Research: How Do Entrepreneurs Think About Partnerships?
A partnership can make (or break) your business.
“Partner” doesn’t just refer to your co-founders – it can be an investor, a service provider, a mentor or an employee, for example.
It’s tempting to pick the best in the game as your partners, but you’d be better off choosing someone you have good chemistry with.
Partnering up is about more than shared resources and outputs. Can you identify a partnership that offers the potential for personal growth, too?
A successful partnership relies on you both bringing your best. You may want to brush up on the art of listening.
Nick, the CEO of Veldskoen Shoes, has become kind of famous for partnering with the right people to grow the Veldskoen brand. Check out his recipe on pitching to partners.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and partnering.
Whether it is partnering to co-found a start-up, collaborating on a brand partnership or forming a strategic alliance, choosing a partner can make or break a business.
How to identify, engage with and grow a partnership are all burning questions for entrepreneurs.
There is a golden rule to follow, of course: choose partners with whom you have a natural chemistry, even if they don’t perhaps have the best technical expertise. The chemistry within a group of collaborators is a better predictor of long-term success than level of expertise alone.
Entrepreneurs are surrounded by a diverse range of partner relationships: suppliers, clients, communities, institutions – even life partners. Each relationship requires a particular skill set to cultivate something that is mutually beneficial.
Knowing this, entrepreneurs are proactively investing in their ability to identify and build healthy relationships. Let’s look at a few themes we’ve picked up in our research analysing all our recipes that mention partnerships:
Insight 1
The five collaboration priorities for entrepreneurs are partnerships that enable them to access capital (investors), build a business (co-founders), serve their customers better (external organisations), tap into personal growth (mentors) and cultivate culture (employees).
Insight 2
Personal growth – the potential to learn from a partner – is a major consideration for entrepreneurs looking to identify new relationships. Partnerships are about much more than service agreements and outputs.
Insight 3
Entrepreneurs are learning how to become better listeners and how to extract value from feedback, whether positive or negative.
Insight 4
Self-awareness is a quality entrepreneurs look for when deciding whether someone is a suitable co-founder or not. They value co-founder relationships in which everyone knows their personal shortcomings.
Our data tells us that entrepreneurs are clear about the type of partnerships they want to prioritise, and they’re very conscious about how they are selecting their partners. The potential for personal growth is a major consideration, as is self-awareness and the ability to listen – all in the name of cultivating healthy partner engagements.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what are some of the actions we can take from these insights?
For entrepreneurs: As much as you might like to, you know you can’t do everything yourself. But before you approach a potential partner, try writing down your relationship-building strengths and weaknesses and see if there’s anything you can improve on.
For educators: Entrepreneurs want to cultivate their interpersonal skills. How can you support entrepreneurs to develop their ability to be better partners themselves?
For service providers: Entrepreneurs struggle to find partners who are right for the stage their business is at. How can you help them improve their ability to identify and assess a potential partnership?
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