Top 5 Qualities to Look for in a Person You Want to Start a Business With!
When starting a business by yourself you are going to face some long lonely nights working until 3am. It’s just all you and you have to sacrifice all of your life outside of work on a period of time. The angel investor and co-founder of Frontline Mind (https://www.frontlinemind.com); Mike Weeks recommend you to start a business with a partner, but only if you can find the right person with the right qualities. Here are the top qualities Mr. Weeks are looking for when choosing the right partner to start a business with:
1. Same Values
Choose someone who has the same values as you, for example; “same environmental ethics” or; “everyone that works for us will be payed way more than an average person.” Mr. Weeks explains that if you are not aligned with the same values as your partner, then it will create a lot of problem between you and your partner and your startup would most likely not become successful.
2. Different Skill Set Than Yours
Mr. Week’s currently has a business partner that he partnered with because they have different skill set. His partner is a Professor in Neuroscience and Mike has a lot of practical experience, so they make a great team, Mike develop the online site of their company and his partner bring in the academic side. But imagine If Mike would have an extremely good academic and science approach and that is what his business partner is also excellent at, then they would have stepped on each others foot and been wasting their time.
3. The “All In” Motivation
Investment is about getting more money back than what you put in at first place. It starts with having a great idea, but as long as you don’t have a great team, and if your partner is not living with high hopes and big targets you are not getting far. The most appealing element when looking for a business partner is according to Mr. Weeks to know that this person is going to be “all in.” That means to be fully committed, and to have a mature and more grounded approach. From his experience he find that people in their 40’s are more motivated than people in their 20’s, because they usually have higher risks at stake, such as responsibilities for their kids. The more responsibilities you have towards others, the less you want to start over with a new business idea and the more you stick to your current idea.
4. Image
Have a look at your potential partner’s Instagram account before you choose your partner. Do you want to have a partner who is drinking on flashy bars surrounded by gorgeous girls and simply showing off? Or would you be more impressed if their pictures are related to what they are working on and that they are going to their gym 6am every day before work? You can tell a lot about people from what they are doing outside of work.
5. Problem-Solving Skills
Mr Weeks looks for partners that view problem-solving in a very optimistic way. As he expresses; “the problem is not the problem, the problem is the state you approach the problem in.” If you approach problems with a curious problem solving mindset, then your outcome will be more in line of what you are after than if you solve it in a very anxious and stressed way. Now we all have doubts, but if you can get into a clever problem solving state before you approach the problem, then the problem is not a problem, it’s just a challenge that you need to get creative about.
Learn more about Mr. Week and his previous investments at Expert Dojo’s podcast called “The Art of Startup War”;
For more startup podcast episodes, please visit https://www.expertdojo.com/investor-podcast/