Starting a business with your best friend might sound like an excellent idea, after all the business world is littered with successful dynamic duos (Baskin & Robbins anyone?) and there’s no one else you’d rather spend your days with right?
In theory, starting a business with your best buddy makes sense. Building upon a solid foundation is good, but in practice things rarely go smoothly. A business partnership is a lot like a marriage, it involves a complex mix of dynamics, and just like a marriage, the rate of success is not in your favour.
5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Start a Business With Your Friends
- Compatibility Not Guaranteed – Strong friendships don’t necessarily translate into business compatibility. More often than not friends who go into business find that they have very different approaches to productivity and corporate values. These differences almost inevitably cause conflict, creating problems within both the business and the friendship.
- Money Troubles – Money and friends do not mix well. Things get especially tricky when one partner invests more than the other, or when conflicts of interest arise.
- Risking it All – The risk of failure is great. Not only do you risk losing the business and your hard earned savings, but you risk losing your friend as well. The repercussions of a business failure can be huge and just like in a messy divorce, a fallout could cause your other friends to feel they need to pick sides also.
- Time Management – You’re best friends and you do everything together right? Once your friendship turns into a business partnership you’ll no longer be able to do as much of the fun stuff together. Group holidays? Not anymore, one of you will have to stay back and captain the ship while the other is off having the fun.
- Not Just Failure to Fear – The odds are stacked against you, but funnily enough it’s not just failure you need to fear. Sometimes friendships break down when the business finds success. Success, particularly financial success, tends to change peoples priorities and can cause difficulties with the friendship down the line.
The bottom line? No matter how strong your friendship, you’re probably better off not increasing the risks that come with starting your own business by starting one with a friend. Instead, lower your risk by opening a business on your own, or buying a franchise, you can still share your success with your friends, but you’ll keep the friendship intact in the meantime.
Call the team at Kwik Kopy today to find out how you can become our next franchisee.
