Thinking About a Partner?

When I launched my first agency, it was just me, a laptop, and a lot of stubborn optimism.

No cofounder. No copilot. I figured it out as I went.

Four years later, I merged with another firm and added a partner. I found so much value in a partnership that eventually, in an experiment, we launched an agency with four employees as partners. We all had some skin in the game. My partnership journey taught me what most posts skip over about partnerships. 

You can start and grow to meaningful revenue solo, but the right partner can fill in some of the gaps you bring to the table. A partner should counter your tendencies, not duplicate them.

I am strong on vision, velocity, and the details. But hamming it up at conferences and networking events ... I can suck it up and do it, but it's not quite my thing. I needed someone who loves networking and business development. That's what drives my partner, Kevin Daisey, to get out of bed and come to work.

What I could do without, he lives for! Where my natural tendencies drop off is his pick up. And what I'm really good at is not really his cup of tea. He's the yin to my yang, and vice versa.

That combination allowed us to cover way more ground every day, get more done, and took us from busy to scalable.

Before you say yes to a partner, I want you to pressure test five things.

1. Work together first on real client deliverables.

2. Decide in writing who is the boss. Even if you're 50/50, someone has to be in charge to get shit done.

3. Define roles that do not overlap in day-to-day execution.

4. Agree on money rules for profit, salary, and buyouts so that the future-you does not become enemies with present-you.

5. Make sure your partner shows up when it is hard, not just when it is fun.

I learned the hard way that unclear authority and fuzzy compensation turn minor differences into big rifts.

If I were starting today, or were already at $250K to $1M in revenue, I would stay solo until I felt the constraints that adding a partner could remove. Then I would give a test project, a joint client, and a 90-day trial with written roles and a decision maker named. Only after that would I formalize equity. Bad partnerships are more complex to unwind than test runs.

Start solo. Partner only when the upside is obvious and the rules are clear.

I teach agency owners how to run profitable, time-rich, scalable businesses through The Business of Agency Newsletter and private one-on-one coaching. If you want proven frameworks from my book and from running an integrated agency doing $6.5M per year, this is where we go deep together. Subscribe to this newsletter or visit businessofagency.com to learn more.

I hope that helps.

~ Erik