Partnerships

Hey I just wanted to post my views on partnerships and experiences with all of you guys and what your views are and what experiences you have went through.

Views-
Well First off, I have thought partnership is a great thing. I really think it is good for two or more people working on projects together because I really like group work as well as individual work. I think partnership is very risky though when it comes to choosing your partners. If you are seeking a partner, and you say post a thread seeking a partner, I don?t think that it is the smartest thing to do for a couple of reasons.

1 There is no pre friendship. If your not friends with the person, chances are you might not get along with them. If you cannot cooperate, then what good is it to be partners in the first place? Also reliability. You don't know how much the person is online, what times he/she is online. You can be in complete opposite time zones, which basically cancels out the point of having a partner in the first place

2. Also there is no trust. Without trust there can't be a partnership. You have to trust that the partner is reliable, and isn't/hasn't had any bad backgrounds. If you get a client, finish your part, send the rest to your partner, and he doesn't come through on time, not only does that jeopardize the partnership, but the your whole reputation that you have worked hard on to get.
3. Investments. If you start a partnership, undoubtably there is going to be investments. Time investment is the biggest in my opinion. Time cannot be made up, unless you are running a race. If you find out 1 month into the partnership, that your so-called partner is a flop, then you have wasted your time. Next comes the money. If you?re going to have a partnership you probably are going to get a domain and hosting. Which is expensive at times.

Experiences-
Well I have had two partnerships that I have had flop. I have learned so much from them that it scares me to go into partnership again. There is only less then a handful of people I met on the internet, I could tell you would go into a partnership with them in a heart beat. I?m also a security freak.

My first partner actually sounded like a really trustworthy person. He 'suppose ably' got us a job, that I did the time, and the design work for. After sending it over to him. I didn't hear from him. I suppose he blocked me on all of his messenger services, or just got new ones.
My second partnership was with a member from www.shadowness.com. We were actually good friends, and still are, but he just wasn't at the level I was at. He wasn't coming on steadily, and basically came up with excuses. One being " My dad reformatted the computer, and I lost all of the flash and coding files, including all of the scripts. I?ve tried everything but there is no possible way to get them back. I?m sorry?. To me, I?m sorry doesn?t cut it but half of the time. If you mess up something, you will work your ass off nonstop to get to that point to meet deadlines. I know I would just because I would feel bad. Plus reputation and the thought of losing a partnership. One night I just told him I don't think your ready for a serious partnership right now. Thus ending the partnership. The only thing that is left over is a domain, hosting, and wasted time.

I personally don't have anything against partnerships, but I thought if some new freelancers read this, they could have better opportunities and cease them when they arise.
*May be tons of spelling/punctuation errors.

My fingers hurt,
Regards-Ryan

Interesting view ryan,

1: Partnerships are often formed without prior friendship. It doesn't take a people long to get to know each other, and if it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out. Time-zones are not an issue for me. As I live in New Zealand (Which is 12 hours ahead of GMT) I have to work alot around email. With internet communication, such as email, users need not be online at the same time. It also see's that users come across with more meaningfull messaging - rather than Instant Messaging, such as MSN or ICQ.

2: Trust is an important factor and I agree. There are many methods I look for a persons trust, but my key one is the fact that they follow their own guidelines; Setting their own completion date, and producing a final product by then.

Trust is something which is very much deprived in todays world of technology. You have many examples of trust being broken in everything from Government, to large coporate bodies, to small corner-stores. Trust is laid out by me to other users. If I feel that I cannot trust them, I do not ask for their assistance, or support.

3: Time investment is all I feel that needs to be thought over hard. I put alot of time into my personal projects, and I often record this time. I don't do it for so much as future reference, but more for personal evaluation. At this stage I do not want to me wasting time doing something, when in fact I could be doing it in a lot less time - with more benefits. Other investments are just paper. The fact that money is such a controversial item in todays world shows the difference between freedom and slavery.

Thank you for reading my views.

NEVER start a business with a family member. Money rips people appart, trust me on this one. Same with really close friends.

I think if you are going to start a partnership its probably best to do it properly, with some one at the same location as you. Actually rent out the office space and go into it fully fledged. I guess the only problem with this is partnerships have unlimitied liablity so if the business didnt work out because of disagreements with partners or even just simply lack of interest from potential customers the costs involved in starting might be hard to repay.

If what you are talking about is like a partnership between yourself and perhaps a programmer even at your location or some where else in the world just each be a sole trader and get each task for each project seperately and contracted to seperately by the client. I know sole traders still have unlimited liablility but it would be pretty hard to find yourself getting into trouble this way.

However I am not really sure if thats what you would want to be in a partnership for. If you are entering a partnership, perhaps making some website that would hopefully make money that could be a different situation all over again.

And to quickly get to the point I am making, it depends on what sought of business your partnership will be running.

I think it's about time I put my posting hat on and laid down my views on this subject :

As some of you may know , Mason and I have been partners for near 6 months now working on TheSitePeople.com, a web hosting business. At first me and Mason were I would say more acquaintancies than friends, but as time went on and the project came together we became quite close friends, as we had to work with eachother every day.

Now don't be fooled, there were problems with the partnership but not the partnership as a whole. I had a hard time devoting time to TSP during development, but not all the time. This somewhat delayed our launch by a few weeks. However what was improved upon before launch has only made us a better entity.

Mason never held it against me that I couldn't devote for_that_period, instead he encouraged the brand to do even better than before, and so far so good

It's not so much about choosing the partner, it's about creating a bond with them.

Well said Anthony.

My previous post was trying to get my point accross from both a business and web development point of view but I couldn't quite get out what I was trying to say

Lets cut out the business worries of a partnership and lets just say you are a web developer that is working with another web developer or creating a joint venture in an online business. In this case I think it is always good to work with some one else. Its hard in many cases beginning work with others but if you get use to working with one other programmer or designer things click alot faster. For example Tarun Hari and I have been working together now on projects for a while though we didnt know one another before and we work extremely well together.

If you were to start a web development firm, web hosting, etc. generally even just the work load is hard to comprehend for yourself and many of these that are successful are either partnerships or even companies.