You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

What to Do When Friends Want to Be Co-Founders One of the toughest challenges a young entrepreneur may face is turning away friends who want to join their companies. Here are some options.

By Matthew Toren

entrepreneur daily

If you're an entrepreneur with any track record of success, you've had those awkward conversations at parties that start with, "Wow I'd love to be where you are," and wrap up with, "any chance you could use a good… [salesperson, training manager, archivist, dentist] in your organization? Ha Ha Ha."

It's easy to laugh back and say, "I'm afraid we're full up right now, but if you're serious, send us your resume and we'll let you know if we need a dentist in the near future..."

It's much more difficult to turn the discussion if a friend wants/hopes/expects to join you in creating and running the business. She might have been there when you came up with your brilliant idea, listened as you honed it into the start of a business plan, and cheered you on when you came up with just the right product name. You've seen your friend as helpful and encouraging while your friend sees him or herself as part of the business.

Unfortunately, by the time you realize the situation, your friend is making plans to provide start-up space in his basement or her rec room and has been telling everyone about this great new business he's starting with a friend. There's no great way to handle the situation, but here are some thoughts as you move through the process.

Consider it. Maybe your friend would actually be a good partner. Ask yourself the following questions: Do your perspectives mesh while staying different enough to encourage discussion and debate? Can you spend a lot of time with your friend without getting bored or irritated? Can your friend fulfill many roles? Does your friend have all the desirable business partner traits: responsible, reliable, hard worker, good with people, rich aunt?

Be fair. Is it possible that all of those great ideas and plans really did come from both of you? Consider whether you're not unjustly taking all the credit. If your friend has already been acting more like a partner from the start, guess what, you have a partner!

Check your pronouns. Have you been saying "I" or "we?" How about "us" or "our?" Has your friend slowly been changing his pronoun usage to include "our" instead of "your?" If so, you might start changing those pronouns back to the first person and see if your friend gets the message without either of you having to face "the big discussion."

The big discussion. This is by far the hardest option. Feelings could get hurt, and you risk losing a good friend. But even if you bricked and you inadvertently painted an inaccurate picture of the situation, honesty is best. Have that difficult discussion about how each of you will proceed before you startup. In many ways launching a business is like getting married, you don't want either to end in divorce.

Matthew Toren

Serial Entrepreneur, Mentor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com

Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right (Wiley). He's based in Vancouver, B.C.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Told Meta Engineers to 'Figure Out' Snapchat's Privacy Protections: 'We Have No Analytics on Them'

Recently unsealed court documents detail "Project Ghostbusters," Meta's project to work around Snapchat's end-to-end encryption to intercept data.

Business News

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Multibillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud

Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the loss amount to the victims of Bankman-Fried's crimes surpassed $550 million.

Growing a Business

The Brand Whiz Behind Sun Bum Is Famous For Making Boring Products Fun. Then, This One Stumped Him.

Everything Tom Rinks touched turned to gold until he took on a brand launch at Target that fizzled. Then, he found a creepy doll on Ebay, and he saw a way forward.

Thought Leaders

How To Improve Your Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence in 7 Easy Steps

Using these simple but effective approaches will help a person in their business, life and relationships.