Starting business with three of my friends

[Movere]

You know what, guys?
I decided to start a business with us three, they're my classmates, we're only 15-16 years old and also some of us are goddamn broke according to most well living countries standards, because we live in third country.
My sister, she's 14 years old started a business, maybe this business is not acceptable when it comes to CENTS, but it can be transformed with right effort, she had a budget od $10 and now after three months, she sold her first product and now she has a scalable business and regular profit.
I decided to start a similar dropshipping/e-commerce business with my friends and, we're worrying.
I am personally afraid of the idea of having profit with us three, if we'll make $30.000, then we'll split it to $10.000 to each of us, that means our business is gotta be very huge and growing, we all gotta be disciplined and you know?
I am afraid of our aspects, that all humankind had, it's greed, envy, hatred...
I am sure, that they're my real friends, but, what advice can you guys give us on maintaining our friendship, shall we end up creating our OWN businessess that are independent from each of us, and like...
My friend has a business, another friend has a business, I have a business and we have our fourth business, which is like... cooperative?
Please, give us some advices on sustaining productive business, relationships and etc.
Because our intentions are clear, only I read «The Millionaire Fastlane » and understand many, many self-improvement and business concepts from our group of three.

 

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[f.laengle]

You know what, guys?
I decided to start a business with us three, they're my classmates, we're only 15-16 years old and also some of us are goddamn broke according to most well living countries standards, because we live in third country.
My sister, she's 14 years old started a business, maybe this business is not acceptable when it comes to CENTS, but it can be transformed with right effort, she had a budget od $10 and now after three months, she sold her first product and now she has a scalable business and regular profit.
I decided to start a similar dropshipping/e-commerce business with my friends and, we're worrying.
I am personally afraid of the idea of having profit with us three, if we'll make $30.000, then we'll split it to $10.000 to each of us, that means our business is gotta be very huge and growing, we all gotta be disciplined and you know?
I am afraid of our aspects, that all humankind had, it's greed, envy, hatred...
I am sure, that they're my real friends, but, what advice can you guys give us on maintaining our friendship, shall we end up creating our OWN businessess that are independent from each of us, and like...
My friend has a business, another friend has a business, I have a business and we have our fourth business, which is like... cooperative?
Please, give us some advices on sustaining productive business, relationships and etc.
Because our intentions are clear, only I read «The Millionaire Fastlane » and understand many, many self-improvement and business concepts from our group of three.

Good day @Movere

Thank you for sharing your story. It's great that you want to start a business at that young age!
When I do business with friends we always make a contract. So everybody knows exactly what they are getting into. This way you don't have to worry about negotiating the way you split the money and so on later. It saves you a lot of trouble and usually maintains the friendship because you all agreed on something in the beginning. The important part is to do it before you make any money. When the money comes in friendships can tear apart.

I wish you all the best on your journey and your business! Keep us updated!

 

[Roli]

You know what, guys?
I decided to start a business with us three, they're my classmates, we're only 15-16 years old and also some of us are goddamn broke according to most well living countries standards, because we live in third country.
My sister, she's 14 years old started a business, maybe this business is not acceptable when it comes to CENTS, but it can be transformed with right effort, she had a budget od $10 and now after three months, she sold her first product and now she has a scalable business and regular profit.
I decided to start a similar dropshipping/e-commerce business with my friends and, we're worrying.
I am personally afraid of the idea of having profit with us three, if we'll make $30.000, then we'll split it to $10.000 to each of us, that means our business is gotta be very huge and growing, we all gotta be disciplined and you know?
I am afraid of our aspects, that all humankind had, it's greed, envy, hatred...
I am sure, that they're my real friends, but, what advice can you guys give us on maintaining our friendship, shall we end up creating our OWN businessess that are independent from each of us, and like...
My friend has a business, another friend has a business, I have a business and we have our fourth business, which is like... cooperative?
Please, give us some advices on sustaining productive business, relationships and etc.
Because our intentions are clear, only I read «The Millionaire Fastlane » and understand many, many self-improvement and business concepts from our group of three.

Before you start you need to clearly define what each of you are doing for the business. Maybe one person does marketing, another does sales, another gets new clients. Whatever the roles, you need to make sure they are clearly defined.

Also when looking at the roles, you need to define if they will change as the business grows. Sometimes a role is super important at the beginning (like design, website, etc.) but as the business matures, the importance of the role begins to wan. In that circumstance, you need to work out what the person will do after the initial flurry of activity. Will they take another role? Or perhaps they'll become a silent partner.

Once you've established this, you can talk about who is funding the business and how and when are those funds are to be paid back. Then simply write it all down in a contract.

Agree to be honest with each other and agree to keep your friendship strong. Business partners come and go, a good friend is for life.

Good luck!

 

[Movere]

Good day @Movere

Thank you for sharing your story. It's great that you want to start a business at that young age!
When I do business with friends we always make a contract. So everybody knows exactly what they are getting into. This way you don't have to worry about negotiating the way you split the money and so on later. It saves you a lot of trouble and usually maintains the friendship because you all agreed on something in the beginning. The important part is to do it before you make any money. When the money comes in friendships can tear apart.

I wish you all the best on your journey and your business! Keep us updated!

Yeah, exactly!
Thank you so much, sent this text to my friends, they totally agree
We made a contract, but not a real document, simply decided how much money each of will get in the future

 

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[Movere]

Before you start you need to clearly define what each of you are doing for the business. Maybe one person does marketing, another does sales, another gets new clients. Whatever the roles, you need to make sure they are clearly defined.

Also when looking at the roles, you need to define if they will change as the business grows. Sometimes a role is super important at the beginning (like design, website, etc.) but as the business matures, the importance of the role begins to wan. In that circumstance, you need to work out what the person will do after the initial flurry of activity. Will they take another role? Or perhaps they'll become a silent partner.

Once you've established this, you can talk about who is funding the business and how and when are those funds are to be paid back. Then simply write it all down in a contract.

Agree to be honest with each other and agree to keep your friendship strong. Business partners come and go, a good friend is for life.

Good luck!

Yeah, thank you so much!
We decided to install Trello and we created a board for the team-management and the tasks we gotta do, everything is set-up, we got the roles, one of my friends is coder, second one is beatmaker and tester, I'll personally focus on marketing, voiceovering, managing our pricing and etc.
So excited to do all the projects and tasks we decided to set-up, alright, gotta focus, will keep you all updated!
Ciao

 

[f.laengle]

Yeah, exactly!
Thank you so much, sent this text to my friends, they totally agree
We made a contract, but not a real document, simply decided how much money each of will get in the future

Great! Nice to hear that your friends all agreed
I would probably write it down and let all of you 4 sign it. Then everyone gets a copy of this contract. Contracts which are only vocal are theoretically valid but it's hard to remember everything. as you know people tend to forget a lot of stuff quite fast.
You can always make a new contract later on if you agree on something new. But like this you have a solid foundation for your business and friendship.

 

[Movere]

Great! Nice to hear that your friends all agreed
I would probably write it down and let all of you 4 sign it. Then everyone gets a copy of this contract. Contracts which are only vocal are theoretically valid but it's hard to remember everything. as you know people tend to forget a lot of stuff quite fast.
You can always make a new contract later on if you agree on something new. But like this you have a solid foundation for your business and friendship.

That's a cool idea!
I'll print a contract now, write it down and etc.
Then, copyphoto it, there are just 3 of us, including me, my english is a little bit bad, cause, I am not native speaker

 

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[Roli]

That's a cool idea!
I'll print a contract now, write it down and etc.
Then, copyphoto it, there are just 3 of us, including me, my english is a little bit bad, cause, I am not native speaker

Also, make sure your vision for the future of the business is aligned with all of your partners' visions. I've just read a thread on the Inside which really highlights how badly things can go if your partners have differing ideas for the future.

 

[Movere]

Also, make sure your vision for the future of the business is aligned with all of your partners' visions. I've just read a thread on the Inside which really highlights how badly things can go if your partners have differing ideas for the future.

Yeah! Today we'll have a meeting (web one) and discuss our vision of the future business relationships, and our project itself, we'll discuss a lot and do it regularly.
My friend's working on website design, he wants to create kinda freelance site for digital services, it can be transformed to dropservicing website though, so, a lot has to be discussed, agreed, disagreed, recently got the book «Unviolent Communication» it should and will help me in communicating with them
Thnx for the advice though!

 

[Movere]

Huge update, everybody!
We decided to split because we actually had no idea of what we were doing and also no budget for our business, the feeling that our mindset can be different and we can be not ready for such a move was the aura of our interactions, guess what happened?
Realizations after realizations, understood that the problem lies also in my interaction with people and family and also in my own psycho-trauma-belief shit and business and the way you do work actually reflects your mindset, after a dozens of hours of shadow process, meditation, belief change insights and system creation decided to go for a freelance on Fiverr and Upwork, then also focus on creating my own solo-dropshipping business system using Instagram account, read some "Ego is your enemy" and were hesitating to do updates and write about anything, but gotta be critical thinker and independent person and still write, write, write and believe in myself, though it can seem like a give-up, it never is give-up, simply a change of trajectory as MJ writes in his amazing book, focused so much on habits and created dozens of a winner business habits aswell mini consistency habits too.
Life is such a beautiful moment by moment experience. love it so much, if you have any advices please share them as well as your opinion everybody!

 

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[Roli]

Huge update, everybody!
We decided to split because we actually had no idea of what we were doing and also no budget for our business, the feeling that our mindset can be different and we can be not ready for such a move was the aura of our interactions, guess what happened?
Realizations after realizations, understood that the problem lies also in my interaction with people and family and also in my own psycho-trauma-belief shit and business and the way you do work actually reflects your mindset, after a dozens of hours of shadow process, meditation, belief change insights and system creation decided to go for a freelance on Fiverr and Upwork, then also focus on creating my own solo-dropshipping business system using Instagram account, read some "Ego is your enemy" and were hesitating to do updates and write about anything, but gotta be critical thinker and independent person and still write, write, write and believe in myself, though it can seem like a give-up, it never is give-up, simply a change of trajectory as MJ writes in his amazing book, focused so much on habits and created dozens of a winner business habits aswell mini consistency habits too.
Life is such a beautiful moment by moment experience. love it so much, if you have any advices please share them as well as your opinion everybody!

I'm happy for you, because even though I don't know you or your friends, it sounded like it would go wrong. You have saved yourself some friendships and you can now concentrate in investing in yourself.

Hopefully, this experience will one day inform you if/when you are looking for partnerships in the future.

Good luck and keep grinding!