Very timely post for me as I started up earlier this year--amazing how many of these things I've already learned the hard way.
#1 is aptly chosen. I've always heard that picking the wrong business partner is worse than picking the wrong spouse and I have to agree. Some days I spend more time talking with my co-founder than I do my wife, and right now he is currently six states away.
But I wanted to add that #5 also plays a role here. I vividly remember the first time my co-founder and I had a disagreement: we were both pissed and thought the other was pretty stupid. Some things were said and I got offended but we were both able to take a step back and remove our emotion. I told myself, "this is how start-ups die." Once we both removed our emotion from the situation we were able to address the problem and ultimately make the product better. We needed to be persistent not only in our work, but also in our relationship.
Ever since that time we've decided that while we may at times offend each other (it is a natural reaction), we just need to get over it, and quickly. Now we can say things like, "you're doing this wrong" or "that looks ugly" or "we need to completely rethink this" and no one wants to take their toys and go home. By removing emotion we can more direct, more efficient. And our product is better and we have more clients because of it.
#1 is aptly chosen. I've always heard that picking the wrong business partner is worse than picking the wrong spouse and I have to agree. Some days I spend more time talking with my co-founder than I do my wife, and right now he is currently six states away.
But I wanted to add that #5 also plays a role here. I vividly remember the first time my co-founder and I had a disagreement: we were both pissed and thought the other was pretty stupid. Some things were said and I got offended but we were both able to take a step back and remove our emotion. I told myself, "this is how start-ups die." Once we both removed our emotion from the situation we were able to address the problem and ultimately make the product better. We needed to be persistent not only in our work, but also in our relationship.
Ever since that time we've decided that while we may at times offend each other (it is a natural reaction), we just need to get over it, and quickly. Now we can say things like, "you're doing this wrong" or "that looks ugly" or "we need to completely rethink this" and no one wants to take their toys and go home. By removing emotion we can more direct, more efficient. And our product is better and we have more clients because of it.