One of the biggest business steps you’ll ever take is adding the second person to your one-person business. Especially if that second person is a partner, co-founder or investor, the difference can be like night and day.
After that, it’s never fully your business again.
This is a lot like the little girl with the curl on her forehead (when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid–an old English rhyme). When they work out well, teams make businesses. But opening up to that next person also means you’ll never make another decision by yourself. You’re part of the team. You’re a player.
In most cases it’s a difficult decision, but one based on fairly obvious questions: Do you want to grow the business? Are you willing to take the risk? How will you feel if you try and fail? Can you share the work, the decisions and the company?
There are rare cases of great one-person businesses. It happens. But usually growth takes people working in teams.
There’s paradox here: On one hand, you want to partner up with people different from you, whose skills fill your gaps and make the company broader. You want different skills and different backgrounds. On the other hand, it’s generally easier to get along with people similar to you. You’ll talk about “fit,” and think about things like working habits, style and compatibility.
Don’t think majority ownership eliminates potential problems, so that you stay in charge. It doesn’t. Minority owners have rights.
And don’t think making people employees instead of partners eliminates potential problems. You’ve started a community, and even though you’re signing all the checks, you’re not alone: You’re the leader of a community. Things have changed. If you don’t care about the other people, there’s no team. And once you care, you’re no longer making decisions alone.
I’m not saying that the one-person business is better. I am saying that the step of going from one to two is crucial.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 8:51 am and is filed under entrepreneurship, startup advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.One Response to “Crucial Business Step: Adding the Second Person”
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June 28th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Working as part of a team is completely different from working alone. But, as long as everyone knows what is expected and is working toward the same goal, it is essentially a great way to work.
Teams are so unique, but they can be so beneficial since there are usually different areas that one person is just better or more experienced than the other and you can pull off of each others strengths. I have worked with people who I have a lot in common with, and some that were completely different. Neither were better or worse, just different.
I have found whenever I work with someone else it’s best to remember that nobody on the team (at least in most cases) has telepathy and assumptions are not a good thing. Just remember to keep communication open and that nobody is perfect. After some time any team can find that right blend works, and everyone benefits.