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On partnership, by topic, linked to the originals 442 posts, 31 topics, updated
Lines connect topics that appear in the same posts; the thicker the line, the more often. Topics can be dragged.
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Choosing a partner and getting started 80
Partnership agreement and money 137
Relationships and trust 80
Conflict, misconduct and exit 61
Method and tools 127
Partnership as a phenomenon 70
Smaller topics:Co-founders through an investor's eyes 15Turning a manager into a partner 12Why people go into partnership 7Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out 16Managing partner relationships 22Disappointment in a partnership 15When partners see different realities 11Partner expectations 10The three roles of a co-owner 7The hero partner and overwork 5Economy and statistics 11LinkedIn and personal brand 11Talks and interviews 10
Each square is one publication: hover for the title, click to open the original. A publication on several topics appears in each of them. postarticleresearch paper
Choosing a partner and getting started 80
Partnership agreement and money 137
Relationships and trust 80
Conflict, misconduct and exit 61
Method and tools 127
Partnership as a phenomenon 70
All publications 442
What really stands behind the words 'if anything goes wrong, we'll go to court'?
The phrase hides three separate steps: a court ruling, its enforcement and the bank debiting the money, and at each one the outcome depends on a judge, an enforcement officer and a bank the partners never chose. Most disputes never get there, so the law works as a shadow.
Original: Site blog
Why should partners sign agreements a court will not enforce?
A signature does three things before any court gets involved: acknowledgement (discussed is not agreed), a promise to the person sitting next to you, and a reference point in a dispute. The legal function only switches on in conflict, so changed agreements should be re-signed.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn · Telegram
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Why can't one lawyer draw up an agreement "for both" partners?
The rules of the legal profession bar a lawyer from acting for parties with conflicting interests, and on shares, buyout and non-compete partners' interests diverge by default. In a dispute, the drafting lawyer cannot defend one partner without the other's consent.
Original: Site blog · LinkedIn article
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Up to what amount may a partner decide alone?
Up to a sum named in advance; above it decisions are made together, and the author holds that whoever exceeds the limit covers the loss. The case: a 2018 credit shipment worth $70,000, a buyer who vanished, and a loss split by shares.
Topics: Money between partners · The author's own partnerships
Where does the partners' agreement end and the lawyer's work begin?
Partners come to a lawyer "for a contract" before agreeing among themselves and get a template. The article separates agreement, document and contract: the lawyer drafts only the enforceable layer; the other two the partners work out themselves.
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What does a signature under a partnership agreement do besides legal force?
A signature does four things: it confirms that what was discussed became an agreement, turns it into a promise, sets a reference point for future disputes and only in conflict gives legal force. The first three work from day one of the partnership.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Where does each partner's limit of acceptable risk lie?
It differs for everyone, from mortgaging a house to dealing with criminals to save the business, and it is most dangerous to discuss it first in a crisis. The author insists a partnership session settle in advance what partners will never do.
Topics: Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out · Conflicts between partners
Why does "we have everything on paper" not mean partners have an agreement?
An agreement does four jobs: declares values, aligns scenarios, anchors negotiations and makes terms enforceable in court, and the law serves only the last. Charter and shareholder agreement cover that one; the first three the partners must build themselves.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why do partners need an agreement when they already have a charter?
A partnership agreement does four jobs: declaring values, agreeing on scenarios, anchoring negotiations and enabling court enforcement. A charter and a shareholders' agreement cover only the fourth; the first three the partners can close only themselves.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What work does a partners' agreement do besides court enforcement?
Three others: declaring values, agreeing scenarios at the start and anchoring negotiations in disagreement; they work before any conflict and without the law. The state serves only the fourth function, court enforceability, and the article derives an order of work for co-owners.
Original: SCIENTIA proceedings
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What does a partnership document contain that a charter does not?
Two layers of three: relational (what is acceptable to the partners and what is not) and governance (who decides in disagreement, what happens on illness or exit). A lawyer drafts the legal layer but cannot write the first two for the partners: they hold agreements, not law.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn · Telegram
Topics: Partnership agreement
What are the three layers of a real partnership document?
The relational layer records values and acceptable behaviour, the governance layer sets who decides and how, and the legal layer holds what a court will enforce. A standard charter has only the last one, so it is silent on contribution, disputes and a partner's illness.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Partnership agreement · Managing partner relationships
How do agreement, document and contract differ?
An agreement is the consent people reach themselves, a document is its written record, and a contract is only the part you can take to court. The word "contract" sends partners to a lawyer before any agreement exists.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn · Telegram
Topics: Partnership agreement
What three different things do partners call by the single word 'agreement'?
An understanding lives between people, a document records it, and a contract serves only court enforcement. Language glues the three into one word, so partners go looking for a contract where no understanding exists yet.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Partnership agreement · Conscious partnership
Why doesn't legal paperwork close the risk of conflict between partners?
Most of what partners must agree on is not a matter of law, so documents exist and conflicts remain. The abstract distinguishes three layers of agreement and marks where legal drafting ends; in Ukraine only 4.8% of problems respondents themselves saw as legal reach a court.
Original: Spilnota
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What is left of a partnership when there is a document but no agreement?
An empty form: a partnership agreement has three layers and four functions, and the law serves only court enforceability. Just 0.4% of civil cases in US federal courts reach trial, so "see you in court" is no plan but a long, costly end to the partnership.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why does making a partnership official not mean the partners have agreed?
A charter and a shareholders' agreement describe how the company is structured, not how the partners will work together. Conflicts are triggered by a sense of unfairness rather than the numbers in a document, and most disputes never reach court.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement · Data and research
How much of a partnership agreement does the law actually serve?
Only one of its four functions: judicial enforceability. The preprint separates agreement, document and contract, identifies three layers of a partnership agreement (relational, governance, legal) and shows why the word "contract" sends partners to a lawyer too early.
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What should five people who buy one Ferrari together agree on?
The author lists nine points: usage schedule and date clashes, servicing, costs, liability for damage, a reserve fund, a partner's exit, a right of first buyout, and death or incapacity. The exit scenario is the one most often forgotten, and conflicts start there.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out · The author's own partnerships · Tools and services
Why is it so hard for partners to say what they actually want?
Few people can say exactly what they think, want, expect and refuse to accept, and in work with partners this is the hardest part. Until a thought is put into words, it cannot be discussed, agreed, disputed or written into an agreement.
Topics: Partner expectations · Partnership session
How does LinkedIn judge an expert's professionalism?
A joke at the algorithm's expense: the network "knows best" what level the expert is at and who his ideal client is, suggesting a message to the boxer Usyk. A note on what automatic recommendations are worth.
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
When should partners review their agreements?
Regularly and before a crisis: once a partner unilaterally stops keeping them, the moment is lost. The author advises an annual check of roles, accumulated tension, financial arrangements and fairness of workload.
Topics: Managing partner relationships · Partner expectations · Partner misconduct and internal control · The author's own partnerships
Why does AI make clients undervalue other people's work?
Without experience in the subject and with constant claims that AI does everything in two minutes, others' work seems worthless and redoing it seems free. The author's example: a client rejected a 16-page partnership proposal citing ChatGPT, and he ended the collaboration.
Original: LinkedIn
Will lawyers and the courts protect a partner?
Not reliably: in 2025 Ukrainian enforcement services collected 1.5 kopecks per hryvnia of debt, and only about 30% of claimants received real money. A strong partnership agreement exists to keep things out of court: conflict rules, mediation, a share-valuation formula.
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Partnership: the blind spot of business · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What makes a person human: intelligence or the ability to break rules?
The author answers with irony: what makes behaviour human is breaking even signed rules for gain and convincing oneself that "I may this time". While AI just follows instructions, it is a tool.
Which 20 questions should you ask a partner before you start?
A list of 20 questions that show how a partner thinks, what they expect and want, and whether you match on values, goals and scale. For when the agreements at the start turned out shallow.
Original: Telegram
How does leadership in a partnership differ from leadership in business?
In business a leader manages a team; in a partnership, the partners' expectations. Such a leader keeps the dialogue going when others avoid sharp topics, takes responsibility for the relationship and builds a setting where co-owners can agree and renegotiate.
Topics: Managing partner relationships · Trust between partners
What is an idea worth and how should it count toward a partner's share?
An idea cannot be valued once and for all: its worth shifts with results, so a fixed price at the start is almost always wrong. Partners should agree on how an idea matures into a share, for instance through hypothesis-testing milestones.
Topics: Equity split between partners
Where does a partner group's conflict come from: people or processes?
In the processes: at a partnership session for a group of three it turned out the problem lay not between the partners but in business processes that systematically produced conflicts. The issue was resolved.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Partnership session
What do entrepreneurs ask at a live meeting about partnership?
About hard topics and real cases: at a meeting with entrepreneurs in Alicante the questions kept coming for three hours in the conference room and two more in a restaurant. The author calls live meetings the most energising format.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Talks and interviews
Why do only the already burned take a partnership agreement seriously?
A failed partnership makes people attentive to detail, future scenarios and the need to record agreements, while success relaxes them. The post cites that 25% of partnerships fall apart within three years, 30% by year five and 42% by year seven.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Partnership: the blind spot of business
Where does a crisis in a partnership come from?
From the accumulated gap between "what we agreed" and "how things are": old roles, expectations and agreements run on inertia until the gap turns critical. Looking for a culprit is pointless: the rules went stale and no new ones were agreed.
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Managing partner relationships · The author's own partnerships
How long does a partnership last without interest and respect for each other?
Not long: it quickly turns into an exchange of demands, and "he owes me" appears. In the author's view the question is not whether a partnership agreement is needed but whether it will be a living, dynamic structure or a paper that works only while things go well.
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership agreement
How does a professional show their level in a hard situation?
Pressure, uncertainty, conflict and the risk of loss push people to do something fast so it feels better. A professional is the one who stays clear-headed, holds the pause and thinks: the best decision is usually where there is more composure, not more action.
Topics: Personal notes
What helps a partnership get through turbulence?
Pre-agreed rules for unwelcome but foreseeable situations: who does what, how decisions are made, whether a reserve fund exists. When the answers are recorded, there is no need to negotiate from scratch; the partners simply follow the plan.
Topics: Managing partner relationships · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Who falls in love faster, and who falls harder: men or women?
A study in Springer Nature Biology finds that men realise they are in love about a month earlier, while women feel it more intensely, peaking at engagement and dropping sharply in the first two years of marriage. The author asks whether this carries over to business partnership.
Topics: Data and research
Which crisis scenarios should a partnership agreement spell out in advance?
The agreement needs a separate chapter on crises: what happens to the share of a partner who stops delivering, how a partner who wants out leaves, who inherits the share in force majeure. Without answers fixed in advance, they get improvised under pressure and emotion.
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Partnership agreement · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Why are partners' starting expectations almost always too optimistic?
Even in SaaS only 3.3% of startups reach 1 million ARR within a year, 13.4% within three, 25.1% within five. One partner can wait 5-7 years without dividends, another expects payouts in 12-18 months, so goals and timing belong in the agreement, reviewed yearly.
Topics: Co-founders through an investor's eyes · Money between partners · Partner expectations
What does a partner pay for entering a business on vague terms?
With freedom: by accepting unclear roles, undefined rules and a weak voice in decisions for the sake of money or a strong partner, he loses his say and his influence. It first looks like a compromise, then like dependence, and comfort bought with freedom rarely lasts.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Why does a partnership agreement need controlled pain?
Pain is a mechanism of accountability: with no chance of loss, promises come cheap and "we'll sort it out somehow" becomes a strategy. The agreement creates that pain through penalties, a share buyout, financial liability and a non-performance promissory note.
Topics: Partnership agreement · The author's own partnerships
Why is a business built on one person no use to a partner or an investor?
Nearly all Michelin restaurants in Andalusia lose money: haute cuisine rests on the chef and has no scalable model. A business that depends on one partner's energy and contacts holds the investor hostage; a partner's value lies in building a system, not in overwork.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Co-founders through an investor's eyes · The hero partner and overwork
Where does the real value of a partnership session lie?
In the mental energy the agreements give back to the partners' business. While roles, money, power and rules remain unsettled, the brain keeps those questions running in the background, like peripheral vision in an optical illusion, and spends attention on them.
Topics: Partnership agreement · Partnership session · Tools and services
Why do partners ready to kill each other usually start as friends?
The author's client practice shows that almost every such case began with friendship and a belief that friends cannot have misunderstandings. The typical line: "Why do we need an agreement, we are reasonable people, we'll work it out."
Topics: Conscious partnership
Are partners born or made?
It seems being a partner is like being born a cat: you are born, and you are one. But a business partnership is a structure, logically and psychologically complex, with rules and methods of its own that have to be learned.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership
How can you test a professional in a field you know little about?
Ask 3-4 follow-up questions to every answer. A real professional relaxes, or says plainly that the thing you ask about does not exist; a pretender tenses up, fearing to be exposed.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why does a business without an agreement end like a marriage without one?
There are 7 divorces per 10 marriages, in 80% of cases people cannot agree on their own, and fewer than 2% of couples sign a prenup. If love fails to settle it, money, power and ambition in business will not either; the author gives 5 reasons to sign at the start.
How is unpaid wages like being a co-owner with no access to the money?
At the start of 2026 Ukraine had 36,629 proceedings over unpaid wages, 6% more than a year earlier. A co-owner whose partners never agreed on payouts and dividends ends up in the same position: an owner on paper, without access to money in practice.
Topics: Money between partners · Partner misconduct and internal control
What does startup founders' giving up dating say about business partnerships?
If Silicon Valley founders optimise even romance for ROI, they are unlikely to treat shared money and responsibility differently. The author thinks the era of partnerships "between friends" is ending: what remains is a mature agreement with a contract, or chaos and conflict.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership
How close to reality is what partners do during conflicts?
A reader poll: the author says that what partners do during conflicts makes his blood run cold, and asks how close that impression is to reality.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners
Why did Napoleon leave business mail unopened for three weeks?
Over that time some matters resolved themselves, some lost relevance, some proved trivial. The author reads this as a lesson in managing attention: not everything that calls for a reaction now calls for a decision, and sometimes the best decision is to let time do its work.
Topics: Personal notes
What three parts does the author split a double-cross into?
Three stances: cross the other side first so they don't cross you; be the one crossed, suffer and seek satisfaction; or be the one who crosses and call the victims suckers. A note written in an ironic tone.
What does it mean when a partner is always too busy to discuss agreements?
In the author's view it is a sign you are not headed the same way: the partner has time for decisions and for spending money, but none for agreements. Agreements never revisited become convenient interpretations, and a partnership needs managing as a process of its own.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
Why does working with people grow more valuable in the age of AI?
JPMorgan says critical thinking, emotional intelligence and the ability to hold a conversation become the key skills. In partnerships this held long before neural networks: an algorithm cannot see hidden motives, sense tension, or ask the awkward question in time.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
What is the main result of working out partnership agreements?
Not the agreement itself but its second-order effects after signing: a predictable partner, less inner noise, faster decisions, operational trust, fewer conflicts. If partners find it easier to think and quicker to act after signing, the work was done right.
Topics: Partnership agreement
What is stronger than the market's invisible hand?
The visible hand of the regulator: the author, an economist by training, cites Trump's statement of 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne unless France joins the "Board of Peace". A single regulatory act overrides any self-regulation within a minute.
Topics: Economy and statistics
Why does the consultant first try to talk people out of partnership?
For the author partnership is a last resort, so he first checks whether a partnership session is needed at all and explains the difficulty, the work of managing the relationship and the risks. In about 20% of cases the partnership is not formed or ends after working with him.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · The author's own partnerships · Tools and services
How much have wage arrears in Ukraine grown since the full-scale war began?
By 20%: in October 2025 arrears reached 3.7 billion hryvnias, according to the State Statistics Service.
Topics: Economy and statistics
Why do clear agreements serve as rules of the game, not as a sign of distrust?
People respond to limits and opportunities: where something is allowed, someone will eventually use it. Asymmetries in influence, information and access to money, left unbalanced by agreements, end in grievances and conflict, while an agreement makes the relationship sturdier.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement
What does Ukrainians' record cash currency buying say about savings?
In 2025 Ukrainians bought almost 24 billion dollars in cash foreign currency, an all-time record; net purchases reached 6.83 billion. About 71% of operations are in dollars, 25% in euros, which the author reads as an effort to preserve what people have, not investment potential.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Economy and statistics
Who is to blame when a partner exploits your hardship to take the business?
The blame lies with the partner who exploited a dead end, but responsibility for leaving the relationship unformalised lies with you. Rules, authority, decision limits, control and an exit scenario should be fixed before starting, as in Jewish business culture.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · The author's own partnerships
How will people reach agreements if they cannot read and understand a page?
Teachers report that students cannot grasp a page of text, and reading as a habit has fallen 40% in ten years. The author asks how such people will read correspondence, rules and contracts: agreements grow more complex while the ability to record and keep them weakens.
Topics: Conscious partnership
How can partners catch tension in time?
The question is not whether there are problems (there always are) but how significant and sensitive they are for you: some argue and work on the next day, others store grievances for years. A regular check-up helps catch the moment before repair becomes too hard.
Topics: Tools and services
Does AI speed up experienced programmers?
No: in the study, experienced developers using a neural network worked 19% slower on average, although a quarter gain was expected. The prompt must be precise, the answer takes time, and the code has to be cleaned up before it can go into a real project.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Economy and statistics
How much did Ukraine earn from IT services exports in 11 months of 2025?
$5.97 billion, on average $543 million a month: up 2.4% year on year, yet 3% below 2021 and almost 10% below the 2022 record. IT makes up 42% of services exports and 12% of all exports, while total services exports fell 9%.
Topics: Economy and statistics
Where do adult decisions begin?
With an honest look at oneself. Complex theories, others' explanations and convenient excuses are accepted easily, but talk of one's own motives, fears and responsibility meets resistance, because the truth about oneself is almost always uncomfortable. It hurts, and it works.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What is compartmentalization and what does it cost a person?
Division into isolated compartments for functions, processes or information, found in biology, psychology and veterinary work. In the mind, it is keeping contradictory thoughts in separate boxes; the author argues comfortable living demands it, at some cost to human qualities.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why do business partners still rely on chemistry and trust?
Among American Gen Z, 33% go on dates for a free meal and 38% would end a relationship over a partner's money problems. If even romance is counted in money and risk, the author asks, why do business partners count on "chemistry" instead of agreements?
Topics: Conscious partnership
Why is partnership data in Ukraine so hard to find?
A reader poll: the author collects first-hand data on business partnerships because almost no public statistics on co-owners exist in Ukraine.
Original: LinkedIn
Why is the partner who plays the hero a danger?
He works nights and plugs systemic gaps himself, then presents the lack of organisation as a unique contribution and demands a larger share. It ends in burnout, grievances and a fight for influence; the author advises writing each partner's involvement into the agreement.
Topics: Equity split between partners · The hero partner and overwork
In which cities of the world is the average salary highest?
In the list of average salaries in US dollars, Zurich (7788) and Geneva (7784) lead, followed by San Francisco (7092) and Chicago (5940); at the bottom are Warsaw (1609), Moscow (1499), Budapest (1442) and Athens (1417). The author asks where readers would move.
Topics: Economy and statistics
Who in Europe most often works 49 hours a week or more?
In the second quarter of 2025: Turkey 25.4%, Serbia 13.4%, Ukraine 11.6%, Poland 9.2%, Germany 4.4%. In a partnership, one partner's overwork without agreed hours and compensation quickly becomes a source of conflict and a claim to a larger share.
Topics: The hero partner and overwork
Which ranking did the author make it into at the end of 2025?
The author reports reaching the top 100 most effective Ukrainian-language authors, thanks the compiler of the ranking and says it is good to be among such company. A short personal note.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
Where does big money come from, if not from everyone working harder?
Where people have agreed who takes the risk, who decides, who controls the capital and how the result is shared. Using Forbes data (Musk: +$333.2 billion in 2025), the author argues that AI platforms rest on tightly structured agreements.
What sets the ceiling of a partnership: the contract or the partners' skills?
The skills: a partnership cannot rise above the lowest level of partnership professionalism among its key partners. The four-level scale runs from intuitive to systemic; a signed agreement does not make a partnership systemic, it only amplifies what partners can already do.
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership agreement · Tools and services
How unevenly is wealth distributed in the world in 2025?
The top 10% of the population own 75% of personal wealth and receive 53% of income. The share of the richest 0.001% of adults rose from 3.8% in 1995 to 6.1% in 2025, and the top 1% captured 36.7% of the year's growth in global wealth.
Topics: Economy and statistics
How does one make sense of all this?
A caption to an image in the form of a single question: how to make sense of all this. The author gives no answer or explanation and leaves the question open to readers.
Topics: Personal notes
What do you really choose when you choose a partner?
Someone who will influence the money, the power and decisions, the speed of the business and you yourself. The key question is not whether he is great but whether you are ready to share influence and whether rules limit it: without agreements, one partner always grows stronger.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Why can a simple wording reveal the depth of a problem?
Sometimes a simple wording lights up the full depth of a problem, but reaching such simplicity takes a long road. A short comment by the author on someone else's thought.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Why is it so hard to find statistics on partnerships?
A reader poll: the author notes that finding statistics on partnerships is harder than the proverbial search for an unknown place, and tries to tackle the problem by putting a question to his audience.
Original: LinkedIn
Why have a future partner profiled before the deal?
A partnership collapses not because someone cheated someone but because nobody worked out who was sitting across the table. A profiler shows behaviour under pressure and over money; a partnership session then fixes obligations, shares and rules before signing.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · The author's own partnerships · Tools and services
Why did a Spanish court uphold a dismissal for arriving half an hour early?
A court in Alicante treated as serious misconduct the fact that a 22-year-old logistics employee came in half an hour early: undermining discipline, disrupting teamwork, risking conflict. The author recalls partners who are "always and everywhere", but calls that another story.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · The hero partner and overwork
Are social networks and algorithms to blame for the demand for fast and short?
No, the author argues: content without depth or context is the consumer's choice, as clients want everything yesterday and for next to nothing. He distrusts anyone promising a quick fix for complex problems and calls that kind of thinking childish magical thinking.
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
When does a mistake become a problem for a partnership?
When it is hidden, denied or shifted onto others; a mistake that is openly discussed and fixed becomes an asset and experience. For a partnership the key question is not how to avoid errors but whether partners are ready to correct quickly, agree and renegotiate.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
What will the first official lobbyists change in Ukraine?
The NACP transparency register now lists 108 lobbyists; the first test is the January 2026 reports, which will show whether this is a tool of transparent influence or a screen for old schemes. For a partnership organiser, a lobbyist is a carrier of social capital.
Topics: Equity split between partners · Economy and statistics
Is there any partnership data in Ukraine?
A reader poll: according to the author, nobody collects statistics on partnerships worldwide, and certainly not in Ukraine, and he tries to solve the problem by starting with a question to his audience.
Original: LinkedIn
Who studied more before founding a unicorn: men or women?
Women. A Stanford analysis of 3,131 unicorn founders (199 of them women) found MBA or PhD as the highest degree in 45% of women and 39% of men, with bachelor's levels almost equal.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
Why agree on an exit from the business before it even starts?
Just as an investor works out the exit before entering a project, partners need a separation scenario in advance, or the exit becomes a war. The partnership agreement should fix how shares are valued, buyout terms, scenario options and timelines.
Why is there almost no statistics on partnerships?
A reader poll: the author argues that partnership statistics are missing because nobody collects them, least of all in Ukraine, and tries to fill the gap with data of his own.
Original: LinkedIn
Which year in the past 20 produced the most of today's active unicorns?
2015: it accounts for 10% of the 1,691 US-founded unicorns in a Stanford GSB analysis. The 2022-2024 cohorts give only 1% each, since reaching unicorn status historically takes about 7 years.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
Why do business partners need a "prenup"?
Partners need an agreement on how they part ways, discussed at the start while the relationship is warm rather than when someone is already slamming the door. It is not distrust but a way to keep respect when the business has to be divided.
Is the era of easy entry into venture capital over?
A study by Strebulaev and Jackson of 10,316 junior VC professionals in the US (2000-2025) shows the inflow of newcomers rising to a 2022 peak, then falling to 509 by 2025, half that level. Capital is costlier and funds more cautious.
Topics: Data and research
Why shouldn't you put inspiration off until later?
Inspiration has an expiry date: it does not return in the same form, and an unused idea will either die or be built by someone else. Even a small step helps: write it down, draw it, play it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Do public declarations match practice, in the case of Kiyosaki?
Kiyosaki taught saving and investing, yet admitted to $1.2 billion of debt to banks and says it is now the banks' problem. The author passes no moral verdict but notes that there are flawed and effective methods, and public declarations versus actual behaviour.
Topics: Personal notes
Which five illusions destroy partnerships?
Partners believe the partnership is solid until the first cracks appear, while problems ripen under verbal trust and outdated agreements. A partnership is not a contract signed once but a living organism that needs reviews, transparency, hard talks and renegotiation.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
Is every conflict with a partner worth the nerves?
No: not every conflict is worth the nervous energy, not every partner is ready to agree, not every situation deserves another chance. Sometimes peace means leaving a game where your balance is constantly tested.
Topics: Conflicts between partners
Does the author have a business and partnership experience of his own?
Yes: 15 years of partnership experience and, since 2020, a wholesale trade in fresh fruit and vegetables. The business is operational and depends on the partner who is its CEO; the author regularly goes out to the fields to keep tasting it.
Topics: The author's own partnerships
What does the Beckham documentary reveal about him as a businessman?
Football never gripped the author; people do: motives, thinking patterns, ways of reaching goals. Four episodes on David Beckham showed him to be a strong businessman too, and his main commercial project gets a separate breakdown.
Original: LinkedIn · Telegram · Telegram
Topics: Personal notes
How did the author find working with the audience at an event?
A thank-you to the event organisers: the author calls working with the audience a pure pleasure.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Talks and interviews
Which 10 facts about business partnerships does the author see in his work?
A set of ten facts about business partnerships that the author regularly observes in his own practice.
Does the theme of partnership resonate with successful professionals?
The author is glad to see that the subject he devotes himself to resonates with people who have succeeded in their own professional fields.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Talks and interviews
What do you do when a partner suddenly asks for a bigger share?
The problem is neither the shares nor the partner but the lack of an agreement and a worked-out scenario: a change of shares is a "known unknown". An annual preventive partnership session reconciles contributions and expectations, so the request is no surprise.
Topics: Equity split between partners
What does evil in a partnership look like?
Rarely as loud conflicts or theft, more as a slow, barely visible corrosion of trust: petty manipulation, excuses, pressure just to win. One day the person beside you is no partner but someone systematically harming the business, the relationship and you.
What three kinds of capital do partners bring to a shared business?
Economic, human and social: money and assets, knowledge and experience, reputation and connections. The author gives each a key question, and a tilt toward one kind leads to control and fear, stagnation or chaos.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners
How can partners settle disputes without going to court?
Step by step: regular meetings outside operations, a formal notice of the dispute, a meeting of partners without lawyers, a neutral arbiter, and only then mediation, arbitration or court. The author calls court a defeat: costly and years long.
Topics: Conflicts between partners
What does it cost to build a unicorn, and what has partnership to do with it?
For a valuation above $1 billion a company raises $340 million on average (median $250 million). But investors also examine how the partnership is built: roles, decision mechanisms, agreements for disagreements. This is trust capital.
Why does expecting a perfect partner lead to neurosis?
Idealisation first inspires, then paralyses: it brings disappointment in whatever misses the picture, or endless effort to bend the world to your standards. A partner's strength is working with imperfection and agreeing despite flaws.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partner expectations
Is giving the CEO a share of the business a fitting reward?
Handing over a share is not a thank-you but the end point of a path on which trust was built. Trust is an economic category: it is either earned or not. The author met this at two partner meetings where owners wanted to "reward" the CEO.
Topics: Turning a manager into a partner
Who systematically collects data on partnerships?
A reader poll: by the author's account, nobody but him systematically collects such data, and this latest question is part of that collection.
Original: LinkedIn
What is partners' biggest mistake when they part ways?
Not agreeing in advance on the value of the business and the shares. Partners sometimes spell out how to separate but not for how much, and it is the valuation that breaks the deal, drags out months of stress and then court.
Who might you find behind the wheel of a taxi in Spain?
A light note from a trip: the taxi driver in Spain turned out to be a Spaniard, and the author says he dreams of meeting the driver's parents.
Topics: Personal notes
What is partnership, put without the big words?
Partnership is when "what suits me" gives way to "what is better for us". Agreements are not only about roles, money and shares but about taming ambition, fear and the urge to grab more; opportunism is natural, and negotiating teaches partners to act together.
Topics: Partnership agreement
Does a written exit mechanism help founders keep control of the company?
Yes: in Carta's 2024 report, 72% of founders with a written exit mechanism kept control of the company after a split, against only 38% of those without one. The question is not trust in the partner but readiness for any scenario.
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Data and research · Partnership: the blind spot of business
What happens to a business when a founder leaves with nothing agreed?
According to Carta, in 68% of companies with no exit mechanisms, one founder leaving leads to a management crisis or a complete freeze. An exit plan is needed not in case of betrayal but in case of life.
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Data and research · Partnership: the blind spot of business
Why are most co-owner conflicts not about money?
They are about expectations: per Carta, over 80% of founders launch without a formal agreement. Who decides, who has the last word on a sale, when dividends are paid: without written rules, emotions settle all of it.
Topics: Data and research · Partnership: the blind spot of business · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
How often does the founding team change in the first five years?
Per Carta, 53% of companies with several founders change their co-founder lineup within the first five years. Partnerships break up over differences in pace and goals and plain fatigue, so mature founders plan for parting as well as growth.
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Data and research · Partnership: the blind spot of business
What is an honest agreement worth in a world that prizes image?
In a world where public image outranks reputation and promises outweigh deeds, an honest signed agreement becomes a luxury. Only mature partners can afford it.
How does a partner know they are valued?
By four signs, not by kind words: agreements are kept, time and contribution are respected, results are recorded and acknowledged, and respect holds under tension. A partner who feels superfluous will sooner or later leave.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
Why do partner meetings decay into gatherings about nothing?
Partners meet tired at day's end, each busy with their own work, conclude "we're fine", then pause for months. Meetings exist for relationships, synchronisation and refining the rules; problem cases, scenarios, contributions and agreements cannot be settled on the run.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
What keeps a partnership going once the emotions fade?
Only agreements do. Emotions drive the start but blind partners to the need for rules, and a year or two later yesterday's believers talk through lawyers. The cure is agreements fixed in advance: roles, decisions, what happens on exit, how profit and loss are shared.
Topics: Partnership agreement
How often do Ukrainians found billion-dollar companies?
Ukraine ranks 10th in the world by number of unicorn founders (12) and 6th per capita, at 0.32 per million people. The data come from Ilya Strebulaev's Stanford research; the author asks how to turn individual strength into a systemic advantage for the country.
Topics: Data and research
Should a business partner be replaced every 8 years?
The author applies the rule "a maximum of 8 years in power", built on the idea that even the best eventually become dictators, to a business partner, a wife and friends. If the rule is universal it always works; if not, the "expiry date" of leaders is in doubt.
May the partner who runs finances pay dividends to himself first?
In the author's view, no: control of the money is a test of trust. Payouts go either to everyone at once by share, or first to those without access to the accounts. In a client case, years of this practice ended in a serious conflict.
Topics: Money between partners · Partnership agreement
What protects a business better from a departing partner?
A ban on poaching clients and staff (no-poach, no-solicit) protects in practice and is almost always enforceable, while a full non-compete is often too harsh and barely works in some places. With no agreement, a partner's exit from an IT firm cost it 60% of revenue in a year.
Who collects statistics on partnership?
A reader poll: the author says no statistics on partnership exist and that he alone collects them systematically, so he puts a question to the audience to gather his own data.
Original: LinkedIn
What is happening to the restaurant business?
A one-line remark by the author, phrased as a question, about how the restaurant business is faring; the post gives no answer or explanation.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Personal notes
How do you assess your social capital for a partnership?
Social capital is a contribution on a par with money and skills: reputation, contacts and audience, ability to create opportunities. Five steps: list key contacts, recall whom you introduced, where your reputation got you invited, who asked your advice, what you can add today.
Topics: Equity split between partners
Is partnership a rocket or a minefield?
A podcast episode on what partners usually leave unsaid: why the agreement comes before big plans, how to discuss exit while all is well, what to do when contributions are unequal but shares equal, how to keep trust when one partner has a baby and another a new investor.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Talks and interviews
What root problems arise when a partner group is formed?
The author shares a light but substantive dialogue on the root problems of forming a partner group. His comment: be realistic, agree boldly, and be ready to renegotiate in the future.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team · Talks and interviews
Why do most partnerships fall apart?
Because nobody manages them: agreeing at the start is not management. Agreements must be revisited: review the economics and roles, track partnership metrics, run plan-versus-actual and scenario planning, and keep tools for resolving conflicts.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
Why does consensus get in the way of partners' decisions?
Consensus blurs decisions, slows them, dilutes accountability, kills strong ideas and creates false agreement. Following Alastair Rampell's "Conviction beats consensus", the author advises agreeing who leads in which area and who decides when views differ.
Topics: Partnership agreement
Does any statistics on partnership exist?
A reader poll: the author claims no statistics on partnership exist and nobody but him collects them systematically, and asks the audience a question to obtain data of his own.
Original: LinkedIn
When is it right to deliberately turn down a client who haggles?
When the client demands the same work faster: haggling builds inflated expectations, and agreeing to a shorter term can cost more than the fee, in reputation and negative feedback. The author recalls the saying that nine women cannot bear a child in a month.
Topics: Tools and services
How does the founders' agreement affect a startup's valuation?
Investors dislike surprises, and these usually come from co-founders: without clear agreements the risk of conflict and of a sudden departure grows. A signed partnership agreement shows an investor rules of the game, predictability and maturity.
Why is the author collecting his own statistics on partnerships?
A reader poll: no statistics on business partnership exist, so the author gathers data on the Ukrainian segment himself, one short question at a time.
Original: LinkedIn
What can a partner do after leaving a business with no exit agreement?
A departed co-owner can leave payables, keep receivables, start a rival firm, take clients, team and IP. The answer: agree in advance on a one-year ban on competing and poaching, share valuation, escrow rules and a buyout term.
How can Ukrainian startups get enough funding to reach unicorn scale?
Crunchbase data show a typical startup raises about $340M before a $1B valuation, while Ukrainian rounds in 2025 stay at pre-seed and seed. It takes new funds, large cheques and long work, including on relations between founders.
Topics: Data and research
Why doesn't profit save a partnership that is not managed?
Open conflict is preceded by a string of omissions: no regular syncs, no review of contributions and expectations, no interaction rules, no transparent reporting, no meetings about the partnership itself. Managing the relationship is a separate process worth investing in.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
What does the author want to learn from readers about partnerships?
Another poll in a series: there is no data on partnerships, so the author keeps collecting it in the Ukrainian business segment and puts a new question to readers.
Original: LinkedIn
When is a proposed partnership worth walking away from?
When shares are set with no calculation rule, an investor making the full financial contribution gets the same as the producer, and experts lose control of their IP with no way to revisit terms. That is what one draft agreement on an info product looked like.
Could digital dopamine kill the need for business partnership as well?
An Institute for Family Studies report: weekly sexual activity among US adults fell from 55% in 1990 to 37% in 2024. Partnership, like intimacy, rests on regular time and attention; the author leaves the question open to readers.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership · Ideas from adjacent fields · Managing partner relationships
What place did theatre have in the author's life?
Theatre was an outlet: first as a spectator, then as a performer. The author recalls his two years at the Black Square theatre studio with warmth.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Why do a partner's other skills turn harmful without basic decency?
If partners have not learned agreement, honesty and mutual responsibility, every other skill works against them: finance without honesty becomes manipulation, sales without accountability erodes trust, legal knowledge without ethics sets traps in contracts.
Topics: Conscious partnership
Is there any statistics on business partnerships in Ukraine?
No, and that is why the author keeps collecting data himself. This is one more reader poll in the Ukrainian business audience.
Original: LinkedIn
Can you trust a partner who dodges clear answers at the start?
No. In a project partnership example, an agency wanted a 5,000 euro prepayment plus 30% of the grant, gave no answer to clear questions and left the talks. The clients saved months and at least 5,000 euros.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Can partners from generations X, Y and Z work well together?
Only if agreements stop being verbal promises. The Understanding America Study shows neuroticism rising and conscientiousness and sociability falling among young Americans, while partnership needs obligations, planning and the ability to admit mistakes.
Topics: Conscious partnership
Does talent guarantee success in a partnership?
No: talent shows how fast one learns, while success depends on the number of attempts times the odds of each. Without focus, readiness to experiment and the will to act, even a talented partner remains only potential.
Topics: Conscious partnership
Why collect data on partnerships in Ukraine single-handedly?
No statistics on partnership exist, and the author decided to change something in this field on his own. The reader poll continues his data-gathering series.
Original: LinkedIn
What risks does a "sleeping" partner face, and how can they be reduced?
Five risks: theft or corruption, unapproved disposal of assets, hidden costs, "creative" reporting, and lost control of key contracts and clients. The remedy is revisiting the agreement and a regular audit by an auditor the sleeping partner chooses.
Is a partner a resource or a party to a system of agreements?
For pragmatic traders a partner is a resource, and a project's profit is inversely proportional to the partner's experience. For mature entrepreneurs, partnership is a system of agreements, a balance of contributions and mutual responsibility.
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partner misconduct and internal control
Which three principles keep a partnership intact even in a crisis?
Agree in advance to renegotiate; openly acknowledge roles and contributions out loud; own your subjectivity, speaking directly and for yourself even in conflict. The principles come from the author's practice since his first partnership agreement in 2016.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
What is known about partnerships in Ukrainian business?
Almost nothing: there is no partnership statistics, so the author keeps gathering data through polls of readers in the Ukrainian segment.
Original: LinkedIn
Why must partners renegotiate their agreements regularly?
Business, market and partners' goals change, and freezing terms instead of adapting breeds resentment or silence. Revisiting is maturity, not betrayal: set a review date, make open and reasoned proposals, and be ready to admit mistakes and changed context.
Topics: Managing partner relationships
How can a partner be held accountable for broken promises?
The author advises non-performance promissory notes: partners issue each other notes for an agreed sum, payable on set triggers such as vanishing for a month, missing a KPI or not reporting for a quarter. It is financial accountability, like alimony in a family.
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why is a populist among partners dangerous?
Partners answer jointly: one makes the promise, everyone cleans up. In the case discussed it ended in a quarrel, lost counterparties and a halted business. Agree on who may promise what, to whom and when, and write failure scenarios down in advance.
When are partners' actions in a business empty?
When they do not fit the situation: a three-year strategy with no agreement on contributions, brainstorms amid passive aggression, shared management imitated while one person decides. A partnership session for full synchronisation tests them against reality.
Topics: Managing partner relationships · Partnership agreement
Can AI replace shared thinking between partners?
No: AI can analyse and suggest options, but it will not take a risk with a partner, accept responsibility or stand by them in a hard moment. At a partnership session, one of three co-founders stopped consulting the others, having thought it all through with ChatGPT.
Topics: Conscious partnership
Why do venture funds look for partners with an MBA less and less?
In 2000 every second senior investment partner in venture capital held an MBA; in 2025 only 36 % do. Funds now look for technology knowledge, founder experience and industry depth: what matters is the value a partner can bring, not where they studied.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Data and research
What matters more in a partner: an MBA or experience?
Experience. In 2000 every second senior investment partner in venture capital held an MBA; in 2025 only 36% do. The key question is not where a partner studied but what value they can bring today and tomorrow.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Co-founders through an investor's eyes
How do you explain what you do so that people remember it?
Instead of "I work with business partnerships" the author says: I help co-owners reach agreement before the big problems start. He then names the steps: interviews, a partnership session, roles and decision rules, a partnership agreement.
Original: LinkedIn
Why doesn't trust between partners replace structure?
Without structure, trust turns into chaos: one partner decides for the other or nothing gets decided, and responsibility hangs somewhere in a chat. The author starts every case by asking who is in charge, then checks who answers for what and who has the final say.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement · Trust between partners
At what age and with what experience do people enter venture capital?
A Stanford GSB study finds that 42 % of US venture investors entered the field at 20–29, 38 % at 30–39 and 7 % after 50; the median age is 31. For most it is not a first job: 7 % had built their own companies and 11 % had worked at startups.
Topics: Data and research
What is stability built on if income and a business can vanish?
On the ability to create value: how you think, how you decide and whether anyone will pay for it. Partners choose each other for the capacity to create shared value, and if such a partner remains, a business can be rebuilt from a blank page.
Topics: Personal notes
When did you last meet your partner to work on the partnership itself?
Advisorpedia experts say that without regular meetings strategy and communication begin to erode. An annual partnership session fixes areas of responsibility, compensation for contributions and roles for the year; 5–6 hours a year guard against conflict and burnout.
Topics: Equity split between partners · Managing partner relationships · Partnership session
Why does demographic decline make partnership a way for business to survive?
In the first half of 2025 Ukraine recorded 86,795 births and 249,002 deaths; the population shrinks by about 300,000 a year. With fewer workers and entrepreneurs, and scale impossible alone, partnership becomes a way to survive and grow.
Topics: Conscious partnership
Why can a partner's age be an advantage rather than a drawback?
Mature partners are less likely to break down, fight less for being right and more for results, and know the context and what definitely not to do. Someone over 40 who has been through several cycles brings composure and depth, not only speed, within limits, the author adds.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Why do agreements free people rather than restrict them?
When everything is spoken through and written down, nobody has to recall earlier decisions, keep it all in their head or debate whether to speak up. Each person knows their responsibility, the norm and the red line: the more clarity, the less drama.
Topics: Partnership agreement · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
How do you split shares when "equal for everyone" does not work?
Partners rate how much human, social and economic capital each contributes, the ratings are averaged and applied to a third of the circle. In the example, ratings of 100 % and 90 % give the partner 95 % of economic capital, which is a 31.35 % share.
Topics: Equity split between partners
Why should partners avoid taking a dispute to court?
A judge is no entrepreneur or partner and carries no commercial risk, so will not grasp the situation from inside. The author offers an agreement with no blank spots, plus a contrast: a judge's average pension is about UAH 107,000, an average Ukrainian's UAH 5,800.
Why do startups fail over agreements rather than over the idea?
In the author's view the main cause of startup collapse is neither the idea nor the market but the agreements between partners. The foundation is roles, shares, areas of responsibility, the right to exit and likely future scenarios.
Topics: Partnership agreement
Which three entrepreneurial styles does a strong partnership need?
Gallup's Builder Profile 10 names three styles, Activation, Relational and Strategic; an ideal partnership needs all of them. Two strategists never reach execution, two activators give motion without system, and relational types alone give agreements but nothing built.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Partnership session · Tools and services
How do power and fairness combine in a strong partnership?
Power without fairness becomes dictatorship; fairness without power is a toothless dream. One partner takes the lead, the others know the rules and are honest: a strong partnership rests on balanced power and agreed fairness, not equality in everything.
Topics: Partnership agreement
When is it better not to form a partnership at all?
When a partner is treated as a function rather than an equal. In the case described, a well-known blogger wants only a producer's expertise while she wants a business of her own, so there is no psychological contract. The advice: hire and pay, but do not call it partnership.
How should a business in Ukraine be built given demographic change?
The author cites figures: Ukraine lost 40 % of its working-age population between 2021 and 2023, 74 % of employers feel a labour shortage, and by 2035 81 % of the population will be over 45. He asks readers how they plan to build a business under these conditions.
Topics: Economy and statistics
Why can't a partnership rest on plans and spreadsheets alone?
Without inspiration even simple things stall: with trust, common ground and drive partners withstand any chaos, while without energy an ordinary meeting ends in hurt feelings. That inner fire has to be maintained and invested in.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Managing partner relationships
How do you win over the other side in a negotiation?
Four moves: back your words with facts and stories without embellishing, listen actively and do not interrupt, show respect like an advocate rather than a prosecutor, and see the other side's gain without losing your own. Keep the substance, not the form.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What makes a stronger brand: being public or staying private?
The author looks at the company that organised Jeff Bezos's wedding: its site has no social media or work examples, only talk of confidentiality. He asks which brand is stronger, public or private, and invites colleagues to judge its GTM, brand strategy and design.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
Why is an honest assessment of yourself so hard to get and to hear?
James O'Toole holds that the more power a partner has, the less they listen; subordinates hold back, and family and friends see one side. Partners watch you at work and want you effective, so their feedback at a partnership session is especially valuable.
Topics: Partnership session
What do a godfather and a business partner have in common?
Trust is never "a little" or "in words": it is handing over what is dearest without guarantees. A partner takes on a "child", the shared business, and it holds not on contracts alone but on whether he stays when it gets hard and speaks honestly when something goes wrong.
Topics: Trust between partners
How do you keep a partnership together when partners see things differently?
Start not by proving you are right but by describing what you feel, and treat your own position as a hypothesis to be tested. When partners try to prove a point the ego wins and the business often loses; strong partners tell emotion from decision.
Topics: Conflicts between partners
Is it wise to look for a partner with a spotless record?
"He never had a single conflict" often only means the person never held a decisive role: never signed, never risked, never answered for anything. The author advises looking not for the spotless but for those who went through hardship and drew conclusions.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · The author's own partnerships
How did four partnerships lead the author to partnership agreements?
Two of his four partnerships worked and two hurt, and the difference, he concluded, was whether a partnership agreement existed. He signed his first one in 2016, after a career from a steel plant and metal sales to commercial director of a company with 3,500 employees.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership: the blind spot of business · The author's own partnerships
Why do employers hesitate to hire former entrepreneurs?
44% of employers see entrepreneurial experience as a drawback. The author sees behind it HR's inability to read such a background, the “failed business” label and fear of losing control, and argues for judging the person rather than the stamp on their record.
Topics: Economy and statistics
Why do co-owned businesses run without a partnership agreement?
The author names four types: the cunning (the business is registered to them), the overconfident (“they won't drop me, I'm indispensable”), the naive (“they're my friends”) and the lazy-inexperienced (“too complicated”). With no agreement, you are one of them.
Topics: Tools and services · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Where should a new partnership begin?
With a portrait of the partner and a written proposal, then a failure scenario and a signed partnership agreement: if the partner refused, the author would not enter the partnership. After that come a scheduled renegotiation date and mutual reporting.
Topics: Partnership agreement · The author's own partnerships
Why does a partnership decay quietly, like a cavity?
It does not burn out suddenly but decays in silence: what was left unsaid builds from discomfort to resentment and silent anger, until all that remains is a break. Prevention is a regular conversation, a partnership agreement and an annual partnership session.
Topics: Managing partner relationships · Partnership session
Who decides where venture money goes in the US?
A Stanford study of 22,000+ decision-makers over 25 years found that 79% are men (60% white), 21% are women and 0.8% are Black women. The author advises founders to know this map of power when negotiating with investors.
Topics: Data and research
Why is a founder with no time for reflection a risk to their own business?
At first his energy and vision give the idea life; then inertia, busyness and fear of change start holding everything back, and the company quietly degrades. For the author, reflection is the founders' main function, especially in a partnership.
Topics: The three roles of a co-owner
What makes a partnership work as an exchange?
A partnership is always an exchange of experience, ideas and capital: money without strategy is just glitter, vision without resources is only fog. Honesty and a transparent balance keep profit shared and free of doubts about fairness.
Topics: Money between partners
What really lies behind partners' refusal to sign an agreement?
Out loud, partners talk about trust and being busy; underneath, the author sees two motives: fear (of hearing an uncomfortable truth, of losing control) and greed (not sharing, not investing). Strong partners sign out of respect for themselves and each other.
Why does the author see being 40+ as an advantage, not a handicap?
Experience gives context: you see how decisions, risks, the market and people connect, and it is an asset that only appreciates. The median age in the EU in 2024 was 44.7, and by 2050 the workforce in most EU countries will shrink markedly.
Topics: Personal notes
Why do the deepest business crises come from silence, not mistakes?
Where a direct conversation is needed, a guess appears; where an agreement is needed, an assumption or silence. The author calls the unsaid a form of passive manipulation; on a recorded talk, one partner regrets they did not speak like this two years earlier.
How do you respond when a partner does not respect your time?
In the case described, three steps worked: a carefully prepared letter to the partner, organisational measures against a repeat, and a separate meeting on one subject only, respect for time. Ignoring another's time, the author says, costs that person part of their life.
Topics: Conflicts between partners
What do you do when a partner has reached their level of incompetence?
A co-owner fills up to three roles, owner, manager and executor, and lacks competence in some of them; by the Peter principle, that is where growth stops. The way out: an honest conversation, an assessment of what each really carries, and a reassignment of roles.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · The three roles of a co-owner
Which clients does the author turn down?
Those who want obedience rather than cooperation. The author turned down such a prospective client and works with partners ready to think, listen, respect the other person and reach agreement, not to buy themselves an executor.
Topics: Partnership session
Where does a business's money go when it seems to be missing?
Money going missing does not mean it is not there: a business is a system, and the question is who in it ends up holding the margin.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Economy and statistics
What does a business pay for depending on its founders?
It shows at sale: the more indispensable people and the fewer processes a company has, the less it is worth. In one example from the discussion, cutting that dependence lifted the valuation from 4.2x to 6x EBITDA, so exit from operations and sale scenarios are agreed in advance.
Topics: Money between partners · The three roles of a co-owner
What does maturity mean in a partnership?
Not age, but the ability to see beyond the next step and not run from its consequences. So partners must agree not only on how to split profit but on how to cover losses if it fails: responsibility is the key to trust.
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why does a paid consultation work better than a free one?
In the author's experience, the same words for big money become an action plan, while free ones go in one ear and out the other. Payment creates an obligation to listen, implement and act, and the more a client pays, the more they value what they get.
Topics: Tools and services
Why do partnership agreements need updates, like a smartphone?
The company grows, markets and roles change, but the agreements stay the same: partners stop feeling fairness, irritation and tension build, and the end is conflict. For the author, revisiting them is not distrust but responsibility.
Topics: Managing partner relationships · Partnership agreement
Does a partnership always have to be a tandem?
A tandem fixes the roles and limits the scenarios, and the author asks whether it always fits: can partners swap places or rebuild the design from scratch. What it looks like depends only on what they agree.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Can you become well known for the sake of money?
Hardly: popularity is a result of consistency, values, the right moment and the right environment. To earn, build a business; to influence, speak out often and regularly; wanting both means choosing which matters more right now.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
Why does a frame of agreements give partners more freedom?
After 20 years coaching Belgium's Olympic team, Alain Goudsmet reached a formula: more frame, more freedom; less frame, more control. Without agreements partners slide into dissatisfaction and control; agreements give a fulcrum for accepted freedom.
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
What does the story of the Wiz founders who refused $23 billion teach?
Half a year later Google paid $32 billion for Wiz. The author points to synergy and a clear split of roles, founders who are colleagues (10% each), a repeat of an earlier startup's success and a large reserve of trust.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Forming a partner team
Is there any statistics on business partnership in Ukraine?
A reader poll: the author starts from the claim that no statistics on partnership exist and keeps collecting his own data among a Ukrainian audience. The poll question itself is not quoted in the text.
Original: LinkedIn
How can you test a future business partner before committing?
Experienced founders suggest three tests: a joint holiday with families, a small full-cycle project with real money, and a talk about crisis: what to do on failure, conflict or one partner leaving. A rainy-day plan cements trust.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Why do companies look for narrow specialists rather than generalists?
In an age of fast change and information overload, companies value masters deeply immersed in their subject who can deliver a measurable result at once. So an expert focus is easier to notice and draws people into ambitious projects more readily than knowing a bit of everything.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
Why does a partnership without detailed agreements end in trouble?
A partnership begins as a mental image, and the gap between that image and reality breeds tension. It is closed through negotiation and a written partnership agreement; friendship, enthusiasm and initial trust are not enough.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team
What can a toxic reply to a cold first message teach?
From a harsh reply to his profile photo the author drew four lessons: an avatar is recognised in 0.13 seconds, negativity is a litmus test of respect, even toxic feedback is free consulting, and any reply is an act of will.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
What is known about partnerships if no statistics exist?
A reader poll from a series in which the author, noting that no statistics on partnership exist, gathers such data himself within the Ukrainian professional network.
Original: LinkedIn
What does having more than two partners add to an IT services company?
Extra complexity: the partners have to watch how workload and duties are divided. For those building delivery and choosing people, the author recommends the Delivery Happens channel, with cases and irony about IT outsourcing.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Forming a partner team
Why does a co-owner in an operating role need a bonus, not only dividends?
Without a market valuation of a partner's contribution in a job, conflict gets fertile ground, and replacing them when they leave operations proves costly. A KPI bonus is a company expense; dividends are what remains after all costs and funds.
Topics: The three roles of a co-owner
Why do partners at the start believe they have nothing to agree on?
The honeymoon will end, and partners will have to settle how decisions are made, who answers for what and what to do when plans fail. A partnership without an agreement is building without blueprints, so the best time to write one is when there is nothing yet to divide.
How can you tell a good partner from dead weight?
A good partner is one whose interaction increases the business's options and resources; charm and eloquence do not count. What matters is foreseeing problems and creating resources, and two questions act as filters: what earns my stake, and what earns my partner's?
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Why should partners rehearse failure and runaway success in advance?
Scenario planning, a framework dating from 1962, gives partners a pre-agreed course of action for the worst and the best case. In a crisis there is nothing left to negotiate under stress: the scenario has been played out, resources estimated, behaviour agreed.
Original: LinkedIn article · LinkedIn
Topics: Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Why should a co-founder in a working role not go without a salary?
A co-owner can be owner, manager and executor; dividends belong to the first role, while work in the other two is paid. Unpaid work distorts the cost structure and, with a passive partner, leads sooner or later to abuse and conflict.
Topics: Money between partners · The three roles of a co-owner
Why should a partnership session not be measured in hours?
The author dropped hourly billing and sells a solution: a session lasts as long as it takes to reach a partnership agreement the parties are ready to sign. Before it come individual interviews and a question order designed for that specific team.
Topics: Partnership session · Tools and services
Do you agree with the author's statement?
A short question to readers: the author asks whether they agree with a statement shown in the image attached to the post.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What makes an unequal partnership of money and idea dangerous?
Without a partnership agreement, whoever has more leverage decides, keeps the key access and contracts, and the idea's author carries the blame for failure. The rules have to be fixed at the start, in a partnership session.
How do you gather statistics on partnerships if none exist?
A reader poll: the author collects such data himself within the Ukrainian professional network and promises regular reports on how it goes and how the collected data can be interpreted.
Original: LinkedIn
Why would partners set up a shared pension fund?
At a session three partners agreed to put 10% of net profit into a joint fund, with management rules and an annual audit. Their reasons: long-term motivation and loyalty, and access to assets with high entry thresholds that none could reach alone.
Topics: Money between partners · Partnership session
Why does Herbert's Dune read like a report on yesterday's events?
A short note by the author: Frank Herbert's Dune at times seems not science fiction but a documentary report on events of "yesterday".
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What does freedom mean for an entrepreneur?
Freedom is being able to let yourself forget what day of the week it is. The author woke without an alarm and cycled for nearly four hours with no headphones or podcasts, declining to follow outside rules, including the demands of social network algorithms.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
How do partners know they are ready to step out of operations?
It takes effective delegation, which needs a month for a task, three months for a project and six for a direction. A task is an action, a project a system of actions, a direction a system of thinking and decisions, each level with its own handover procedures.
Topics: The three roles of a co-owner · Turning a manager into a partner
Why do critical partnership problems stay below the waterline?
By Sidney Yoshida's "iceberg of ignorance" model, most problems are never voiced, and partners lose touch with each other and with the business. The author suggests honest talk, partner meetings, one-on-one feedback and a facilitated session twice a year.
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership session
Which nine signs show that a partnership has turned toxic?
Toxic behaviour is rewarded, burnout is the norm, candour is punished, information is hidden and every step is monitored. The chief sign: decent people leave, and those who stay are used to putting up with it or winning at others' expense.
How does funding of future unicorns differ in the early rounds?
Companies that become unicorns raise 3–4 times more capital in every round: $9M against $2M at seed, $105M against $27M at Series C, $304M against $66M at Series G. Causation is unproven, but the correlation is plain.
Topics: Data and research
Why does staying silent set off a delayed conflict in a partnership?
A crack forms not from betrayal but from the unsaid: fear of spoiling the relationship or seeming difficult postpones the conflict and multiplies the tension. The author advises speaking up once discomfort appears and refreshing agreements in a partnership session.
Why set a time limit on the role a partner takes on?
Assigning roles is pointless without agreed terms: "I'll handle marketing" does not say for how long, and the partner may see it differently. The author counted eight questions partners must answer in setting these terms.
Topics: Partnership agreement
What does regular work on a professional network give, and what does it cost?
A Financial Times piece on "superusers" says they build reputation systematically and inquiries come to them; the author confirms clients say "we read your posts". The flip side: noise beyond 15–20 thousand followers and a temptation to oversimplify hard topics.
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
Who really controls the market of venture-backed unicorns?
Ilya Strebulaev's Stanford study of 1,500 unicorns and over 11,000 investors found six funds holding more than 100 unicorns each, controlling almost 30% of investment. Sequoia Capital leads with 134.
Topics: Data and research
What does a university degree actually guarantee?
The author notes that education, logic and professionalism often do not correlate, though he does not call it a rule. The note ends by asking readers what a university degree is a guarantee of.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What happens when partners skip the agreement to save money?
Three partners (investor, CEO and CTO, split 50/25/25) chose to manage on their own to save budget. Three months later two of them moved to push out the CTO, the season is at risk, and the CEO came back for an agreement between the two remaining.
Does a partner having no plans for the future signal unprofessionalism?
The author asks readers whether a business partner having no plans for the future can count as a sign of unprofessionalism and an inability to run a business.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Can the army become a forge for Ukrainian unicorns?
A Stanford analysis of 2,975 unicorn founders found 42 had served in the Israel Defense Forces, fourth after Google, Microsoft and Stanford. The author suggests a different mindset in military tech could yield Ukrainian unicorns, citing Athlon Avia.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
What game are partners playing: incomplete information or transparency?
The author separates Incomplete Information Partnership (IIP), where a partner's motives and plans stay unverified, from Transparent Partnership (TP), where no question is left unanswered. The first breeds friction and a high risk of collapse.
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership agreement
Why agree on a budget before dividing areas of responsibility?
Dividing areas of responsibility makes no sense without rules for forming and approving a budget, since it is unclear whether there is money to deliver on the commitment. Two partners fell out because one assumed a website costs $300 and the other arrived with a $2,500 budget.
Topics: Money between partners
Why do investors bet on the founding team rather than the product?
Products change, founders' qualities do not. The game Glitch (2011) burned $17.5 million of investor money, yet Accel kept its stake: the team's internal tool became Slack, acquired by Salesforce for $27 billion.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
What are the warning signs that a partner is stealing from the company?
Three groups of signs: a lifestyle beyond known income, unjustified workaholism (insisting on doing tasks alone, refusing to delegate or take leave) and documentary chaos. Specialists estimate that in 89% of partner thefts at least two of these signs were present beforehand.
How do you avoid learning of a partner's holiday once he is on the beach?
The author often hears complaints about a co-owner who plans his leave as an owner would, so the others find out after the fact. It is irritating for sure, but in the author's words easy to prevent in advance.
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why does the road to a unicorn call for agreements worked out early?
Becoming a unicorn takes 6.6 years on average and many rounds: 91% pass Series B and 21% become unicorns at Series D, while 33% of seed-funded startups never reach the next round. Hence co-founders need worked-out agreements, ideally a signed partnership agreement.
How much money will the partners take out of the business?
The author calls it the most important question, since a business partnership is set up to make money. To answer it, a series of financial planning questions has to be settled first.
Topics: Money between partners
Can a partnership agreement indicate the quality of business partners?
An agreement shows partners can negotiate: they understand timing, duties, responsibility and consequences of breach. If a company runs on spoken words, its promises to clients will likely stay spoken too; per HBR, clear expectation-setters earn 25% more.
Topics: Co-founders through an investor's eyes · Partnership agreement
Why do some partners grow 2-3x a year while others argue about money?
The author names a shared financial vision as the main reason. If one partner wants to reinvest and the other to draw dividends, constant arguments drain energy and threaten a split; without agreeing on money at the start, a quarrel over it is inevitable.
Topics: Money between partners
Is it true that unicorns are huge corporations?
No: a Stanford study led by Ilya Strebulaev found that 46% of unicorns employ fewer than 500 people and another 30% between 500 and 1,000. The author expects AI and automation to make unicorn teams even smaller.
Topics: Data and research
Why is trust built slowly and lost in an instant?
The author shares the thought that trust takes a long, hard effort to build and is lost in a moment.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Trust between partners
How did the youngest partner persuade the others to pay for his MBA?
At a session of three partners (62, 47 and 38) the youngest proposed a package: he runs operations, the eldest retires gradually, the company pays for his MBA and he commits to seven years afterwards. The partners agreed: investing in your own person beats hunting for talent.
Topics: Partnership session
Do you need a formal education to found a unicorn?
Per Stanford GSB, unicorn founders are twice as likely as the average American over 25 to hold a bachelor's degree, three times a master's and six times a doctorate, and five times less likely to lack higher education. Gates is, the author says, an exception.
Topics: Data and research
Why does the author not reschedule after a client's no-show?
In 90% of cases he does not hold the meeting again: a no-show usually means no pressing need, disorganisation, or neglect of a chance to warn of changed plans. Those who did not warn but ask for a new meeting (about 10%) get one only if they pay for it.
Topics: Tools and services
Why do most partnerships work like a black box?
There are almost no books, courses, schools or statistics on partnership, so it forms at random, and when problems arise partners cannot locate their source. The author holds that even basic agreements jotted on a napkin are worth more than no documentation at all.
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership: the blind spot of business
What happens to a partner's share and family if he dies with nothing agreed?
With no agreed value of business and shares the family is left with nothing: in a real case the company turned loss-making after a partner's death and his widow was asked to cover a share of the debts. The author advises an annual valuation and an internal declaration.
Topics: Money between partners
At what stage is it still not too late for partners to agree?
Three levels: "we trust each other" (the best time to agree), "something went wrong" (still not too late, but most postpone) and "sort out this chaos" (mediators and courts needed). Those who settle it at level one never reach level three.
Topics: Partnership session · Tools and services · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Do you need an MBA to build a unicorn?
No: a Stanford GSB study found an MBA held by 424 of 2,975 unicorn founders, or 14%. 112 business schools have produced at least one such founder, but the six top schools account for over half of the MBA holders.
Topics: Data and research
Why does a partner's extreme sport obsession worry investors?
Investors look at people too, and any co-owner dependency, even a sporting one, is a red flag. The person turns unpredictable, risk-prone and less critical, while training takes 15-18 hours a week and time and money drift away from the business.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Which partner has the right to call himself the boss in the market?
A partner approached the author: a co-owner tells everyone behind their backs that he is in charge and the others decide nothing. Asked whether they had ever agreed who may position themselves how in the market, the answer was the expected one: no.
Is there statistics on partnership agreements, as there is on prenups?
No: 2,762 prenuptial contracts were registered in 2024 (up 7% on 2023), one per 54 marriages, while data on partnership agreements does not exist. The author calls such an agreement insurance: it fixes profit split, exit, roles and the consequences of bad faith.
Topics: Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership: the blind spot of business
What did the founders of unicorns most often study?
Ilya Strebulaev of Stanford analysed almost 2,200 unicorn founders: 95% hold a bachelor's degree, and Computer Science, Engineering and Economics account for 53% of all degrees. The sample spans 47 majors, from theology to anthropology.
Topics: Data and research
What pulls co-founders apart when each has a different vision of growth?
Some want to stay small and boutique, others to keep full control, others to scale fast, and the result is conflict, delayed decisions and power struggles. Successful co-founders agree in advance on risk limits, expansion plans and an exit strategy.
Topics: Money between partners
How do you split equity when partners contribute unequally?
Mike Moyer's Slicing Pie model allocates equity dynamically: each contribution earns points with a multiplier, and a share is its percentage of all points. In the worked example the investor with $30,000 gets 57% and the specialist with work and clients 43%.
Topics: Equity split between partners
Which decisions should partners make together?
The list of joint decisions should be set at the start of the relationship, along with how they are made: consensus or majority, whether a share equals votes, what happens on disagreement, and which matters belong to a partner or CEO alone.
Topics: Partnership agreement
What are the odds of finding a business partner who fits a given profile?
Multiplying the population shares for each criterion of the profile (gender, region, age, education, leadership experience, IT) gives odds of about 0.0002%. The author concludes that finding such a partner is great luck, so the search is best started early.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Should founders spend their energy on a name and a logo?
No. The author mocks the claim that renamed companies are 7.5% more likely to become unicorns: Zimride became Lyft and Facebook became Meta as they grew. The investment belongs in the business and in the partners' relationship.
Topics: Co-founders through an investor's eyes · Forming a partner team
What do founders advise other founders?
A short note: the author's library is growing, and he is curious what founders advise other founders in it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Does regular reporting strengthen a partnership?
Yes: between partners, reporting works as transparency rather than control, removing grounds for doubt and suspicion. The author advises agreeing on it from the start and discussing finances, each partner's contribution and progress on tasks.
Topics: Money between partners
How does trust in a relationship affect the speed of work?
When there is trust in a relationship, people move on to implementation very quickly.
Original: Telegram
Topics: Trust between partners
Is a personal brand a stake in a business?
An announcement of a live talk on 6 February at 4 p.m. on the topic: is a personal brand a share in a business, and how does social capital work and what does it cost.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Talks and interviews · Equity split between partners
What do marriage and divorce figures in Ukraine show?
Ukraine's Ministry of Justice reports 150,200 marriages and 141,800 divorces, a near 1:1 ratio, the closest in recent history. No such statistics exist for business partnerships, and the author asks readers whether they see a link.
Topics: Data and research
What can you do when a partner acts like the sole owner?
If partners never agreed on how each may present themselves to the team, there is nothing to hold such behaviour against: no boundary was set. In a client's case, one co-owner routes every issue through himself, does not report and instructs other partners' staff.
Why does the author compare a partnership session to vaccination?
By IMF estimates, vaccinating 60% of humanity would add about $9 trillion to world GDP for $50 billion; a partnership session is the partnership's vaccine, the agreement its passport. No partnership statistics are kept; Wasserman finds 65% of ventures fail over partner conflict.
Topics: Partnership agreement · Partnership session · Partnership: the blind spot of business
Where will the author speak on business partnership?
The author announces that the next day he will speak at the event "Business partnership: from a business idea to a key asset of the business".
Topics: Talks and interviews
What experience do unicorn founders most often have?
Ilya Strebulaev's analysis shows 60% of unicorns have at least one experienced entrepreneur among their founders, and many came from Google, Microsoft, R&D and top management. The author's formula: startup experience, corporate expertise, technical knowledge.
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Why is a lack of disagreement between partners a warning sign?
If there is no disagreement, one partner is probably adding no value: a partnership's strength is its range of views. Disagreement is productive with clear roles, transparency, and a focus on improving the business rather than on winning the argument.
Topics: Conflicts between partners
Why do some partners refuse to put agreements down?
66% of partners have no agreements at all, and the author sees two reasons for resisting them: a childlike failure to grasp the consequences, or a deliberate wish to manipulate the partner. The only way out is to agree and sign a partnership agreement.
Topics: Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · Trust between partners · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
How should partners agree on leaving the business in advance?
The question "How will we part ways?" belongs at the start of a relationship: in a partnership session the author asks it right after the first round of share allocation. Clear exit rules keep partners from being hostages of a partnership with no lawful way out.
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Equity split between partners · Partnership session
How can a hired executive win an equity stake in a business?
On the eve of a final interview with the owner, a CEO candidate used a session to build a negotiation strategy: an owner profile, a self-portrait, matching and risk zones, and answers on stake, guarantees and KPIs. He aimed for 50% and received 10%.
Topics: The author's own partnerships · Tools and services · Turning a manager into a partner
What did the author conclude after his social network account was locked?
Six conclusions after five days without his main social network: digital assets vanish at one button press, followers belong to the platform (486 disappeared), diversification is needed, and the real audience is subscribers of a newsletter and one's own channel.
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
Do you need a partner in order to finally start your own business?
No: a client wanted a partner to structure his time and was ready to give 50% of a business projected to earn 700-800 thousand euros a year. After advice to hire an employee on KPIs he stayed sole owner and kept 350 thousand euros.
Topics: Choosing a business partner · The author's own partnerships · Tools and services · Why people go into partnership
How long after the first venture money does a startup become a unicorn?
On average 4.5 years after the first venture funding, per Ilya Strebulaev's analysis of 1,516 US unicorns: the peak is year five (123 companies), and 88 made it in under a year. Without clear agreements between founders, such a marathon cannot be run.
What is an idea worth in a partnership?
An idea alone is rarely worth much: value comes from the work of implementing and validating it. Illustration: a businessman listened to someone's idea, quietly implemented it and simply thanked the person who had shared it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners
How, and on what terms, should one leave a partnership?
If a partnership has no map showing the exit, the only way out is to destroy it, so the terms are easier to agree in advance. Put on paper how long each partner stays and what one gets for leaving earlier or later than the agreed term.
Original: LinkedIn
What should an owner put in writing before giving a top manager a stake?
Eight items for the partnership agreement: reporting, terms and appointment of managers, audit, company valuation, meetings, internal control and the right to launch checks. Basis: in 82% of fraud cases top managers are suspected, in 10% business partners.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · Trust between partners · Turning a manager into a partner
How much do investors earn from unicorn startups?
On average 3,100% on invested capital, according to a Stanford study (Strebulaev) of 1,516 venture-backed American unicorns. 45 companies returned 50x and only 21 fell below their initial investment; mergers and acquisitions bring 4,900%, IPOs 2,700%.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
Is making money together the only basis of a partnership?
A question to readers: the author suspects that partners' motivation runs deeper than earning money together and asks whether others agree.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Why people go into partnership
Why don't verbal agreements between partners work?
Partners are people too: they take in 65% of information visually, 30% by ear and 5% through experience, and they forget or twist what was said. Agreements belong in writing in a partnership agreement, with a revision of it agreed upfront.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why draw up an ideal partner profile before starting a business?
95% of entrepreneurs enter a partnership through friendship, family or chance contacts; only 5% use the Ideal Partner Profile framework. It helps assess one's own resources soberly and see what a partner must compensate; a 60-question questionnaire goes with it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields · Tools and services
What do investors look for in startup founders?
The founders' personality: due diligence, the ability to defend a position and hear arguments, referrals and personal meetings before investing. The author sees a partnership agreement as a "founder's licence", proof that co-founders can actually reach agreements.
Original: LinkedIn
How should co-owners report to one another?
Co-owners usually also run the company, so they are owners and employees at once. The author asks how partners should agree on mutual reporting when an owner seems to owe nobody an account.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · The three roles of a co-owner
How long does it take a startup to become a unicorn?
On average 6.6 years, per an analysis of 1,044 companies (Strebulaev, Stanford): the peak is years 3 to 8, and after year 10 success stories thin out. Unicorns most often have two or three founders with clear agreements.
Original: LinkedIn
What makes a consulting session productive?
A prepared client: the author asked in advance for a case description and a brief, and the detailed write-up made it possible to go deeper into the nuances and do more than planned. A thank-you note for feedback on that work.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Tools and services
What did the author's first year of public writing teach?
Starting from zero on 4 June 2024, the author found that English posts and two a week achieved nothing, and that running several networks at once is unrealistic. Focusing on one, he wrote 179 posts, held 30+ interviews with leads and won 9 clients.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: LinkedIn and personal brand
What does an ideal business partner look like?
Anonymous surveys put the ability to negotiate and reflect first (71%), then being sensible and responsible (61%). The author's formula: a person with different resources and competences but the same values and principles.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · The author's own partnerships
Can a company come back after losing 2.1 billion of investor money?
Lilium, which laid off over a thousand staff in December, announced a deal with an investor consortium on 24 December: the new owners will buy the subsidiaries' assets, and the founders get no money. The author's takeaway: look for a lucky partner, clever ones can be hired.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Who appoints the CEO in a company with several partners?
A question for discussion: as a company grows, its partners sooner or later consider appointing a CEO from the staff or from outside. The author asks how partners should agree on this.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Turning a manager into a partner
Why should partners hold a strategy session at the start or end of a year?
To align vision and goals, review results and acknowledge each other's contribution. The author suggests starting with quarterly sessions and a written exercise: note what you value in a partner, their unexpected contribution and their impact on the business.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session
How often does a co-founder leave a startup in its first years?
Carta data (13,133 startups, 2015-2024) show that in 25% of venture-backed startups a founder leaves within four years, before the stake has vested. Hence the case for a vesting schedule, a plan for a founder's exit and a partnership agreement.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Co-founders through an investor's eyes · Data and research · Equity split between partners
How do you avoid a falling-out with a partner when building a business abroad?
A shared language and a kindred spirit do not replace an agreement under stress. Four rules: discuss roles and areas of responsibility, put agreements in writing, review them regularly and set the format and frequency of communication.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Is a share in the company always equal to a share in the profit?
No: with 50/50 ownership, profit may split 80/20 in the investor's favour until the investment is repaid, then the restaurateur's share grows to 55 and 60%. The investor gets income and the restaurateur stays motivated to keep working.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners · Money between partners
Who most often founds unicorns in the US?
White men: 75% of founders against 29% of the population; about 14 men for every woman founder. Only Asian founders exceed their population share (17.5% vs 6.4%). Stanford data on 1,110 companies, 1997-2021.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
Why do partnerships fall apart even when they start well?
Because of seven unresolved issues: no shared goal, weak communication, unclear roles, mismatched expectations, ignored conflicts, uncoordinated decisions and no adaptation to change. For each the author gives a fix, from shared values to regular review of agreements.
Original: LinkedIn
Is it worth making a top manager a partner?
Yes, if the owner is willing to share equity: it retains a key person, raises motivation and gives the company a partner who thinks like an owner. Signs of readiness: initiative, over three years in the company, willingness to buy a stake or earn it from profit.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team · Partnership session · Turning a manager into a partner
What should founders agree on before they start working together?
Six subjects: roles and areas of responsibility, goals and expectations, finances, decision-making, conflicts and exit. The logic comes from Gallup research: companies with the most engaged employees earn 147% more profit per share.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership agreement
What if a voting partner is out of reach for a long time?
This should be settled in advance: can the remaining partners take an urgent decision without him. By the author's estimate there are over 150 such procedural questions to cover in a partnership session.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session
Do unicorn companies often fail?
Rarely: of American unicorns as of 2020, 26 failed (including Theranos, FTX and VICE Media), 756 stayed private and 1,264 exited. Drawing on Stanford data, the author treats a $1 billion valuation as a good predictor of survival.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
How can you tell people are only playing at partnership?
Five signs: they act on assumptions, financial obligations breed conflict, roles and decision processes are undefined, and there is no exit strategy. The author argues a partnership agreement turns the game into professional cooperation.
Original: LinkedIn
How do you make any partnership of yours effective?
A short lead-in to an instruction document on making a partnership work; the steps themselves are not in the text and are in the attached file.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Tools and services
Why did the Wiz founders turn down $23 billion from Google?
They chose independence and their own route to an IPO. The author credits the group's strength to clear roles, shared service in Unit 8200, equal 10% stakes and the earlier success of their joint startup Adallom.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Forming a partner team · Trust between partners
Why ask partners a thousand questions?
The technique comes from improv theatre: a character gains depth only when the questions run out. Where awkward questions are not asked, a partnership stays flat and uncertain, so at a partnership session the author has partners answer them up front.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership session · The author's own partnerships
How much does a business partnership resemble a marriage?
In the US, charts of marriage length and of startup exit times nearly match, though the author sees no causal link. What matters more: for over half of startups the road to exit takes more than 8 years, so expectations and an exit strategy must be agreed at the start.
Original: LinkedIn
Which five partnership rules did the author draw from 14 years of experience?
Discuss everything up front, put it in writing, raise disagreements early, revisit terms as the business grows and agree a civilised exit. The rules rest on the author's own climb from 5% to 50% of a company over 12 years and on client cases.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Partnership agreement · The author's own partnerships
How does the number of co-founders affect each one's exit value?
In a Stanford GSB analysis of 606 US unicorns, each added co-founder cuts net exit value per person by about 32%: from $2.1 billion for a solo founder to under $0.5 billion each at six or more.
Original: LinkedIn
Is the goal of leaving day-to-day operations always sound?
If the partners' end goal is lying under a palm tree, outstanding results rarely follow, so at a session it is a cue to ask what they really want. The author's example is Elon Musk, who with a fortune near $200 billion lived at his factories beside his team for years.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Turning a manager into a partner
Why do some partners take risks while others play safe?
It is motives, not personality types: a startup founder's loss is capped while the upside is not, whereas a corporate manager risks bonuses and career. What co-founders need is not different people but aligned motives.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Why people go into partnership
Is a partner worth a second chance?
The question comes down to whether the partner can change, tested by three questions: are both ready for a mature dialogue and a mature conflict, and is the offender capable of sincere remorse. A single "no" means a loop of "continue or part ways".
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Partner misconduct and internal control
What is an emergent partnership and when does it arise?
It is a partnership whose result exceeds the sum of its contributions. It takes readiness to adapt, strong trust, regular meaningful contact, new solutions born of the partnership's dynamics and fixed agreements; the author's model is the founders of Nova Poshta.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team · Trust between partners
How can a partnership avoid collapse when shares are equal?
The Agile Partnership model ties shares to results: define each person's contribution, set measurable goals, issue conditional shares and allocate them on outcomes. That brings transparency, objectivity and flexibility if someone fails to deliver.
Original: LinkedIn
What does Lilium's bankruptcy teach about building a partner team?
In a "how to fail" format the author dissects a company that raised $2.1 billion: four young engineers with identical skills, no outside view and no experience of failure, but big names alongside and a supply contract without a working prototype.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Forming a partner team
What belongs in a partnership agreement under bill 9103?
Bill 9103 states that partnership is not marriage, and there is no case practice yet, so the author advises spelling out terms in a detailed agreement. Ten blocks: property, health, care, housing, debts, termination, representation, confidentiality, term and disputes.
Original: LinkedIn
Why are conflicts between partners inevitable, and how can they be prevented?
People enter partnerships without knowing the rules, and friendly trust is no substitute for agreements. Disappointment equals reality minus expectations, so expectations must be discussed at the start, and each partner should ask how they would part if things go wrong.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Partner expectations · Partnership session · Partnership: the blind spot of business · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
How can you stay fit without a gym and without losing time?
The author trains at home with kettlebells, which help keep strength, flexibility and endurance and counter age-related loss of muscle mass. Time is his most expensive resource, so during workouts he listens to podcasts and audiobooks.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Can a partnership be built on the principle of service?
The author carries servant leadership over to co-owners: each helps strengthen the other's strengths. He leans on data that a manager affects mental health as much as a spouse, and suggests one test question to a partner: how can I help you improve your results?
Original: LinkedIn
What do partners in post-Soviet countries agree on?
Most often shares and profit (36%), roles (32%) and strategy (22%), and only 27% of partnerships get through their life cycle without major conflicts. For agreeing on their own, the author compiled 20 questions in four groups.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Conscious partnership · Equity split between partners · Partnership session · Tools and services
Why do people really enter a partnership?
Beyond economics the author names four motives: a need for stimulation, for structuring time, for closeness, and nostalgia. When partners play different games conflict is bound to follow, so each should recognise their own motive and say it aloud.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Tools and services · Why people go into partnership
Is it worth signing a partnership agreement?
An ironic "no" built on five arguments: flexibility, savings, trust, easy dispute resolution and avoiding awkward questions. The anchor figure: 66% of partners have no agreements at all, written or spoken.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
How do you know that this person is your partner?
Twenty questions for a candidate and for yourself: what binds us, what do I lack, what does my trust rest on, what happens if our paths part. The list ends by asking who they are: a match, a coal or water.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Why people go into partnership
What is trust between partners made of?
A partnership is 100% relationships and relationships are 100% trust, and the author boils trust down to twelve everyday acts: arrive on time, tell the truth, keep promises, ask for feedback, respect boundaries. Trust is not built in a day.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Trust between partners
Why do broken expectations and surprise breed partner conflicts?
Conflict builds when expectations are broken and news arrives suddenly. In a nightclub case, a co-owner in charge of a delayed renovation announces a holiday three days ahead, and both sides have a logic of their own; a session and an agreement defused it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Partnership session · Tools and services
Why doesn't an equal split of shares between co-founders work?
The author holds that 99% of co-founders split shares equally and get it wrong, because an equal split follows no rule. Each brings three kinds of capital, human, economic and social, and weighs them differently, so shares have to be calculated.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners · Tools and services · Trust between partners
Where does Ukraine rank by founders of unicorns?
By absolute count, 12 founders, Ukraine ranks 10th, and per million inhabitants, 0.32 founders, it ranks 6th. The author calculated this from a Stanford GSB study, in which almost half of unicorn founders were born outside the US.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
How does a partner's spouse affect decisions in a shared business?
You stop talking to your partner and start talking to a projection of the conversations at home about you, with the spouse competing through the partner. The author reads this as a signal to agree and put it on paper at once.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team
What do co-founders need to agree on before they start?
The author prepared a 16-page partnership agreement template with 18 sections: roles, equity split, vesting, IP, compensation, exit, death or incapacity, disputes, governing law. His starting point is that co-founders rarely know what to discuss.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners · Partnership agreement · Tools and services
Can partners agree on a day off in the middle of the week?
The author first met such an arrangement in 2018: one co-owner insisted on a four-day week with Wednesday off, and the other, after trying it, agreed the results were better. He advises agreeing on this rhythm in advance and writing it into the partnership agreement.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
What experience did unicorn founders have before founding the company?
A Stanford GSB analysis of 2,507 founders of venture-backed US unicorns found that 22% had founded companies before, 19% were vice presidents or directors, 13% worked in technical roles and 10% were CEOs. The author advises choosing partners with such a background.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Co-founders through an investor's eyes · Ideas from adjacent fields
Why could the partners not merge even though they saw the benefit?
The third participant would not compromise: he grew up an only child with no experience of sharing or settling. The merger fell through, which the author sees as a good outcome; he says that in 20% of cases partners decide after a session not to go into business together.
Original: LinkedIn
What should partners do when their relationship hits a crisis?
Breaking up is an extreme exit and usually far from optimal. A crisis means the old rules no longer work: boundaries and expectations have to be redefined and recorded, and with skilled negotiation the new agreement works better than the old one.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Conscious partnership · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Why do partners have no written agreements, and what does it cost them?
In 90% of cases a partnership rests on trust with nothing in writing: no split of responsibility or losses, no exit scenario, no rules for bad faith, no dispute mechanism. The author offers six steps and a step-by-step Partner Journey Map.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership session · Tools and services
What positions do founders hold in unicorn companies?
According to Stanford GSB data (Ilya Strebulaev, 2024) on 1,110 companies, 34% of founders are CEOs, 16% each chair the board or are vice presidents, 13% are CTOs, 12% presidents and 4% COOs. The study found 198 unique job titles.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Data and research
How many monitors does work actually take?
The author jokingly traces his path from three monitors in 2012 to six after buying 4K screens, then back to four: a central one, one above it and two vertical side screens. Multitasking is handled by moving the eyes, not by switching windows.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What does The Shawshank Redemption teach about partnership?
Andy and Red's alliance rests on trust, mutual help and shared goals: Andy brings the ideas and the plan, Red helps him adapt and believes in the plan. Such a partnership, the author says, can pull people out of the deepest pits.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
What makes up the formula for success in a partnership?
Three parts: the idea, the execution and the partnership agreement. Without the agreement the result is chaos, without execution procrastination, without the idea routine; success appears when all three work together.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why does the author prefer to work with partners in person?
Most communication today happens online, but the author prefers working in person, even when it means a long journey.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Why put a partnership deal on paper if lawyers exist?
A partnership agreement is the outcome of a partnership session and can serve as the brief for lawyers drafting a shareholders agreement. Far from everything can be formalised legally, and it is often the only document recording that the partners agreed.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why do Ukrainian owners not give hired directors a stake?
Only 2% of directors hold a small stake, and the share of founder-directors rose from 64% in 2021 to 72.7% in 2024. The author sees weak management motivation here and names the option as an alternative: not a stake, but a path to one.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners · Forming a partner team · Turning a manager into a partner
Why are bronze medallists happier than silver medallists?
In Richard Wiseman's study The Luck Factor, bronze medallists think they could have won nothing, while silver medallists think they could have taken gold. Psychologists call this ability to imagine what might have happened counterfactual thinking.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
How can a two-partner exit dispute be settled in one evening?
The author's mediation terms: three separate rooms, no time limit, the parties' usual comfort, no alcohol, unlimited food. After interviews and a joint session, the parties wrote out by hand, at 1 a.m., an agreement with the sum, payment schedule and deferred terms.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Conflicts between partners · Tools and services
What does The Grand Budapest Hotel say about business relationships?
As soon as the partner-heroes had a plan for a shared future, they set out the terms, drew up a partnership agreement and signed it; their success rests on faith in what was agreed. The author calls this a lost culture of business relations.
Original: LinkedIn
How can partners keep disappointment from wrecking the relationship?
Through communication, meaning systematic mutual immersion in context, and through cooperation: own what you control and bring the rest to joint discussion. The closer expectations are to reality, the lower the potential for disappointment.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership
Why is an appeal to authority not an argument in a dispute?
Even a recognised expert's opinion must be backed by facts, logic or evidence: a person's status does not make their words correct. Such an appeal is a logical fallacy, argumentum ad verecundiam, and a dispute should turn on the substance of the arguments.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields
Where does disappointment between business partners come from?
From expectations colliding with reality: the company lacks resources for one partner's project, there is no profit for the dividends expected, a partner is moved to a new direction. So partners need to identify and soften disappointment and manage it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partner expectations
Why must partners manage disappointment as well as expectations?
Disappointment is expectation minus reality: it breeds resentment and anger and sets off the four horsemen that wreck relationships: contempt, criticism, stonewalling and threats. The quality of a partnership depends on managing both expectations and disappointment.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership
What did a food producer and an investor agree on at a partnership session?
Starting equity of 35/65, moving to 50/50 after three consecutive months of operating profit, follow-on investment terms, and joint decisions on goals, share sales, investment and new markets. Heirs receive the value of the share, not a say in management.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Equity split between partners · Partnership session · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
What should co-founders do if they dare not set their boundaries?
A short note for co-founders who dare not define their own boundaries or put hard questions to a partner. The author offers help with how to do it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Tools and services
Why do co-founders quarrel, and how do clear expectations prevent it?
The author holds that co-founders quarrel because they cannot manage disappointment and satisfaction. His model of clear expectations is Churchill's speech of 13 May 1940: no promises or abstractions, so any result better than expected counts as a win.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Partner expectations · Partnership session
Why must a partnership proposal be written for a specific reader?
In the film Henry Fool the same lines of a poem move one listener to tears and outrage another. So the proposal to a partner, a part of the business plan, needs a portrait of that partner, so that it reaches the right hands.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
How can a founder talk to an audience and reach business goals?
An announcement of a talk with a guest about a founder's personal brand: how to hold a dialogue with the audience and achieve business goals through it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Talks and interviews
What lies behind the phrase "I am in charge of logistics"?
Nothing: the phrase seems clear, the listener agrees and moves on. Written agreements guard against such generalities, because once partners have to put it on paper they stop accepting wording that says nothing.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
Why do oral agreements fail once a partner needs nothing more from the other?
Two people launched a project, discussed terms orally and wrote nothing down; once it earned hundreds of thousands, the one in control called the other's investment a loan. The session and agreement have to happen while the partner still wants the cooperation.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Equity split between partners
How does the Thomas theorem explain conflicts between partners?
If people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences: when partners' perceptions diverge, each acts in a reality of their own and turns defensive. Regular structured dialogue, such as a partnership session, is the hygiene of a partnership.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Which phrase shows that a partnership is under threat?
"We agreed on everything at the start": it means there are no real agreements that anyone is ready to keep. Agreements should be a product with an expiry date: renewed at least yearly, covering life scenarios, and revised as often as needed.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership
What does the film Twelve Monkeys say about a partner's "crazy ideas"?
The film's hero, whom the psychiatrists take for a patient, is telling the plain truth about the future. The author suggests not judging too harshly a partner who arrives with yet another crazy idea: he may simply have come from the future.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: When partners see different realities · Ideas from adjacent fields
Why ask partners at a partnership session how they want things to be?
Few partners can say how they want things to be, yet all can say how they do not; without the first answer there is no basis for cooperation. The author opens a session with it, so expectations are described early and most conflicts avoided.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session
How should partners agree on the balance between work and personal life?
In a separate section of the partnership agreement: working hours, reply times, total vacation and the order of vacations. For example, 50 hours a week for the first six months, a reply within two hours, 6 weeks of vacation a year.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement · The hero partner and overwork
Can you take a partnership for a test drive before entering it?
Yes: the 1993 experiment by Ambady and Rosenthal showed that we judge a person within minutes and hold on to that first impression. A trial period of joint work tests compatibility, competence, reliability and financial discipline.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the film about Facebook's creation say about partnership?
The story of Facebook shows how ideas, personal ambition and working at the limit of endurance turn into a global project. Partnerships and agreements between the founders are key elements of the plot.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
How could Zuckerberg have answered a congressman's manipulative question?
The question "Do you want to apologise to the families?" leaves no good answer: refusing looks like indifference, apologising like admitting guilt. The author suggests silently standing up and leaving, then stating the position live an hour later, free of pressure.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What does the author say about partnership on the podcast?
A recorded conversation about business partnership for the SaaS Founders podcast; the video is available via the link.
Topics: Talks and interviews
What does a business pay for not having a signed partnership agreement?
An investor with resources to spare does not put them into the shared business because he distrusts the managing partner: nothing was agreed at the start, and there are no reports. By his estimate the business could be three times bigger.
Original: LinkedIn
What must a partnership not be built from if it is to take off?
Not from oral agreements and formulas like "it goes without saying", "we'll sort it out when a problem comes" or "decent people will agree". Such a partnership will not take off; the author counts the ability to avoid building this way as a superpower.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership
Where does the move from C-level manager to partner of the owner begin?
With stating your own goals: why you want an equity stake rather than a bigger bonus. The next steps are to show unique value, find ways to grow the pie, review results with the owner, scale what works and strengthen trust.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team · Turning a manager into a partner
What is the danger of a secretive partner you trust unconditionally?
A classic about financial machinations and ambitious brokers reveals the dark side of economic success, which greed and the secrecy of a business partner you trust unconditionally can lead to.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Which five mistakes did the partners make in the folk tale The Turnip?
They did no planning, had uniform competences, named no coordinator, undervalued the smallest member (the mouse was called last) and never discussed scenarios. Regular partnership sessions are the place for such talks.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why draw a portrait of the ideal partner before entering a partnership?
A portrait helps to assess your own abilities and needs soberly and to see what a partner could make up for. Partnerships usually grow out of friendship, family or work, and no more than 5% of businesspeople look for a partner deliberately.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields · Why people go into partnership
Has there become too much AI in the information space?
While reading a text the author stumbled twice on the name AI-fred and remarks, jokingly, that there is now a great deal of AI in the information space.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Why plan scenarios if you cannot foresee everything?
"Unknown unknowns" cannot be foreseen, but there are "known unknowns", like toilet paper running out: they need no guessing, only an earlier agreement and a stock in reserve. This is how the author won over a sceptical partner.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Who in a partnership should make the decisions?
The one who will later have to fix the mistakes. This is the author's formula for the most emotional block of a partnership session: who decides, how, why that way and for how long.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session
Which five habits are sure to break a partnership apart?
Interrupting the partner, forgetting promises, taking company money without questions, taking time off without warning and sorting out disputes in front of the staff. The advice is given ironically, in reverse.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners
What does the illusion of self-organising partnerships hide?
Partners living in this illusion often fail to notice a conflict or a break-up coming. Hiding behind fears, intuition and an inner culture, they try to make the obvious invisible.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership: the blind spot of business
What does the film about Ray Kroc and McDonald's teach?
A biopic about Ray Kroc, who made McDonald's a globally recognised brand, teaches persistence and aggressive growth, and shows how important it is to find the right business partners.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why is postponing a partnership session also a decision?
Underestimating inaction: "later" looks like a choice without consequences, yet it leads to a conversation under stress when conflict is already unavoidable. Better to hold the session with a specialist who is not emotionally involved.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session
What do concrete, measurable clauses of a partnership agreement look like?
Five sample clauses: hiring relatives above a $1,500 salary only with both partners’ consent, partner pay as the average of five matching résumés, 50 days of leave taken in turn, dividends after $1.5 million turnover, and a replacement for a departing partner.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
How does a false dichotomy help dismiss an inconvenient argument?
It is the straw-man fallacy: the other side’s position is replaced by an extreme, absurd alternative while all other options are ignored. The author shows three forms in business dialogue: opposite swapped for contradiction, extreme conclusions and emotional manipulation.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields
Why is it better to agree with partners before a conflict?
Time spent protecting a business is unavoidable: on delicate talks before a conflict, or on courts and lawyers during one. An entrepreneur recalls partners spending a year and a half on 14 questions to write an “honour agreement” that later kept him in his own role.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
What does the film about inventor Joy Mangano say about partnership?
A woman inventor built a successful business despite every difficulty. The film shows how motivation and perseverance overcome obstacles and makes plain how much negotiation skills and building partnerships matter.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Which three kinds of events should partners discuss in advance?
Per Noam Wasserman: the known, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. The first go into the agreement, the second get scenario planning, and the third need an independent outside party and shared principles and values.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
What ritual helps partners stop talking shop outside work?
Spouses who co-own a business used a non-verbal sign: a vase in the hallway turned to the wall means no talk about work. A rival club’s flag in the office worked the same way for business partners, far better than the phrase “we need to talk”.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners
What is a conscious partnership?
A union in which each partner knows why a given rule exists and why they are in this partnership. The unconscious kind shows in phrases like “it just turned out that way” and charters downloaded from somewhere; conscious partners agree how to part in advance.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership
How do you get through to a partner who resists?
Sometimes a partner will not move and pushes back against every attempt to change things. The author holds that the power of intention and suitable approaches can at least get the partner to start listening.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Managing partner relationships
What does the 2008 crisis film say about the right people at the right time?
A film based on real events: a few financial analysts foresaw the market crash and chose to profit from it. It shows how important it is to find the right people at the right time and see opportunity where others see only problems.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
How can partners agree in advance on how they will clash?
The author offers a six-rule protocol for “we disagree, what do we do”: give arguments, do not interrupt, rely on facts rather than emotion, argue rested, probe the partner’s position, and decide nothing mid-dispute but return a day or two later.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners
What did partners settle when everyone and no one was in charge of finances?
A business run by three relatives and a close outsider appointed director had no shared strategy and erratic dividends. The session fixed a dividend policy, deadlines for strategy talks, shares, how partners present themselves and the decisions needing a “yes” from all four.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session · Turning a manager into a partner
What do marriage contract and will statistics say about partnership agreements?
There are no figures on partnership agreements, so the author uses analogues: in the first half of 2024 marriages fell 15% while marriage contracts rose 33% (5.2% of marriages). Wills rose 16.2%: people write precise agreements down only when facing death.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Why does the author not share real cases and client references?
Work on partner relationships is covered by NDA, so real examples and references cannot be given. A public comment received after cases were worked through live with a group is all the more welcome.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Tools and services
Why do people refuse to take a helicopter view?
Once you learn what surrounds you, you can no longer ignore it, so many fear the height and the truth, like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. Hence flat-earthers using GPS and businessmen forming partnerships without a partnership agreement.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership
What does the film about Billy Beane say about building a team?
Baseball manager Billy Beane changes how he builds a team after meeting Yale graduate Peter Brand and his mathematical model. Together they lead the team to success and a so-called “eternal” record in the American league.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Should a conflict with a partner be settled by chat or in person?
The author gives an unconditional rule: in any conflict with a partner, do not chat, meet and talk. The rule comes without caveats or examples.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners
Why is it so hard for partners to start a talk about built-up discontent?
Such a talk may demand hard decisions, time and energy, and in the worst case a split. Delay is costly: clients and staff leave and the team suffers; the author proposes a partnership audit built on one-to-one interviews with each co-owner.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session · Tools and services
What insights did the author take from a partnership session outdoors?
A joking list of five “rules”, from never holding a session with naked people of different sexes to hoping all participants are alive, at least at the start. The joke plays on confusion with family constellations; the author closes by asking readers for tips.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session
What does the film about Howard Hughes say about business and partnership?
The biography of an aviator and entrepreneur who became a legend through his passion for innovation. The film shows how the pursuit of perfection and business can overcome any obstacle and touches deeply on business and personal partnerships.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
How does the Thomas theorem explain rifts between partners?
If people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences: one partner may read the other’s harmless act as a threat and start defending. Regular, structured dialogue, ideally a partnership session, keeps misunderstandings and discontent from piling up.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership session · When partners see different realities
Why is scenario planning a safer bet than relying on luck?
Crediting others’ success to luck means giving up agency and any learning from mistakes. A scenario played out in advance removes negotiation in a crisis: Chicago imposed quarantine earlier while New York missed its moment. Luck wins once; a system wins repeatedly.
Original: Site blog · LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
What happened to an investor who had no written agreement?
When the product made millions, the specialist partner decided he could have managed without the investor and proposed simply returning the money. Alignment and an agreement must come while you are still of value to the partner: expertise, money, connections or sales.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership session · Trust between partners · Why people go into partnership
What is your favorite way to recover quickly?
A short question to readers: everyone has their own way of recovering quickly, and the author asks for their favorite.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Can the break-up of a partnership benefit a whole industry?
The brothers Adi and Rudi began as partners, but accumulated disagreements split them, and each founded a major sports brand: Adidas and Puma. The film shows how clashing ambitions and competition can drive an entire industry forward.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners
What does “I am responsible for logistics” actually mean?
On its own the phrase means nothing: it sounds clear, so the listener agrees and moves on. A written partnership agreement guards against such vague statements, because partners writing it down avoid empty phrases themselves.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement
What did the author cover at the workshop for the business community The Club?
A workshop on business partnership that the author gave by invitation to the members of the business community The Club.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Talks and interviews
How do you resolve a conflict with the FAVER technique from Stanford?
Five first-person steps: name your emotions, ask yourself “what” triggered them, assume the other person means no harm, discuss the facts with I-statements, and part without hostility. The technique is taught at Stanford Medical School.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields · When partners see different realities
How different can partners be and still work together?
Very different: partners can differ significantly from each other, the main thing is that they “look in the same direction”.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Can an agreement on a napkin last to the end of a partnership?
It can, if real actions reinforce it again and again: in the film “Gold”, agreements made on a napkin were fulfilled to the end. The real-life plot rests on unconditional belief in the business, dedication and trust between the partners.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement · Trust between partners
Which two scenarios should partners be ready for in advance?
Failure and “carnival”, meaning runaway success. For failure, agree in advance in what proportion partners add money and at what indicators to close the project; for success, how each partner can be sure he will not be squeezed out.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
How can a top manager prepare to ask for a stake in the business?
Sooner or later a top manager has to ask for a stake in the business he runs, and an outside view helps. The author prepares the negotiation strategy for such talks and has put together a guide for preparing on your own.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Tools and services · Turning a manager into a partner
How do you recover after an extremely demanding working week?
A short personal note: water at +2 °C as an extreme recovery after an extreme working week.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
Why does a partnership rarely turn out the way it was imagined?
Every partnership starts as a mental image, and that image is only preliminary: once partners move to implementation, things often do not go as imagined. How to make the partnership bear fruit is covered at the linked page.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team · When partners see different realities
When should you take someone on as a partner, and when is it better not to?
If a partnership can be avoided, it should be: first hire the person, get consulting from them, ask them to mentor you, find someone else with the same resources, or rethink your model. If none of that works, a partnership taken on consciously will be stronger.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
Is an agreement on a napkin enough to consider the matter settled?
No: three co-owners believed they had agreed, but their points, “the majority decides”, “until things are normal” and “no nonsense”, left open who counts as the majority of three and normal for whom. At the partnership session everything was spelled out.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement · Partnership session · When partners see different realities
Why are friendship, enthusiasm and trust not enough for a lasting partnership?
The image of the partnership a person brings into the group differs from reality, and that tension has to be resolved through negotiation and detailed agreements in the form of a partnership agreement. Groups without them survive more by luck than by skill.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Forming a partner team · When partners see different realities
Why does friendship between founders not prevent conflict over roles and money?
Wozniak and Jobs, the co-founders of Apple, could not discuss roles and compensation, and these issues stayed unresolved throughout their work together. Wasserman, in “The Founder’s Dilemmas”, notes that when co-founders avoid pressing topics, internal tension builds up.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Forming a partner team · When partners see different realities
Which uncomfortable questions should you ask partners before you start?
The ones our culture avoids so as not to “scare off” the venture: how often one can take a vacation, whose departure would end the business, what happens to the knowledge base on parting. Without them, agreements stay flat, like a stage character without a thousand questions.
Original: LinkedIn
Why do an ex-corporate executive and a founder read events differently?
Each has a different idea of what is appropriate and a different way of approaching tasks, so partners perceive events differently, weigh them differently and assess them differently. This breeds disagreement; the author covers the roots of the problem at the link.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Turning a manager into a partner · When partners see different realities
What should a partner be like, according to Arkady Moreynis?
Disagree on about half of the issues at the start, share the same level of ambition and learn at the same pace. The author retells this list, notes that it is incomplete, and invites readers to add to it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
How can partners synchronise their pictures of the world when these diverge?
The divergence itself is not the problem: the problem is maladaptation, when the gap between reality and private notions of it grows too large. A partnership session with a facilitator synchronises the partners, and its result is a partnership agreement.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Forming a partner team · Partnership agreement · Partnership session · When partners see different realities
Who does a professional work with?
With professionals: the author holds that being a professional means working with professionals, and names a specific agency as one of them.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Personal notes
What should partners do if one of them drops out after a personal tragedy?
Agree on a scenario in advance. Partners come up with different solutions: a psychologist paid by the company, a long leave with agreements preserved, a mandatory month away from the business, or an open discussion of adequacy and satisfaction with the work.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Conflicts between partners · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
What if one partner carries the suitcase and the money is split evenly?
In a joke about two friends splitting money fifty-fifty, the one who carries the suitcase eventually falls into depression: the effort is unequal, the share is equal. The author advises defining and fixing each side’s position in the partnership.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Equity split between partners · When partners see different realities
Why is admitting what you do not know the first step to professionalism?
A fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over and blocks development. As Carol Dweck cites it, NASA rejects candidates with spotless records and prefers those who failed significantly and recovered.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields
Why is formalising partnership agreements linked to stress?
People are often significant irritants to each other, so the importance of formalised partnership agreements for co-owners is hard to overestimate. The body’s response algorithm to irritants is covered in the linked article.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Why does the lack of an agreement keep co-owners in constant anxiety?
One person is a super-stimulus to another: the reticular formation wakes the body in hundredths of a second and cortisol readies it to fight or flee. Without formalised agreements a partner remains a source of threat, and the response stays on for years.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Whom to pick as a partner: a solid average performer or a flamboyant founder?
Candidate A is successful but has neither extraordinary achievements nor significant failures; candidate B has two bankruptcies, three successful ventures, connections and status. B looks better at first glance, but the author says choosing him is most likely a mistake.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner
How can partners manage disappointment in a business partnership?
Disappointment is expectation minus reality, so the closer expectations are to reality, the weaker it is. The main tool is systematic communication: partners immersing each other in the context, so that disappointment does not grow into resentment, anger and a broken bond.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership
What are the five different kinds of goals partners can share?
Similar, identical, common, joint and unified goals are not synonyms: they run from a close vision of the result to a full merging of effort. Partners find out which kind they really have most easily in regular partnership sessions; the author illustrates it with buying cars.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Conscious partnership · Partnership session
Why is a flamboyant entrepreneur a risky choice of partner?
We tend to credit more potential to someone who talks a lot, sounds confident and is always busy, and we miss the huge swings of his career. A solid, crisis-free middle performer is the safer bet, and a partner profile drawn up before joining helps to judge the fit.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Choosing a business partner
What happens to a business if one of the partners suddenly dies?
Without a partnership agreement the remaining co-owners cannot prove what was settled: after the director died, over half of receivables and payables were in cash, and the documents and money access were with him. Write down scenarios for the "unforeseen" in advance.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Are joint, common and unified goals really the same thing?
No: similar goals share a direction, common goals matter to everyone, joint goals are reached by combined effort, and unified goals merge interests into one. The author shows each type with a car-buying example; regular partnership sessions help tell them apart.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Forming a partner team · When partners see different realities
Can partners prepare in advance for the sudden death of a co-owner?
Yes: scenarios for "unforeseen" events should be discussed and put on paper, with an independent expert if experience is lacking. In the case described, four co-owners without an agreement had no proof of settlements, and the company's life changed in a single day.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partnership agreement · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out · Trust between partners
How can partners reduce the potential for disappointment?
By systematically bringing each other into the context: the closer expectations are to reality, the less disappointment. Each partner owns what they control and brings the rest to joint discussion, so the disappointment is aimed at the situation, not at a partner.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership
How does disappointment build up in a partnership?
A partner hides the real state of affairs to spare the other, creates an illusion of control, or promises more than they can deliver. Meeting reality brings shock and undermines trust, even when it all began with good intentions.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Trust between partners
What does Churchill's 1940 speech teach about managing expectations?
The speech about "blood, toil, tears and sweat" set expectations without illusions: any outcome better than promised is a victory, and a worse turn is understandable and foreseeable. The author contrasts it with today's politicians, who inflate expectations.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Partner expectations
Which business situations inevitably disappoint partners?
Limited resources, client demands and the market create situations beyond partners' control: no funds for one partner's project, no full dividends, changed roles, cut funding for a business line. Partners need to be able to identify and soften this disappointment.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership
What is the formula for disappointment?
Disappointment arises where there is expectation and anticipation of victory, but poor awareness of the actual situation and no ability to control it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership
What is disappointment made of?
Disappointment is the negative result of the operation "expectation minus reality". Psychology, sociology, management and partnership theory all study expectations, but life inevitably confronts them with reality, and unmet expectations lead to disappointment.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Partner expectations
How can disappointment be described mathematically?
Disappointment is the negative result of a subtraction: expectation minus reality. To manage it, one has to understand how it arises.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Partner expectations
Why is disappointment dangerous for a business partnership?
Disappointment breeds resentment, anger or despair and sets off the "Four Horsemen" that destroy relationships: contempt, criticism, stonewalling and threats. Partners therefore need to know its causes and manage it, not only expectations.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Ideas from adjacent fields
How much does trust determine economic success?
In Yann Algan's research, about 45% of the variation in per-capita income is explained by the effect of trust. Trust in business rests on contracts, and for co-owners on a partnership agreement worked out in a partnership session.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · Partnership session · Trust between partners
Can the effect of trust on national wealth be measured?
Yes: using General Social Survey data, Yann Algan estimated that trust explains about 45% of the variation in per-capita income. For co-owners, trust rests on a partnership agreement discussed against an exhaustive list of issues.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership agreement · Trust between partners
What new venture is the author starting?
The author announces a new position as Founder at Cheremisin The Partnership Launcher.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: The author's own partnerships
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