In forums, the common feeling is that you should never partner with someone you have never met, because you cannot trust people you have never met. Personally, I believe this to be very much untrue.

Why do you even need a partner? Any possible partnership is possible; providing money, providing skills/services, providing equipment etc. A partner is to fill a spot in your company you cannot fill (alone).

In the past years, especially after I worked on building out Layeredpanel.com to what it is today  (I do not own it anymore), I have met many people online and have been working on online partner relations.

After meeting a lot of people online (and only online), some of them started asking me to start partnerships in developing software, sites or even complete companies. After chatting and mailing for a long  time with all of them, I decided to try it one time. This turned into a friendship and a partnership which is still working today and still making money today for the both of it.

Following that first, very positive, experience I decided to work on more of these kind of partnerships.

Why do I need partnerships? What do I look for?

Usually I need someone who is good at ‘exterior’; marketing, look & feel, sales. Also a good idea is often a good partnership option. These points all take a lot of time and even though I can do them myself, I enjoy writing software and managing servers.

Deals, for me, are perfect if I am delivering  hosting, programming, optimizing and so on. I have 20+ years of experience in software development and I can buid any web application on any scale in a very short time. I own many servers and having many contact into high scale hosting. So, for me it is logical to find people who add marketing, sales and ideas to this.

We start by outlining an idea and getting a domain name; normal for me is to have ‘the other  party’ register the domain name. That way we both have a part of the final system and neither of us can move away without serious damage to the whole (I take risks; I am not stupid). I like 50/50 deals; this way you are sure both run for the project and that it is balanced out enough. Other %/% depend on who delivers what at the start of the project.

When the partnership is going well for a longer time, you should consider opening a ‘real’ company together and moving the assets into that company. When you are in different countries this does not give that much protection, but in the long it is a good idea.

My experiences with partnerships (and since ‘my first time’ I had more than 20) have been mostly positive and have delivered money, friendship and a better life for both sides.  Mostly positive implies downsides; I had one bad experience; I invested in a guy who went broke. That happens; he didn’t screw me, he just was not very focused in his business, something which I saw coming but then I already invested.

Just remember to not make your past experiences mess up your future; you can remain scared and paranoid or you can have a solid business and good friends very easily.