Choosing the right business partners sometimes can be more intimidating than choosing your life partner.
Ok, maybe not as scary as that, but it is undeniably important to choose the right business partners when starting your start-up.
There are many practical reasons why you should have business partners, one of them being that two heads are really better than one. Then, they can always contribute more input, effort, additional capital, separate set of networks to increase the higher chance of success in your business.
Statistics have shown that solo founders take 3.6 times longer to reach scale stage compared to a founding team of two and they are 2.3 times less likely to pivot.
However, you still need balanced teammates that each knows how to pull their own weight.
So before you sign up anybody like your cousin or your next-door neighbour as your business partners, here are 20 quotes to remember:
- On how partners should complement each other:
“To me, a spouse should be a life partner and a business partner. Just like any good partner, her strengths must make up for my weaknesses and vice versa.”
Robert Kiyosaki.
2. A simple way to find out if there’s too many people in your decision-making process:
“If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.
3. The secret sauce to a great working partnership
“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
Charles Darwin.
4. How many people does it take to make an idea work?
“You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.” –
Larry Page, Co-founder of Google.
5. Thinking about doing it alone?
“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”
Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn.
6. Always keep an eye on the big picture
“Alliances and partnerships produce stability when they reflect realities and interests.”
Stephen Kinzer.
7. Take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves
“Perfect partners don’t exist. Perfect conditions exist for a limited time in which partnerships express themselves best.”
Wayne Rooney.
8. Trust in the foundation you build with good partners
“For me, it’s important to build good partnerships rather than score centuries. Once, you have those partnerships, you will also get centuries.”
MS Dhoni.
9. Choose partners who bring out the best in you
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Mark Twain.
10. Trust in your partner to go the distance
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
African Proverb.
The most important thing about having a team is that everyone needs to be effective at teamwork. Every teammate needs to work not only collaboratively and collectively, but also effectively on an individual basis.
11. On the importance of individual roles in realizing a dream
“The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.”
James Cash Penney.
12. On the rewards of staying focused and being able to handle pressure
“Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.”
Malcolm Forbes.
13. On how each teammate has a valuable quality to bring to the table
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”
Phil Jackson.
14. The value of commitment
“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilisation work.”
Vince Lombardi.
15. On the strength of a collaboration between individuals
“One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts but teamwork dynamites.”
Jin Kwon.
16. Ohana – Nobody gets left behind
“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.”
Virginia Burden.
17. The quality of your teammates, before quantity
“There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.”
Jason Fried, 37Signals Founder.
18. On how everybody’s talents and contributions can truly make a masterpiece
“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.”
H.E. Luccock.
19. On the benefits of putting your ego aside, and being interconnected
“Collaboration has no hierarchy. The sun collaborates with soil to bring flowers on the earth.”
Amit Ray.
20. It takes a village for a good idea to turn into a great one
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
