Business Partners

[buckmajor]

Hi there

I just realized something and wanted to try it out.

1. How do you go about finding a business partner in the same industry? What's the secret to finding the right business partner e.g. how would you know if both party will benefit?
2. Who would split profits, etc?
3. Do you need to set up a written contract? What if both businesses are in different countries and wanted to do business online e.g. hosting company (US) and SEO company(IND)?

Anyone done this in their line of business?
Your comment is important to me.

Many thanks in advance
CHEERS

 

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[AJGlobal]

Hi there

I just realized something and wanted to try it out.

1. How do you go about finding a business partner in the same industry? What's the secret to finding the right business partner e.g. how would you know if both party will benefit?
2. Who would split profits, etc?
3. Do you need to set up a written contract? What if both businesses are in different countries and wanted to do business online e.g. hosting company (US) and SEO company(IND)?

Anyone done this in their line of business?
Your comment is important to me.

Many thanks in advance


CHEERS

I have had the same business partner for 13 years. However my situation is unique as we've known each other since high school and share a lot of the same views. We also worked as separate entities in the same business before we became partners.

1. I'm going to answer your 1st question with a question. Why are you looking for a business partner ?

2. We split everything 50/50

3. In my case we still have our original companies but when we started together we created a new company and funnel everything into that corp. Reason being we didn't want to throw away our websites and phone numbers from prior years that helped get us to where we were at the point. As far as contracts go we have a few in place but it was due to us buying property or other items that were not directly related to the business and wasn't in both of our names. The contracts bond whatever it is we own to both of us regardless of who's name its in.

 

[buckmajor]

Thanks.

1. I was only looking for a business partner to offload some of my services, so I can manage projects instead of doing everything like job (major changes for me lol). Thought I'll see if this works. I notice some websites got business partners in different areas but this has never crossed my mind back then. Unless, there is a good enough reason not to do it, then will re-plan.

But I got something to work on for the mean time, so hopefully by then, a business partner will make sense.

 

[AJGlobal]

Why don't you hire someone. Then your still in control of what you need done and can oversee it.

 

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[taichijedi]

Why don't you hire someone. Then your still in control of what you need done and can oversee it.

Or outsource some work using something like odesk? It might be better to outsource if they are non recurring tasks so you can avoid workers compensation insurance and other associated costs for the employee. If you have a high enough volume of work, and the tasks are repetitive enough that it would be counterproductive to need to keep hiring consultants, then hiring a bona fide employee would make more sense.

Providing you don't follow the same path as AJGlobal and form a seperate entity for the joint venture, you definitely WILL need contracts, especially if you are working internationally. You need to have provisions such as dispute resolution clauses, choice of forum and selection of law clauses (who's law would be applicable, US or IND), and other issues. AJ's situation is unique because of the longstanding close relationship with which he entered the joint venture; you would need to be far more careful and have significantly stronger protections.

If you find someone you want to partner up with, that's cool, but you seriously should talk to a lawyer before signing ANYTHING. International business can be particularly hard to navigate, with many variances one wouldn't think of normally. For instance, despite having signed the New York Convention whereby countries agree to recognize official decisions from other signatory states, India has a reputation for not enforcing judgment made by external courts. In other words, if things were to go south, you may not have any recourse. I am currently studying International Business with a double major in Legal Studies, and I have just had a course on this topic of international law. My prof (who is one hell of a savvy entrepreneur himself, so I respect what he had to say) regaled us with many tales of how international law turned on someone who didn't know what they were getting into.

I wish you the best with your endeavor, I am just trying to warn you to be careful and CYA. A $1000 lawyer bill looks cheap when you are staring at losing $150,000 over a contract discrepancy.

 

[buckmajor]

Or outsource some work using something like odesk? It might be better to outsource if they are non recurring tasks so you can avoid workers compensation insurance and other associated costs for the employee. If you have a high enough volume of work, and the tasks are repetitive enough that it would be counterproductive to need to keep hiring consultants, then hiring a bona fide employee would make more sense.

Providing you don't follow the same path as AJGlobal and form a seperate entity for the joint venture, you definitely WILL need contracts, especially if you are working internationally. You need to have provisions such as dispute resolution clauses, choice of forum and selection of law clauses (who's law would be applicable, US or IND), and other issues. AJ's situation is unique because of the longstanding close relationship with which he entered the joint venture; you would need to be far more careful and have significantly stronger protections.

If you find someone you want to partner up with, that's cool, but you seriously should talk to a lawyer before signing ANYTHING. International business can be particularly hard to navigate, with many variances one wouldn't think of normally. For instance, despite having signed the New York Convention whereby countries agree to recognize official decisions from other signatory states, India has a reputation for not enforcing judgment made by external courts. In other words, if things were to go south, you may not have any recourse. I am currently studying International Business with a double major in Legal Studies, and I have just had a course on this topic of international law. My prof (who is one hell of a savvy entrepreneur himself, so I respect what he had to say) regaled us with many tales of how international law turned on someone who didn't know what they were getting into.

I wish you the best with your endeavor, I am just trying to warn you to be careful and CYA. A $1000 lawyer bill looks cheap when you are staring at losing $150,000 over a contract discrepancy.

That hit the mark, thanks tai.

I think I won't put myself in a awkward position of disputes, lawyers, etc. Hiring someone is not a bad idea.

I work from home but do you think it is easier to work in an office and then hire staff from? Trying to see how this ties in. And obviously will need some amount of money to make this work, right?

 

[AJGlobal]

That hit the mark, thanks tai.

I think I won't put myself in a awkward position of disputes, lawyers, etc. Hiring someone is not a bad idea.

I work from home but do you think it is easier to work in an office and then hire staff from? Trying to see how this ties in. And obviously will need some amount of money to make this work, right?

Both my partner and I started out working from home. Eventually we both ended up moving into offices (before we became partners) because we had maxed out what we could do working alone from home. Slowly we hired who we needed to do the tasks that were holding us back from making more money. Once we joined, we centralized everything out of one office (all our admin) and he kept sales staff at the other. Our staff to this day is very small but everything they do is what we both did on our own during the building years of our businesses.

Start out small so you can manage whats being done. It will seem like more work at first because you will need to teach whoever you hire, but once you have someone you trust that can handle what you need done it will free up your time (which you can't buy more of) to do whatever else it is you want to do.

 

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[buckmajor]

Thanks AJ, that will give me some confident to continue from home until the time is right to hire someone.

 

[AJGlobal]

Thanks AJ, that will give me some confident to continue from home until the time is right to hire someone.

Stick with it, it takes time but its worth it. Today I rarely go into the office anymore and can work from just about anywhere as long as I have a computer and a internet connection. My GM and assistant manager keep things running smooth and back each other up. I check in every day and make sure there isn't anything they need and I have a full surveillance system of my office that I can view live from anywhere and it records up to 1 week of footage should I need to go back and look. I pay them well and pay all of their health benefits and give them nice x-mas bonuses every year and buy lunch for them a few times a week even if I'm not there. Sounds like a lot but its a small price to pay for the freedom that it has given me and they are truly happy when they come to work.

I also check in with them every now and then and make sure their personal lives are doing well and that they don't need anything more from me. 5 minutes of genuinely caring about them outside of the work place is vital IMO to keeping a healthy work place.

At our X-mas dinner this past year my assistant manager got up out of no where and in front of everyone said how grateful she was to have me as her boss and she appreciated everything I've done for her over the years and almost started crying.

Those are the kind of things that are priceless.