What do you do when your business partner barely works or doesn’t try to grow the business (that they actually own)?
For context my friend wants to be financially successful but he barely puts in effort to grow awareness. It’s like he works 10x harder for his employers than he does for himself. Now should be the time he’s going all in on himself since he doesn’t have a 9-5 anymore.
I honestly think it comes down to confidence. Not just in the business, but maybe in other areas of life too.
If this was your business partner, and also a great friend, what would you do?
Do you keep trying to push them to put more effort into sales, or do you end the partnership and find someone who’s actually excited to sell their own service?
It sucks because he’s a friend. I want to see him reach his potential, but he keeps putting limits on what’s possible. It’s been over two years of us working together officially (9 years of being friends), and I’m torn between pushing a little longer or calling it and just staying friends.
How do you handle partnerships when the majority partner barely works?
byu/omadpapi inEntrepreneur
Posted by omadpapi
13 Comments
I’d start a business without him. Been there, done that. All you’re doing is wasting your time.
hey my co-founder was like this as welll highly ambitious but sucked at execution and I was doing everything from a to z thinking maybe he’s not in the right condition but he was not changing for two months I noticed and then thought that this internal thing is increasing inside me where I’m hating him secretly for not doing it and in short period it’ll worse so I told me everything he first said no I was working then he agreed that he was not and now we have a set everything diffrent he handles marketing I handle sales I don’t intere in his he does not in mine, we’ve set up KPIs for each other and are accountable with the other
i think it’s better to tell him honestly what you think and find a middle ground then hide it now and watch the startup burn at the end
I cannot speak to your situation since I know nothing about your contract.
We (3 of us) have a business and 1 partner refused to work. I spoke to an attorney and basically put him on PIP for not working. Gave him months to improve. He assumed I was bluffing about firing him. I fired him. This triggered a clause where we would buy him out. Instead of going by the contract we made him an offer that included a better buy out schedule and he cannot sue us. He took it. In April it will be our final payment to him. Feels great to be so close.
Sounds like you are learning the lesson of not ever having a business partner. Don’t get me wrong… 1% works out… but as you see, you are not that 1%.
Some people pay a wage to work in the business to incentivize working on it, the uninvolved partner only gets paid though business distributions if there are any.
thats why they say do not do business with friends or family
Employees keep the business running, its IMPORTANT to make sure you have a good crew. Just because he isn’t focusing on what you want him to doesn’t mean what he is doing has no value.
Buy them out or just leave. If you aren’t in sync then something big needs to change.
Why are you partnering with him? And, does that still matter? If so, stay and work this out. If not, leave amicably and build your own thing
Does he know what to do?
Some people aren’t cut out to run their own business. I’ve created huge workloads of things to do because I want the business to be successful and it’s not going to get done itself
Ugh, been there done that. In my case, nicely stepped aside. Focusing on my own thing, yet still have the pang of what could have been. With enough distance that pang lightens. Way more to the story, but I’ll leave it there.
If you co-own a business with someone who doesn’t do anything for it then that’s not a business partner. At best it’s a silent investor.
Time to leave.