How I found my biz partner
This is such a common struggle I see. I lucked into it but here's what worked...
One of the most common topics I get asked about and see discussed on Reddit is finding cofounders or business partners for a business.
Obviously there are many ways to skin a (business) cat, and I know a lot of you are solopreneurs, but I always enjoy sharing how I lucked into finding my tech cofounder at Visto.
It can also be a good lesson of how to find a cofounder or business partner if you’re looking for or thinking of finding one.
Let’s wind the clock back to 2020. I was trying to get Visto, my immigration tech startup, off the ground, and was also fresh out of a terrible cofounder breakup (a story for another time, on how to find cofounders the wrong way…).
I ended up asking a friend of mine, Alex, who I happened to grow up with back in the day, if he wanted to do some dev work for us for cash. Again, this all happened as a bit of a fluke, but it turned out to be a great way to “date before you marry” a business partner, which is what I always recommend now to others.
Anyway, I hired him for a few months to do some custom tech work for us and that allowed us to see what it was like working together. That first project went well, so I signed him on for some more work - but this time we did it for a little bit of equity instead of cash.
After that also went well, we continued expanding the scope. First to a part-time role for even more equity and then, once I was able to raise some money, he joined full-time as a cofounder.
If I think back on it now, I think it worked so well because:
we tried working together without any pressure for 2-3 months first and we both got something out of it. I got some tech, he got some money.
that gave us time to make sure we liked working together and also evaluate each others skills and abilities
dating before you marry should be applied to business partners, just like life partners. Diving into the deepend of business with a random person is just asking for disaster
you will likely spend more time with your business partner than anyone else. You better make sure you’re a personality and skills match
by skills “match”, I actually mean your skillsets should be completely opposite. Early on you need to cover as many skills as possible with very few people, so it’s good if cofounders or partners have barely any overlap to cover it all. In our case, Alex handled product and engineering, while I handled marketing, sales, fundraising and finance. Don’t ever start a business with someone who has the exact same skillset as you
So in short, if you’re considering a business partner or cofounder, make sure you date before you marry and find someone with a complimenting skillset.
And of course, if you have any questions on partners or building tech, hit reply and let me know.
Have a great day,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian immigration lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai
If you’re looking for more, definitely check out:
If you’re in Canadian immigration, my tech platform, Visto, helps Canadian immigration firms prep and file applications much quicker.
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