel stressed out, the next day Nicole will feel stressed out, but we will pick each other up and you share that responsibility and that load of being the founders of the company. Third advantage is when you're crafting a business, especially in the early stages or in the development stages of the product or service, having more than one head in the game is really advantageous. You're going to get different perspectives and different ideas and you're just going to get a better, well rounded product. You can't be strong at everything, so your co founder should complement your skills. You don't want a carbon copy of you, you want somebody who makes up for your weaknesses. Having said that, when you have co founders, leadership has to be clear who is going to be the leader of the company, who's going to be the CEO. Now they could be one of the co founders, but it also could be somebody who you hire as a CEO to be the leader. And that could be later on into your business. But when you're first getting started, somebody's got to be a leader, somebody's got to steer the ship and you Got to make that decision early on. That doesn't mean that that person makes all the decisions. Obviously the other co founder is going to be autonomous to make decisions in their department. But the team, your employees need to understand who is leading the ship, who is leading the business. One co founder could just be a natural at leadership and somebody that is inclined to that. And the other person could love the background stuff, love the operations, loves to actually work on the product. A good example of this is Apple with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Jobs was the leader, Jobs was the one who led the company. Wozniak was just as important because he led the product and focused on that. Another great advantage of having co founders is you have more than one person that can tell the story of the business, that can represent the business as one of the leaders, one of the founders, one of the people that are behind the whole creation of the business. This means that you, a single person, doesn't have to do all the interviews, doesn't have to do all the media pieces. You can share that responsibility with other people. This also means that you don't have to do all the speaking at events or do all the networking. You can share that with your co founders.

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To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Brad what are the advantages of having co founders? To sum up, I feel like co founders allows you to increase the chances of success by having more talent in that founder role, more minds, more ideas and more motivation. Now that I've run businesses with a co founder, it's really hard for me to imagine running another business without one. It's Just very lonely too. And when you run a business with co founders, you realize that, hey, there's plenty of glory and spoils to share. No reason to try to do it alone. That's my take, that's my experience, and that's what I tried to offer you in today's lesson. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, if you love Q and A Wednesdays, you have a question, just ask. Email me at omar@100mba.net and we'll make sure we answer the question right here on Q and A Wednesday. In tomorrow's lesson, we take a deep dive on why you need product documentation. No matter what your product or service is, software, a course, a physical product, or even if you're in the services like photography or video creation, having documentation before you actually start delivering or creating that product is so important. Yes. I mean, writing things down, having a document explaining exactly what you're going to deliver, what you're going to offer means so much. It's going to help you produce a better product, a better offering, and I'll explain why and how to do it. I'll share with you exactly what we do with our documentation for our products. That's tomorrow, so make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Of course, having a co founder or co founders has its challenges, has its moments where it's like, oh man, this is taking longer than expected to get to a decision because hey, when you're all alone, it doesn't take too long. As long as you make a decision, it's good to go. But that could be a huge advantage because sometimes when you rush things, you don't really get the chance to question things, to find out if there's a better way to do something. When you have co founders, they challenge you and it prevents you from making rushed or hasty mistakes. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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