Back on the Career Track by Carol Fishman Cohen & Vivian Steir Rabin

Author:Carol Fishman Cohen & Vivian Steir Rabin [COHEN, CAROL FISHMAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BUS012000
ISBN: 9780446538053
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Find a Partner (or Some Other Support)

Sure, you can go it alone. Especially if you’re self-disciplined, organized, and optimistic. But most of the women with whom we spoke who had a partner swore by the arrangement. For one thing, working with a partner makes the venture more fun. Entrepreneurship can be very lonely. With a partner, you’ve got built-in camaraderie. But there are also powerful business reasons for joining forces with a partner, particularly for relaunchers. You can split the work, enabling both of you to spend more time with your kids, and you can serve as backup for each other, allowing you to take vacations with peace of mind. Most importantly, two heads are better than one. With a partner, you’ll have twice the network and, potentially, twice the resources. And you can bounce ideas off each other about how to handle problems or take advantage of opportunities.

Selecting the right partner is obviously critical. Look for someone with whom you’re compatible, but who’s not necessarily your best friend. You need someone whose intelligence, character, and judgment you respect. Also, make sure you have the same level of commitment about the business. Do you intend to spend every waking moment on this venture or are you going to be more low-key? You and your partner should be on the same wavelength in this regard. Ideally, your partner should have skills that complement, rather than duplicate, your own. For example, if you’re good at the big-picture stuff, make sure your partner is a stickler for detail. Or if your background is in finance, you might want to pair up with someone from the marketing world.

Whoever you choose, it’s a good idea to draw up a simple written agreement outlining the terms of the partnership, particularly how you’ll divide investment expenses and profits, how you can exit the partnership if you wish, or how you or your partner can buy each other out. Although a partnership agreement might remind you of a prenup—a document you don’t want to think about when you’re about to embark on your entrepreneurial honeymoon—better to address these issues now than later, when problems have already arisen.

Eileen, a former designer, partnered with a close friend to create a toddler-oriented toy company. But after a few months on the project together, Eileen discovered that their styles and attitudes clashed and felt that the partnership wasn’t working. “Tasha was obsessed with the business. She would call me constantly about new ideas and things we had to do. It got to the point where I felt like she was giving me orders. I didn’t want to work that way. We didn’t have any kind of agreement so I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. I told her I didn’t want to work on this with her anymore, but I’m not happy about the fact that she could take our ideas, most of which were my ideas, and still develop them with someone else. I don’t think she’ll do that. But I suppose she could.

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