Partnership to create an Internet business. Partnership offers

Finding partners is a difficult topic for Russia, where they are used to negotiating “friendly” and not using legal terms. Russian businessmen are just learning how to draw up multi-page contracts, meticulously describe obligations and fines for failure to fulfill them. Sometimes an agreement is concluded informally, based on the fact that in Russia it is still impossible to provide for all the nuances.

Before choosing a type of cooperation with a business partner, you will first have to find one. To this end:

• search among relatives, acquaintances, work colleagues;
• attend events where you can meet potential investors and people ready to cooperate;
• resort to searching for offers on the Internet;
• They are looking closely at hired employees of other commercial structures - someone is invited to the business as a full co-owner.

Business partnership: the most important nuances

Both formal and informal joint commerce agreements will fail if certain rules are not followed. First of all, determine for yourself the main motives for cooperation with another person. It is important to answer 3 questions:

1. what exactly is meant by partnership (investment, free premises, land, fresh ideas, labor);
2. what will I offer to another person as a partner;
3. how to document a future agreement, protect yourself from risk and dishonest behavior on the part of a partner.

Partnership refers to different types of cooperation. Partners in Russia are investors, suppliers, marketers, and sales representatives. Therefore, before you advertise on a website with offers of cooperation, decide who exactly is needed and why. What “baggage” should a potential co-owner have: money, knowledge, experience, information, sales skills. Is the territory important or will the cooperation be remote? Think about what you offer in return. This side of the deal is often forgotten, but a partnership “works” if it benefits both parties. Otherwise, serious people are unlikely to be interested in the ad.

It is important to know! Partnership involves joint participation in the affairs of the company, investment of capital and joint decision-making. This imposes restrictions and obligations. Sometimes it is easier to hire a person as an employee or borrow money from him at interest. Relationships are formalized if equal investments into the business are expected from both sides (both money and some amount of joint work).

How and where to find a business partner in Russia

Before placing an ad on the Internet, it is useful to look around. As a rule, future partners work in related industries, move in the same areas, are interested in similar topics and find each other “in step-by-step proximity” - within the sphere of their interests: at the institute, on courses, at work, in the sports section. Business partnership on the Internet is also possible, but practice shows that it is better to keep control of the enterprise directly. It is also easier to check a person living in the same geographical location if you have already communicated and have mutual acquaintances.

Business partnership is an integral part of any modern business. A few entrepreneurs or manufacturers can fully ensure the cycle of all processes from start to finish. Often they need help in implementing a certain part of these processes. Such cooperation with common plans and points of view will benefit both parties.

Is it easy or difficult to choose a partner? This question is difficult to answer unequivocally. Many young entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes at this stage. They are driven by emotions and make unwise decisions based on basic profit calculations. At the same time, many other nuances are forgotten.

A business partnership (or business partnership) is an agreement between two entrepreneurs, drawn up orally or in writing, on joint cooperation. The form will depend on the level of trust, but, as a rule, all conditions are spelled out in the contract, since this protects businessmen from many possible risks.

The key and integral components of this concept are:

1. Business cooperation, partnership based on the preliminary determination of all the responsibilities of each entrepreneur, their responsibility for failure to comply with the terms of the contract, penalties, etc.
2. All tasks and resources must be distributed in such a way that it brings maximum benefit with minimal cost.
3. Any joint business needs to set a common goal. The main thing is that it is completely understandable for both parties, mutually beneficial and clear.
4. All risks of both parties must be distributed equally or as agreed by the parties.
5. Responsibility for completing and failing to complete tasks must be clearly stated in writing.
6. Profits from such cooperation should be distributed as a percentage or a fixed rate. All these conditions are also specified in the contract.

NOTE! Separately, we can highlight such a concept as types of interaction. There are quite a lot of their varieties, but regardless of the chosen type, two entrepreneurs must have a common goal and specific motivation to achieve it. This means that they must depend on each other to achieve this goal, but at the same time have a certain autonomy in performing their actions.

A business partner should always be on the same level as his colleague in a joint venture. That is, not a vertical type of interaction, which is used within one enterprise, but a horizontal one.

As the sphere of business partnerships developed, its various types appeared. The term itself is quite broad, and for each individual case of cooperation you can come up with your own type, since many specific nuances appear in the process.

But there are also main types that a novice businessman must know.

Forced

There are times when a business partner is needed in desperate situations. Such cooperation is called forced. It is in such cases that entrepreneurs have no choice, and they must start their partnership for the sake of maintaining business, profit or other important goals. Signing an agreement is the only way out of the current situation. Often, this type of partnership does not require the consent of both parties, but in the end it is recognized by all its participants as necessary.

Initiative

This view is significantly different from the previous one. Here, it is impossible to do without carefully selecting a partner and developing a common plan of action with him. That is, first a specific goal is set by one entrepreneur, a search is made for an appropriate enterprise for cooperation with common goals, and then an agreement is signed.

Competitive

As the name itself suggests, business partners here are business competitors. This may be due to various reasons. The most popular is the fight against dumping among other companies. In simple terms, two or more competitors agree on a fixed price for a certain product. This allows us to achieve stabilization of pricing policy in a certain region.

Non-competitive

This type of cooperation is characterized by the joint work of enterprises that are not competitors with each other, but work in related areas. An example would be a beauty salon and a cosmetics manufacturer or distributor. The salon will sell cosmetics well, and in return you can give out discount cards, various discounts and provide the opportunity to participate in any promotions of the cosmetics manufacturer. Additionally, you can create an affiliate website.

Tactical

It is characterized by a short contract duration with the possibility of extension. If several enterprises have one small goal, then after its fulfillment the contract is terminated. Otherwise, the contract must specify the conditions under which the contract will automatically continue, that is, it will be extended.

Strategic

This type of partnership is the longest in duration. His goal is to achieve a big goal, for example, increasing the turnover of both companies several times. Although the goal cannot always be expressed in monetary terms. To do this, you need to take a particularly careful approach to all the nuances, responsibilities of the parties, responsibility for violations of the terms of the contract, and clearly state all the goals that need to be achieved. Of course, each item is described in detail in the terms of the contract.

Complete

Here two companies sign an agreement on joint cooperation on all processes that occur in the company. That is, in any industry, productive, financial part there is interaction and joint assistance.

Limited

It differs from the previous one in that it cooperates only in one direction, for example, on one company product, and not on the entire product range. Of course, all conditions are also specified in the contract with the achievement of specific goals for this product.

Principles of business partnership

A business partnership in a small, medium or large business should always be based on basic principles, without which, as a rule, the business of all participants will collapse. They have been supplemented in the process of cooperation since ancient times, so all principles are based on many years of experience of entrepreneurs and must be followed.

The main principles of the partnership are:

Who is a business partner?

A business partner can be a legal entity or an individual entrepreneur. In some cases, a contract with an ordinary person without the status of an entrepreneur can also be considered a partnership, but they do not happen often. That is, legally, this is hired labor, since the person does not have the status of an entrepreneur, but in fact this is a business cooperation. The only difference is in the relationships built between people.

NOTE! A prerequisite for obtaining the status of “business partner” is the conclusion of the above-described agreement. It can be made either orally or in writing.

A person with this status can collaborate with others in different areas. He can be a consumer of the product or its customer, and perform certain types of work. Sometimes a business partnership involves jointly selling two different products that complement each other.

Advantages and disadvantages of business partnership

Like any other type of activity or action in business, a business partnership has its advantages and disadvantages. This is not to say that a well-thought-out collaboration, ideally agreed upon in documentary form, does not have its drawbacks. But, on the other hand, there are significant advantages to this type of activity.

pros

The advantages of joint cooperation include:

Minuses

In addition to the advantages, there are also significant disadvantages:

• if any problems arise, it will not be possible to solve them without the consent of all partners, that is, the general meeting, and this greatly slows down the process;
• When drawing up a contract, various problems and disagreements may arise that cannot always be agreed upon;
• if something goes wrong during the work process, then you need to report not only within your company, but also with the direct participation of all partners;
• Maintaining personal reports within one company is impossible; they must be common to all partners.

Rules for joint business

In most cases, a common business or business partnership sooner or later leads to controversial issues. But how this situation ends directly depends on the behavior of colleagues in the process of solving them.

Many people make mistakes by not discussing key issues of cooperation. And even if certain conditions in the contract were not initially specified, but were later identified, you should not hesitate to discuss them during the joint work. To minimize the risks of such difficulties, you should learn the rules of running a joint business.

These include:

Stages of organizing a business partnership

Business partnerships have certain stages of development. Both before and after signing the agreement, you can highlight your own special periods, but more important is the period from the beginning of cooperation to the signing of the agreement.

Do you really need a partner?

First, you need to determine exactly whether a business partner is needed at all. All processes, risks, and benefits from such cooperation should be analyzed. To do this, you can make a list of possible enterprises in the region with which it is advisable to cooperate, analyze them and decide which of them will be more profitable to do business with. It is necessary to initially identify all goals and possible problems that will be solved through common cooperation.

IMPORTANT! To understand whether a company is suitable for a business partnership, it is necessary to evaluate all the resources available in the company, the level of success that the company has been able to achieve over the years.

Search

When choosing a partner, you should not set yourself the goal of finding the ideal person. It is impossible to do this. You need to pay attention to business and professional qualities, decency, trust, focus, ambition, the ability to make only informed decisions and a number of other positive qualities of a good businessman.

It is also important that the partner has a fairly strong financial foundation. This will avoid a number of possible problems. Stress tolerance will also come in handy in such situations.

It is better to choose people you already know, with whom you have already had experience doing things together, or who have good recommendations. But if there are none, then you can use search engines, try to find information about certain companies on forums, websites, blogs, etc. You can also find various advertisements.

Analysis

Once the list of business partners is ready, you can begin to analyze certain qualities of each of them. Here you can apply the “old-fashioned” method - make a table with a list of companies and their qualities, assign points for each of them and thus choose the best company. At the same time, you should rely on your own intuition. It is advisable to have several meetings with each option being considered. You need to ask about all the conditions they are willing to agree to for cooperation.

To prevent mistakes, it is necessary to check companies with the security service, the body that deals with issues of economic crime. It is necessary to find out the presence of debts, loans, the ability to pay them off, find out the state and behavior of the company in the market, etc.

It wouldn’t hurt to make an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. There you can find a lot of information about the company that you need to analyze and draw your own conclusions. The level of trust in a company and its reputation can be found in the media. You can use both electronic and printed versions. In some cases, documentation can be requested directly from the company, if it does not have a trade secret.

Once the choice of company has been made, you can begin to negotiate about possible cooperation and signing an agreement.

Conclusion of an agreement in writing

Recommendations for carrying out this stage were partially described above. If the level of development of the company is quite large, and cooperation must be very close and multifaceted, then it is better to seek help from a lawyer. Only in this way can one understand all the responsibilities and consequences for failure to fulfill them in full. The affiliate program must also be clearly defined.

Today there are quite a lot of enterprises whose shares are partially state-owned. If we talk about such a situation, then in a partnership, first of all, the main thing is to agree on all the goals set. At the same time, the goals of the state and the private sector in most cases will be different.

Thus, for the private shareholders of the company, it is important to receive a profit and increase it, the company’s reputation in the market, and for the state - the increase in the volume of products or services provided to the population, as well as the reasonable and rational distribution of public funds.

In addition, the private sector invests money in such an enterprise for purposes other than the state. For example, this is done for the sake of investment and subsequent profit, effective management, and gaining professional experience. And the state can give such an enterprise guarantees of stability, changing the provisions of laws for faster growth of the company.

To choose the right business partner, you need to have an appropriate dialogue with him. It is better to prepare for such a conversation in advance. And you need to prepare for the most important issues. These include investing money, distributing shares of profits between its participants, documentary issues, development strategy, etc.

At the beginning of cooperation, it is necessary to remember that a partner is a person who will invest personal money in a common cause. If a person has not invested a penny, but simply does very important work for the company, solves important issues, then he is not really a partner, but in fact, he is an employee, manager, manager, etc.

But, on the other hand, a business partner cannot simply invest money and not be involved in the company’s affairs. If this is so, then partnership is out of the question, since this is in fact an investment. A person must be involved in business processes. This ensures that all partners who have invested money will perform their duties efficiently and make every effort to ensure that the company grows and develops every day.

Partner's share is less than 50%

It is unacceptable for two partners to have exactly 50% of the shares. In such a situation, it is impossible to make an important decision if there is a disagreement between two people. If you pay attention to large corporations, you will notice one important detail. Many of them have a controlling interest of 50%+1. Only in this way, if a dispute arises, a decision can be made by one person—actually the owner of the business.

Same vision of strategy

A business partner must have the same strategies and vision for a common cause. If he has a completely opposite opinion, then it will not be possible to develop the business efficiently and quickly, and over time everything will collapse. If, nevertheless, disagreements arise, then the decision should be made by the person with a controlling stake.

Don't confuse partnership with friendship

Relatives and friends are not always good business partners. Let's consider two options:

1. There are two friends with a joint desire to create a corporation or family business that all family members work on equally.
2. An offer to a friend to become a partner, without his personal interest and desire.

In the first case, everyone will work the same way, since business participants are interested in the profitability of the business. And if you offer cooperation to a friend, he will believe that he has some privileges, as a result of which he will not work properly.

Documentation

Of course, business partners must show trust in each other. But everything will not always be perfect, and various disagreements can provoke conflict and collapse of the company. Therefore, documenting such cooperation is very important. It must be notarized. Each party must have its own sample agreement.

It should indicate as accurately as possible all the conditions, the amount of initial investments in the company, the procedure for distributing profits, rights and obligations, responsibilities, etc. It is important to draw up the Charter and write down all the points in it.

Examples of real successful business partnerships

The first successful example worth noting was the collaboration between Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Together they created the first hacker duo while they were still schoolchildren. Despite the fact that they were close friends, and as we know, business partnerships with friends do not end in success in most cases, Bill and Allen were able to find common goals and create a strong team. It was Allen who persuaded Gates to quit his studies and create Microsoft, which is one of the largest in the world.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin. While at the university, Larry met Sergei. Although they did not immediately become friends and fought with each other very often, they were the ones who worked on the dissertation “Anatomy of a hypertext search engine,” which was the basis for the creation of Google.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The general collaboration began back in 1970, when Wozniak was assembling a computer from Jobs, and the latter decided to sell it. Subsequently, the Apple company was opened. Wozniak himself claims that they succeeded because they simply did what they knew how to do.

Thus, business partnership plays a very important role in building a business. It is important to choose the right partner, based on many years of experience, to pay special attention to the personal qualities of the person, rather than looking at the scale of the enterprise. With good support you can achieve better results than alone. It is worth remembering the legal side of cooperation. The contract must be concluded to prevent mistakes.

In contact with

Do you offer franchise or affiliate program? Perhaps you have a special offer for your customers, special conditions for the delivery of your goods, exclusive services that will easily interest the business audience? Please inform all interested companies about this in our Partnership section. Your proposal for cooperation in any area will be seen by the entire audience of our site, all you have to do is consider the responses of your potential partners and choose the best offers!

Do you want to start your own business, but don’t know how to start your business from scratch? To open your own business, you suggest ideas, everything else can be found using Finatica!

Hundreds, and maybe thousands of companies and businessmen are looking for business partners every day. Finatica is a unique database of business proposals that you create yourself. The search for it is organized in such a way that you can choose not only the search direction (“looking for” - “offering”), but also a specific category of partnership, industry and region of interest to you. For example, you can select categories such as “Looking for a manufacturer”, “Looking for an agent, representative”, Franchising, “Looking for a distributor, dealer”, “I offer myself as a contractor/work performer”, etc.

For those who have not yet decided on the specific direction of growth for their business, we recommend subscribing to the mailing list of new affiliate programs and offers from companies in your area, or frequently viewing the list of advertisements in the “Partnership” section. Perhaps a particularly advantageous offer awaits you! The section can publish proposals from companies, individual entrepreneurs and individuals.

He shared his experience of working with different partners and talked about what you should pay attention to when choosing the person with whom you are going to do business.

When attracting a partner, you need to be prepared for crises

Entrepreneurs who maintain partnerships with those with whom they started their business for decades deserve great respect. This means that we have gone through many crises together. I started my business in 2013, during which time I worked with different partners. Here are a few types of crises I have experienced:

Crisis of “who’s in charge?” or “how do we make key decisions?” Here it is important, having worked together as equals, to quickly determine the degree of responsibility of each participant and divide the shares in the company accordingly. It is at this moment that a CEO appears in the company. The chosen leader must formulate his obligations to the others. If they cannot choose the main one, the question arises: will such a business be able to exist and develop? Schemes with equal shares are statistically more likely to lead to conflicts and crises, as a stalemate may arise.

Competence crisis. Everyone has their own ceiling. How long is a person willing to constantly learn and leapfrog himself? Are partners willing to teach each other and tolerate each other's imperfections? Does the speed of human development match the speed of company development?

Crisis of confidence. With the increase in the volume of information and the number of tasks, not all aspects of the business will be transparent to all partners. There always comes a point when the basic trust that started it all is exhausted. We need to anticipate this moment and make the business as transparent as possible. CRM and system management accounting will help with this.

Where to look for business partners?

Beginning entrepreneurs, as a rule, voice their ideas and assemble a team in their immediate environment. These can be either fairly random people who, in the opinion of the founder, have qualities that are important for the project, or people with whom a pound of salt has already been eaten. For example, Mikhail Fridman built the largest Russian business empire together with his classmates from the institute.

Can a “stranger” become a good partner?

I believe that the clearest and most understandable agreements are reached between people who initially have no reason to trust each other 100%. In this case, it is much easier and more logical to imagine the situation of termination of agreements and initially determine the most painless exit scenarios.

You can also find a partner among strangers. It is quite normal to post a vacancy and offer a share in the company as compensation. One of my friends, a famous IT entrepreneur, found a co-founder in this way - CTO.

Photo: Unsplash

Will business with relatives be successful?

The important point here is the absence of a conflict of interest. There is an opinion that business conflicts occur less frequently among relatives. If your partner is a relative, then with a high probability you can build a long-lasting company, but the question is whether it will grow. Because growth often requires speed of decisions, subordination and priority of work over family.

However, there are quite successful examples of businesses where the founders are close relatives, most often companies with the Bros. prefix, for example, Warner Bros. There are also negative examples, the most famous of which is the conflict between the Dassler brothers, as a result of which the business broke up and two companies and brands were formed: Adidas and Puma.

Are friends reliable partners?

It is very difficult to imagine a situation of conflict with friends. It seems that friendship or family ties are a guarantee of conflict-free decision-making. As a result, people do not define their boundaries, responsibility is blurred, and exit plans for business are not specified.

In one of my projects, Quadrim, the correct cooperation model was not initially laid down. At the start there were 4 partners, three of whom had parity shares, and two in the process formed a parallel joint business; also, the areas of responsibility and the mechanics of making key decisions were not clearly defined.

Due to a conflict of interest, I operationally left Quadrim and launched a startup, the repair service Tim&Team, based on my other interior design project, Studio 3.14.

Photo: Unsplash

It’s good to start something new with an already formed team with established dynamics, complementary psychotypes and a high level of trust.
We created our first business - an interior design studio with my brother and friend, with whom we had previously worked together on projects in a public youth organization. There we led shifts together in children's camps, organized events and had real experience of working together.

Through trial and error, we figured out who could be responsible for what. Five of us started in my kitchen. After the first month there were three of us left, a team was formed, and a division of labor emerged. After 3 years, the history of this partnership successfully ended when we, together with a new partner Oleg Anisimov, bought shares in Studio 3.14 from two of my partners, thereby integrating the company for the development of Tim&Team on the basis of the design studio.

When a whole business takes the place of a partner

It happens that partners come to a project with their own infrastructure, sometimes even an entire business, and this has a positive effect, for example, as in the case of Oscar Hartmann’s Carprice. The entrepreneur’s project on a partnership basis included two more businessmen with entire companies-divisions for development and marketing, which gave a synergistic effect.

But you should also beware of the opposite situation, when the common project infrastructure is used for third-party projects of one of the partners. Attracting a partner with infrastructure (ready-made business) at first glance looks attractive due to possible synergy, but it is fraught with many risks. In my opinion, this is only possible if the infrastructure is transparent enough that its value can be verified. Possible risks and conflicts of interest should be examined in detail.

Before attracting someone as a partner and integrating it into your business, it is better to work with him as a contractor or partner on a project, as was the case with the developers at Carprice. It would be a mistake to “get married” right away. There must be stages. We definitely need to overcome the crisis together.

Photo: Unsplash

It's good to weigh everything

Partnership is one of the most important levers for the development of a company, but it also carries many risks. A successful partnership can significantly accelerate the development of an entrepreneur, as happened with and. But you need to understand that 65% of companies break up due to conflict between co-founders.

Among the undoubted advantages are the mutual complementation of competencies, “collective intelligence”, acceleration of development, sharing of risks, savings on hiring top managers at an early stage of business and the presence of long-term motivation for the core of the team.

The disadvantages are that the need for collegial decisions slows down their adoption, and in startups speed and flexibility are extremely important; partners share not only risks, but also profits, and if there are more than two partners with large shares, the likelihood of dilution of shares increases in the event of later-stage investors appearing and the founders of the company losing control.

The 50/50 parity partnership is fraught with the most risks, however, there are also successful examples when large-scale companies were created under it (Igor Rybakov and Sergey Kolesnikov - TechnoNIKOL).

Lifehacks

If you don't have 100% confidence in your partner, bury the 50/50 principle. When there are two of you, and at the same time both of you are maximally involved and close in level of competencies, the ideal ratio is 60/40, which ensures a high level of motivation for the owner of the smaller share and at the same time the leader retains the right to the last word.

If you don’t have an exit plan, consider that you are creating a conflict situation for yourself in the future. It is imperative to take into account the factor of possible changes in the life goals and circumstances of the partner, which in practice manifest themselves no later than three years from the beginning of the partnership. It is important to state in the memorandum what will happen if they change.

There must be a decision-making mechanism and a clear formula for calculating cash-out at different stages of the business. Before a partnership, there must be preparation (first of all, make a financial model for 12-36 months). Formalize the down-side: exactly how you will understand that the project is unsuccessful, how ready you are to “fall”.

If you have someone you'd like to be a co-founder, you don't have to give them a stake right away. In Russian law, since 2015, it has been possible to structure the relationship between co-founders using an option, which may involve an automatic transfer of shares if the co-founder achieves certain KPIs.