Traits to consider in a business partner

 Today I’m going to talk about how to identify a business partner or a co-founder.

The first things first, starts with self-awareness. You might be thinking “why would I focus on self-awareness when I’m trying to identify the other person?” Well, you need to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Where do your natural talents and your interests, like things that you actually love doing, and the business needs, where is the intersection of those three things? Those are your strong suits and those are the areas where you should focus.

Now once you’ve been able to identify that, your strengths, and then also your weaknesses, one other thing that I recommend is to get external input. When I was trying to identify my core strengths and weaknesses, I sent anonymous surveys to my investors, former business partners, former clients, portfolio companies that I’ve invested in. That way people can give their honest and clear feedback on what I’m good at, and when I’m not good at and when I need work on so that I can be good at it. Take all of that past, present, future, you take what you’ve identified for yourself and paint a holistic picture of your strengths. And then you can say the business needs, and will always need, because you don’t want to solve for the immediate problem, you want to solve for what you’re going to need over the next decade. So the business needs a person that’s complimentary in X, Y, Z ways. It could be you’re a marketer and a visionary and you need somebody on finance and operations. Or it could be that you are, very technical and you need a product and a salesperson.

Sometimes you’ll find that this person isn’t already in your network. So you’ve identified, I need an operator who has this type of experience and they’re looking to build this type of vision. And that’s the other important part. They not only have to have the skill sets, but they also have to be aligned with your long-term vision and have the same values that you do.

So if you are looking for a person you’ve identified, you need one and you know what qualities this person needs to have. I would encourage you to start tweeting about it. To start writing about it. And also to start talking about it. Some people keep these things close to their chests. I don’t want to let other people know, or potential investors or business partners know, that I don’t have everything internally.

The universe cannot help you. The people in your community cannot help you. The ecosystem cannot help you if you don’t ask for help. Allow it to be explicit, and you would be surprised by the inbound you will get when you start identifying to people in your community. This is what I need help with. I’m looking for this type of person.

If you know anyone, please refer them. And those people will know other people who will know other people. The other search, that I found very effective is LinkedIn. And also sometimes when you’re looking for a position or you’re looking for a type of person, you might think, Oh, I need to find somebody who’s worked at an exactly the same type of company, doing exactly the same type of role.

That’s not true. You’re looking for core skillsets that can be dynamic and applied to different industries. So it may be that you’re building a FinTech startup and you’re looking for an operator, but you find somebody who worked in oil and gas and was an exceptional operator on a similar type of platform or catering to B2B clients. They just need to have relevant core skillsets and an interest to learn and also values and vision.

So for those of you who do have co-founders who do have successful long term business partners, what are some tips that you have for those that are starting to look? I’d love to see it in the comments.