Find a Business Partner

When I started Ushtara , in 2002, I started it as a Proprietary Concern. At the time, it seemed the best thing to do, because, I had complete independence to do anything I wanted. I was the lord and master.

But I realized after a while that the business could grow much faster if there were other people involved.
some of my reasons for feeling this way were;

a) Running a business is a multi-skill undertaking. Although a business owner needs to have a wide range of skills, from finance to product/service expertise to HR, there are times when you will need people with special expertise in some of these areas.

b) It is physically impossible to run a business single handed. It is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week job.

c) Brainstorming with competent people of varied specializations, brings out better ideas than you can generate, by yourself.

What most new business owners, when they want to bring in another person into the business, is to approach their closest friend, to become their business partner.

I decided to go a different route.

FIND A PARTNER AND MAKE HIM YOUR FRIEND
I decided that the business' and my own best interests would be served best if I could find a business partner, who had all the skills I lacked.

I met my business partner, Ajay Fernandes, in 2004. He is a perfect fit for me and for the business.
Soon after we found each other, we became very good friends in addition to being equal partners in the business. Together, we have grown as individuals, grown as a company and grown as friends over the course of almost a decade.

I feel fully confident that we will continue to be friends as well as business partners for the rest of our lives.

When I tell people this story, they tell me that I'm very lucky to have found a great business partner/friend.

I Agree.

But I don't think it's all down to luck. I followed a systematic process to find a business partner. And so can You.

ANALYSE YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS AS A BUSINESS OWNER
When I was looking for a business partner, I first had to look inside myself to find out what I lacked.
Have you ever played Tetris?

Well Business Associates are like that. Each of them has some some high points and some holes. The high points are like your strengths and the holes are like your weakness. When the right business partners meet, they compliment each other perfectly (they might have to re-orient themselves sometimes, again, just like Tetris).

When this happens, you and your business move to the next level.

Take this Business Owner Skill Set Quiz. It will help you analyze who you are, in terms of being a Business Owner.

Remember that your strengths and weaknesses change over time and so do your business partners. So you will have to carry out this analysis over and over, periodically over the course of your business career.

MAKE UP AN AD FOR YOUR IDEAL BUSINESS PARTNER
Now that you know who you are, you know who you are not.
Finding your ideal business partner just got one step easier.

Finding yourself a spouse, has never been  easier. Just write up an advertisement, describing the ideal person, personality, physical traits, ethnicity...
Then post this ad on any or all of a hundred different dating and matrimony sites and hey presto! specialized algorithms find your ideal life partner.

That might be a little optimisitic :), but the advantage of writing an advertisement is that it forces you to think about EXACTLY what you want.

Finding a business partner is similar to finding a spouse. With the same kind of close interactions and potential conflicts. This is why I recommend that you write out an ad for your ideal business partner.

Once you have made up the ad, tell EVERYBODY about it. Your friends, family and acquaintances. Put it up on Facebook and Linkedin. EVERYWHERE.

In the due course of time you will find your ideal business partner.

PARTNERS CONNECT ON MANY LEVELS
In addition to core business skills, the personalities of the business associates and the interaction of these personalities is critical to the success or failure of  a business.

You can never have enough of certain personality traits in a business, like tenacity and optimism. It is advisable that all the business associates have loads of these traits. If not, all of the associates should have these traits in the same measure. When these traits, that I call Aligned Personality Traits are very different in the associates,  conflict is frequent.

On the other hand another set of personality traits, the Opposed Personality Traits, work differently. These traits should occur in complementary pairs, for example, two business partners, both highly pragmatic, can ruin a business by being overly concerned about day to day realities.

Take the Business Owner Personality Quiz, to see what your business personality is like and what your partners should be like.

A STORY ABOUT SKILL SETS AND PERSONALITIES
In 2007, we bought another company called Nuetech CNC Machining Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The company was in a similar line to us and the selling price was low, so it made sense to buy the company.

The company was owned by 3 guys, who used to be peers at Hindustan Machine Tools. They had resigned their jobs to start the company.

Within 6 months of starting in business, they started squabbling. Within 2 years, the situation had become so bad because of their internal strife that business had come down to zero. So they decided to sell the business.

So intense were their hatred for each other that they couldn't even come together for the purpose of selling the company, and the sale had to brokered by a third party.

Why did this happen?

They had exactly the same skill set. They were all Engineers with a background in machine tools, from the same organization. None of them knew anything about other aspects of business like Finance or the Law.

They had opposing personalities where aligned personality traits are called for like tenacity and ability to learn.

They had similar personalities where opposed personality traits are called for like, pragmatism and attention to detail.


Their downfall was inevitable.

Till Next Time

Sunil