This is starkly different from the way Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz run their businesses. The founders of 99designs, Flippa, Sitepoint, and a host of other successful online start-ups, sharply divide responsibilities. And when they don’t see eye-to-eye, one will defer to the other.
“We’ve started businesses that both founders haven’t agreed on,” Harbottle laughs. He says it’s important for partnerships to decide who the boss is. “You have to divide up the roles. Say one person is the CEO and another is the COO. If it’s a technical decision, the COO has the last word. If it’s strategic, the CEO can listen to advice, but it’s his or her call.”
While working at Sausage Software eleven years ago Harbottle met Mickiewicz when he used the entrepreneur’s advertising services. At the time, Mickiewicz was working from his bedroom in Canada. The two met online. It didn’t take long for them to found the first of many businesses together.
“We weren’t friends. We didn’t know each other,” Harbottle says.
“He knew what I’d done professionally, and I saw what he’d done through the website. So there was a mutual respect. We’d dealt with each other professionally, so that built trust.
“Even though we were far apart we had the two ingredients: mutual trust and respect.”
A shoulder to lean on
By virtue of often bringing together leaders with complementary skills, business partnerships allow businesses to quickly punch well above their weight.
There are other benefits too.
“It was helpful when we were under pressure,” Banks says. “I am a great believer in two heads being better than one.”
Ramler says his partnership with Kogan makes surprises less stressful.
“Almost every week something will come out of the blue… As it is, Ruslan and I thrive on such challenges. We laugh, we know we can do it together. Without someone else, it would be stressful. But for us, we talk through it, it becomes a quick brainstorm.”
“It’s hard to go to family or friends for that … they don’t know what’s going on in the business as well.”
Avoiding splitsville
For all the benefits of partnerships, the fact remains that most business leaders go into it alone. Partnerships are hard to perfect, and when they go awry, can cause no end of heartache. They often end up in the courts, as the disintegration of the partnership between Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and his first venture capital backer and CFO, Eduardo Saverin, did.
Harbottle says he doesn’t go into business with friends or family.
“A lot of people go into business with their friends: I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It can work – I’ve seen it work – but my preference is for a business partner.
“Founders are hands-on people – that’s why it’s so important to find someone who complements what you do. The same goes for family … look elsewhere.”
However, Ramler was friends with Kogan for years before they started their business together. Even today, he says: “We hang out on weekends as friends; we don’t even talk about the business.”
Ramler says the biggest challenge he and Kogan face in their partnership is that they’re both “alpha-males.”
The two travel a lot together, sometimes spending entire weeks in each other’s company when they visit manufacturing facilities in China.
“Sometimes when you’re spending so much time together, you have heated discussions… We do have clashes every now and then. We can both believe it’s our way or the highway.
“At times, we’ve had to take a minute to realise we’re both strong-minded.”
Banks says it’s important to have a strong relationship if it’s going to withstand stress.
“I’m a student of behavioral psychology. I’ve seen every psych test known to man. When people are under pressure … there is a circle of elliptical behaviour people show… They slow down; they panic… people [get] frozen under pressure. Their judgment gets clouded and cautious. That’s when relations with other individuals get jostled, and where the fundamentals of a relationship become really important.”
Myriam Robin is a reporter for SmartCompany and its sister site LeadingCompany. She has degrees in economics, international studies and journalism. She likes writing about businesses taking risks and doing new things.
