The vast majority of websites, blogs, and forums, are started by individuals. As the website grows, the owner usually starts bringing in other people to help the website grow. That is how I started doing business online many years ago and it is how I continue to do business today, however I do need to work with others.
Once I have established a website, I always seek help from others to help me run it, whether it be forum members to help me run a forum, or bloggers to help me run a blog. The fact is, there is only one of me, so to develop websites the way I want to, I need to hire people to help me. Generally speaking, I would rather take a huge cut in profits if it meant spending less time running a website.
My Past Projects with Partners
My lack of partners with websites is partly due to the lifestyle I enjoy having. I love travelling, I love being my own boss, and I love working hard when I need to so that I can enjoy time off.
There is only a handful of occasions in the past where I have launched a website with someone else. One of my first joint-projects was an eCommerce website in 2008 with my friend Eddie in which we sold iPhone and MP3 accessories. We spent a lot of time building a professional looking online shop, but in the end, all of our sales came through eBay. We had hoped that return customers would purchase items through our shop instead, however they just returned to our eBay page to buy items.
It had mixed success. I believe we could have built a long term business through it. It was not a difficult business to run, however it did get quite boring. We had to spend an hour or so every day packing up items and then had to take a trip to the post office to send them. Looking back, our hearts weren’t in it. I was still maintaining my own websites so I never threw myself into the project 100%.
4 years ago I launched a website with a partner called Blog Themes Club. It was launched off the back of my old blog Blogging Tips.
It was the only time that I have developed a website from the beginning with a person I did not know in real life. Everything was split down the line 50/50. My partner, Sarah, was a joy to work with. I handled the promotional side of things and she did most of the technical work.
Although the websites I started with others did not turn into profitable projects long term, they were all positive experiences. In both the above projects I learned a lot about something in particular. In the former, I learned more about running an eCommerce website (we used CS-Cart). In the latter, I gained experience of running a membership website that was not a discussion forum (we used s2Member).
Working with a Partner
I have discussed the notion of creating a website with my friends Kevin Mackay and Sam Sinton many times. Kevin and Sam work together on projects 75% of the time so they are used to working together and splitting everything down the middle.
We talked about launching blogs, forums, and other types of websites. Unfortunately, we have never gotten to the point of us actually sitting down and planning a website launch seriously.
This is partly due to us all doing our own thing online. We all have similar skills. They know a little more than me about SEO and I have more experience than them with blogging; however, our skill sets are very similar. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per say, though it does mean that we need to think more about what our responsibilities would be if we launched a website together.
With my friend Eddie, we met each other to work on our online shop every day. So we both worked together on everything. It was easy for me and Sarah to agree our responsibilities with Blog Themes Club. I had a successful blog to launch the site from and I had more experience in writing content. She was a plugin developer, therefore she could edit themes and plugins (something I could not do).
If I am to work with Kevin and Sam on a project in the future, we need to agree upon our responsibilities. It is not as straightforward as you think. If one was a writer, one was a designer, and one was a coder; it would be easy to work out who does what.
What happens when you bring together three blogger/affiliate-marketers together to launch a project? Most technical tasks would be outsourced, therefore we would likely be doing similar jobs. My concern with this was that complications could easily arise. What happens if one or more of the partners do not put the work in that is necessary? Worst case scenario, the website would be sold, but how are the profits of a joint project divided if one person never pulled their weight throughout?
This is why I believe that a contract is necessary for any website you start with a partner. The contract needs to specify who does what, how many hours people work, how much people are paid, what happens if the website fails etc?
Asking for a contract to be signed is enough to scare some people away from a project though a person who does not want to sign a contract may not be that serious about the website. If that is the case, why would you want to start a website with them in the first place? Would it not be better to start the website yourself?
Final Thoughts
It has always suited me to start websites on my own in the past. If I was a little more settled, I could see myself wanting to launch a website with a friend. It would be good to share the workload and the burden of developing a website.
The internet makes it possible for anyone to launch an online business together remotely. Many successful websites, such as SitePoint, started this way. If I was going to launch a website with partners, I would prefer to live close to them so that we could work together on the website at least a few times a week. It would be a much more enjoyable way to work.
All things going as planned, I am hoping to develop a website with someone else this year. One thing is certain, the responsibilities of each partner will clearly be defined from the start.
I would love to hear of your experiences of developing websites with friends and business partners. Was it a success? Did you run into any problems along the way? Please leave a comment and share your story :)
Thanks,
Kevin
That’s tremendously useful advice Sam, confirms my hesitation about partnering on projects that require a split workload, especially when both partners have similar skill sets.
I have to admit that I am a lot more pro-partnerships than Kevin, this is perhaps because all my online successes have been achieved working with someone rather than on my own.
But, most of Kevin’s concerns are definitely legitimate issues – in my opinion you should only ever partner on projects that only require finance as opposed to a split workload.
Brainstorming, discussion, and recruiting are tasks that everyone will be willing to do for free, but splitting the workload will almost certainly cause divisions from the off, and more likely than not one partner will end up carrying the other(s) before it all falls apart.
Pull resources ($’s) and outsource – you will all benefit from working this way! If you must get involved join the project as a paid writer/designer etc….but don’t work for free!
This has worked well for me in the past – but too many chiefs & not enough Indians can also cause divides.
Also, if you do decide to pull resources have clear targets with clear rules on what happens if one partner pulls out, does not pay what is needed etc…..the goal should always be to hit break even point as quickly as possible so that the investment of both time & money is no longer an issue hanging over the project!
You and Kevin work well as partners. Firstly, because you are friends first and partners second. Secondly, because you live close to each other and can discuss key issues over a beer :)
You make a good point about simply paying one of the people working a fee, however how do you define their rate? I still don’t think a 50/50 split would be fair in that instance as a blog’s success is largely dependent on the quality of content that is published.
Let’s say you decide to develop a blog with a guy you met through the internet (e.g. a reader of your blog or a member of a forum). You both decide to put $5,000 into the project for the domain, hosting and design. The rest of the money would cover author fees.
Now let’s assume you were the sole writer for the blog and in return you got $200 per article. And then, after a few months, you get an offer you cannot refuse for the blog such as $10,000. By this point, you may have been paid about $2,000-$3,000 in author fees from the $10,000 fund you guys originally set up. Apart from the initial $5,000 fee, the other guy has pretty much done nothing. Even though you have been paid for your work, I think you would deserve a bigger cut of the sale.
This is just an example of what could happen. My point is, should a silent partner who does nothing but put in money get the same share of the income/sale as the partners who are actively working on the website?
:)
Kevin
I think it really comes down to what a partner can bring to the table. As I said, a designer, coder and writer, each bring different skills into a partnership.
Say I started a blog with my friends Sam and Kevin but we decided not to write any articles ourselves. Instead, we would each put in $500 a month to cover author expenses. However, what if Sam was making a lot of money through another website. Why wouldn’t he just pay out $1,500 to authors himself and develop the blog himself. It would be silly for him to partner with us as he would potentially losing two-thirds of the profits in the long term. It would be completely different if all partners were splitting writing responsibilities evenly. Then a partnership makes sense.
This is a timely post Kevin, as I’ve been dwelling on similar things during the past few weeks. I’ve reached a stage where I either need to hire people or partner in order to be able to implement the ideas I have, as I only have a limited amount of time myself. It’s a bit harder to partner up when you have the skills to do it yourself, just not the time. It’s much easier when the skills are complementary, as you mention, and indeed I ran a web agency successfully in this way for around 2 years.
What are your thoughts on partnering up vs hiring people?