Partnership and betrayal
How to choose a partner after a disappointment?
Don't shut the door on partnerships: use the wound as a criterion. Shared values, a checked record, a small test and everything in writing, exit included.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
After being let down by a partner, the temptation is to swear you'll never share a business with anyone again. That's understandable. But building alone has its limits, and disappointment, used well, is the best filter you'll ever have for choosing whom to go on with.
What to do now
- Look for shared values and different skills. You need to agree on ethics, money, work pace and what to do in a crisis. And you need to complement each other in what you know how to do. Two partners alike in everything double the blind spots.
- Know the person's history. How did they behave in previous partnerships? How do they treat employees, suppliers, former partners? Talk to people who have worked with them.
- Test it small before you commit. A short project together, a one-off partnership, a few months working side by side. Routine shows what conversation hides.
- Write everything down before you start. Well-drafted articles of association and, if possible, a partners' agreement that defines: who does what, how much each one invests, how withdrawals work, who decides what, how a deadlock is resolved and, above all, how someone leaves.
- Define the exit while everyone is still friends. It's much easier to agree on the divorce on the wedding day. Exit rules, how a departing partner's share is calculated and non-compete clauses prevent future wars.
- Separate friendship from partnership. Friends can be great partners, as long as they treat the partnership with the same seriousness they would with a stranger.
- Consult a lawyer and an accountant. The cost of a good contract is small next to the cost of a lawsuit.
When it happened to Bairo
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez's path holds two expensive lessons about partners. In the first, his partners pushed him out of a cosmetics brand he helped build, when he wanted to bring touchscreen technology into the business. In the second, he says, he joined as an investing partner in a company that was not what it seemed, and it didn't hold.
He says that, looking back, each attempt left something behind. The partners left the most expensive lesson: choosing whom you build with.
Years later, after six months building alone, he went back to building as a team. He found help and connection in three old acquaintances, and the four joined forces to carry on, finish and elevate together what he had started. People he had known for a long time.
The path
For Bairo, the word "together" is no small detail. It is a reconciliation with the idea of a team. Choose partners the way you'd choose whom to go through the worst storm of your life with, because that is exactly what will happen. Values, history, test, contract. In that order.
Trusting again isn't closing your eyes; it's opening them wider. Disappointment taught you where to look: at the track record, at how the person handles money, at what they do when things get tight. Use that eye calmly, without paranoid distrust. Healthy partnerships exist, and many of the best are born after someone has learned, the hard way, what not to accept.