I’ve had bad partner relationships before. Girlfriends, friendships, business relationships. Whatever.
The cause of most of the issues: we didn’t want the same things and/or didn’t have similar values.
So, before starting my last company, Hampton, I made sure my partner Joe and I had similar values, and goals, and were willing to live complementary lifestyles.
The exercise was simple: write where you want to be in the future and what you’re willing. (and unwilling) to do to get there.
Below are our answers. The italic text is the notes I wrote after the fact for this blog.
---- The document I sent to Joe starts now ----
Where we are:
I’d love if we could each map out what we want, how we want to get there so we make sure we’re cool entering into this partnership.
Just so we know what each person wants, what each person’s willing to do, and we wanna get there in the same way.
At this point, we’d been friends for years and angel-invested together.
What I want
Hid the net worth I want. I’ve had partners who don’t care about money. I do care. It can be a nightmare when you’re money-motivated and the other isn’t. Like a band member wanting to be Lady Gaga while the other wants to be like some no-name indie band. Both can rock, but I want to write hits.
I wanted it to be clear to Joe what my insecurities were. Being taken seriously as an entrepreneur (and not just being a content creator) was one of them.
This is why I don’t want to take VC. Entrepreneurship is my art. My self-expression. I can’t do what I want when taking into account outsider’s wishes. I’ve raised money before. And when I did, it was my duty to make an effort to give them a good return. I don’t want that duty anymore.
This has changed btw. I don’t want to own any real estate. Ha!
Ways I want to get there
Joe and I both hate scheduled meetings. We prefer impromptu hangouts.
What I’d want for this Hampton business
Frankly, I don’t care about money, revenue, profit. I care about growth and aggressively improving. And trying to be great for the sake of greatness. At times, that means scaling revenue, profit, or users. But often it’s growth in mindset, performance, whatever.
I built my previous company to sell. I had a 5 year time span. I don’t retreat that. But with my next company, I wanted a 10-50 year time horizon. Not only because I care about compounding, but because I want to make something I love so much that I don’t want to stop.
$100m is a nice round number that I made up.
I’m not a great investor. I want to learn how to invest properly.
This was important. Both Joe and I sold or stopped doing other projects so Hampton was #1.
What I want
Financially:
Company:
I wrote the following to Joe after I saw his answers:
Seems like we’re on the same page
Any points of conflict that need to be addressed, you think?
---- End of document ----
Joe and I discussed this stuff on the phone afterward. I was confident before we wrote this out that we had similar values as we founder dated the year before. But writing it out helped.
Now, we both may change. Maybe we’ll hate each other in the future. I hope not! But maybe.
But it was important for us to write this out and be intentional about what we each wanted and the price we were each willing to pay.
Hope this helps!