Forming a partner team
What happens while a group of co-owners is still forming: the root problems of the first months, partnerships of more than two people, emergent partnerships that arose on their own. Team stories are examined, from the Wiz founders turning down 23 billion dollars to the bankruptcy of Lilium, along with the agreements needed at the start.
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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
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
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 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
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
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
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 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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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