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I've had 2 and three person partnerships... One person tends to grab the thought-leadership and the others tend to follow (tho hopefully not so much that they

I've had 2 and three person partnerships... One person tends to grab the thought-leadership and the others tend to follow (tho hopefully not so much that they don't speak up with great ideas). I would advise having a buy-sell agreement that allows a graceful exit if one person wants out, but otherwise I'd agree that partner selection is 50% of the battle (and letting go of your own ego is the other 50%). For buy sell agreements, the best I've seen, simply stated, is this: At any time, partner A can make an offer to buy Partner B's stake for Value X (whatever they want to offer). The rub is that Partner B can decide to reverse the offer (buying Partner A's stake for Value X) and Partner A is obliged to sell. Hopefully you'll never need such an agreement, but it sucks to feel trapped in a business (or trapped with a partner who has turned into a lunatic or is no longer pulling his weight). So far, every partnership I've had has been an even one, and I've never had to exercise an buy-sell clause like that (knock on wood!).

nostrademons 19y ago
"One person tends to grab the thought-leadership and the others tend to follow" For us, it's actually been very even. Our visions for the final product seem very much in-sync, enough that I'll do a UI mockup on paper and he'll do a UI mockup on paper and they'll be essentially identical, modulo things like panel placement. It helps that I jumped on board because I could see myself as a user of the product, so I'm essentially in the demographic that he spent several months studying while coming up with the idea. Plus, we've read many of the same websites and articles (at least as far as the sector is concerned; we read different stuff for general startup knowledge), so we're coming from similar backgrounds.
zach 19y ago
Ah, the timeless "I cut, you choose" -- I'd heard it could be applied to this but I hadn't heard how it worked. Clever, thanks.

nostrademons 19y ago

"One person tends to grab the thought-leadership and the others tend to follow" For us, it's actually been very even. Our visions for the final product seem very much in-sync, enough that I'll do a UI mockup on paper and he'll do a UI mockup on paper and they'll be essentially identical, modulo things like panel placement. It helps that I jumped on board because I could see myself as a user of the product, so I'm essentially in the demographic that he spent several months studying while coming up with the idea. Plus, we've read many of the same websites and articles (at least as far as the sector is concerned; we read different stuff for general startup knowledge), so we're coming from similar backgrounds.

zach 19y ago

Ah, the timeless "I cut, you choose" -- I'd heard it could be applied to this but I hadn't heard how it worked. Clever, thanks.