Start-up, or any other business beginning – is a hard under pressure work, very limited in time frame, so only highly professionally crew have chances to success. Therefore looking back to my personal experience, - I think it is safer to go into business with a work colleague than with a friend. Even you know what you're getting in to - starting a business with a mate may sound like a good idea, but some-time better is just stay friends and save yourself a lot of heartbreak.
I like to share with you excellent article with a lot of useful information packed in -
Starting up with a friend (What could possibly go wrong?) by Daniel Tenner.
* Make your agreements explicit so that you don’t break implicit promises
* Detail your agreements so that your promises are clear
* Don’t be afraid of discussing negative scenarios, so that you don’t add the stress of misunderstanding to already bad situations
* Write things down so you’ll remember
* Don’t make things work at all costs, so that you don’t spend the next years living with a deal that’s not acceptable to you
* Don’t assume things will get better with time, so you’re not surprised when they don’t
Making resume, I like to point - whether you going to start new venture or just some web-project/service, - make sure you have a mutually agreed upon, objectively measurable set of criteria for success. And most important point is to write everything down. Regularly measure yours, individual performance and the corporate performance against those criteria to avoid unexpected situations and surprises.
Any business idea, relation between friends, colleagues, clients etc, should be written down also to avoid misunderstanding in the future.
If only I'd read this article before I started my first business, I could have avoided many problems and a lot of stress. I hope someone else does find it useful in their own endeavors.
