Choosing a business partner
How to choose a business partner and what to look at before the deal: motives, resources, decision style, willingness to answer direct questions. The author offers question lists, a profiler check and an honest conversation about whether a partnership is needed at all. The key criterion is not the candidate's charm but their ability to reach agreements.
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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
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
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 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
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
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 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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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 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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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