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Hi Everyone,
I’m new to the forum. I have read both of MJ’s books and have been fascinated by entrepreneurship for many years. I’m currently in my mid 30’s. I have had some small victories on entrepreneurship but nothing huge to this point. I currently run a sports website with memberships that brings in about 10k a year. My overhead is about 1k a year so most of that income is profit. At this point it’s been a side hustle because I’ve had a job or other interests that take up a lot of my time. Since college I worked 9-5 jobs in sales, primarily in the staffing industry.
After about 10 years I was completely burnt out by corporate America and decided that with my experience, I could start a staffing company of my own. I partnered with a friend of mine in the industry and we started our own company about 2 years ago. We have had moderate success, have made some money and also a few mistakes. The problem that I have encountered is that my business partner and I simply don’t think the same. He has completely let the small amount of success that our business has had go to his head. He is extremely irresponsible with money. He has signed contracts for expensive staffing tools that have not shown us anything close to a return on our money. He spends like he’s rich (he’s not even close) and he seems more interested in bragging to friends and women that he owns a business rather than actually do the things that need to be done to continue to grow the business and make money. I have had countless conversations with him about saving money, building the business responsibly and toning down his behavior, but it all goes in one ear and out the other. Additionally, he cares a lot about being a cool boss to employees rather than actually being a boss and running an efficient business. I’m more looked at as the bad guy from the employees because I have instituted policies that save the company money and have also made some revisions to commission policies that needed to be done to make us more profitable long term.Most of the time I feel like I’m the Dad and he’s the kid despite me only being a couple years older than him.
With all that said our business is doing ok for now. After commissions and expenses we still clear about 8k per month. Obviously we are far from being a huge success but considering we built the business from scratch I am proud of our progress so far.
So that brings us to now. Despite the fact that we are still profitable, the friendship between my business partner and I has deteriorated pretty significantly because of our differences in how to run a business. When we meet, he sees my suggestions as lectures and doesn’t seem to think we need to improve anything. He has also borrowed several thousand out of the company bank account and never paid it back. At this point I feel like I either need to take over the business myself or get out as quick as possible. I have thought about offering a buyout to him but I could probably only pull together about 12k of cash and I’m fairly confident he wouldn’t go for that because it’s too important to him to act like a big shot business owner to others. At this point I’m well aware that I made a bad decision to partner with this guy, but am now just looking for ways/suggestions to get out of the partnership while also getting my fair share of compensation so that I can use it as seed money for my next venture.
Maybe some of you had similar experiences? I’m certainly not absolving myself of blame since it was my choice to work with him but at this point our partnership is clearly not meant for long term success. My biggest worry is leaving the company too early and then seeing my hard work and ideas pay off while he undeservingly reaps the benefits.
Any advice is appreciated.
I’m new to the forum. I have read both of MJ’s books and have been fascinated by entrepreneurship for many years. I’m currently in my mid 30’s. I have had some small victories on entrepreneurship but nothing huge to this point. I currently run a sports website with memberships that brings in about 10k a year. My overhead is about 1k a year so most of that income is profit. At this point it’s been a side hustle because I’ve had a job or other interests that take up a lot of my time. Since college I worked 9-5 jobs in sales, primarily in the staffing industry.
After about 10 years I was completely burnt out by corporate America and decided that with my experience, I could start a staffing company of my own. I partnered with a friend of mine in the industry and we started our own company about 2 years ago. We have had moderate success, have made some money and also a few mistakes. The problem that I have encountered is that my business partner and I simply don’t think the same. He has completely let the small amount of success that our business has had go to his head. He is extremely irresponsible with money. He has signed contracts for expensive staffing tools that have not shown us anything close to a return on our money. He spends like he’s rich (he’s not even close) and he seems more interested in bragging to friends and women that he owns a business rather than actually do the things that need to be done to continue to grow the business and make money. I have had countless conversations with him about saving money, building the business responsibly and toning down his behavior, but it all goes in one ear and out the other. Additionally, he cares a lot about being a cool boss to employees rather than actually being a boss and running an efficient business. I’m more looked at as the bad guy from the employees because I have instituted policies that save the company money and have also made some revisions to commission policies that needed to be done to make us more profitable long term.Most of the time I feel like I’m the Dad and he’s the kid despite me only being a couple years older than him.
With all that said our business is doing ok for now. After commissions and expenses we still clear about 8k per month. Obviously we are far from being a huge success but considering we built the business from scratch I am proud of our progress so far.
So that brings us to now. Despite the fact that we are still profitable, the friendship between my business partner and I has deteriorated pretty significantly because of our differences in how to run a business. When we meet, he sees my suggestions as lectures and doesn’t seem to think we need to improve anything. He has also borrowed several thousand out of the company bank account and never paid it back. At this point I feel like I either need to take over the business myself or get out as quick as possible. I have thought about offering a buyout to him but I could probably only pull together about 12k of cash and I’m fairly confident he wouldn’t go for that because it’s too important to him to act like a big shot business owner to others. At this point I’m well aware that I made a bad decision to partner with this guy, but am now just looking for ways/suggestions to get out of the partnership while also getting my fair share of compensation so that I can use it as seed money for my next venture.
Maybe some of you had similar experiences? I’m certainly not absolving myself of blame since it was my choice to work with him but at this point our partnership is clearly not meant for long term success. My biggest worry is leaving the company too early and then seeing my hard work and ideas pay off while he undeservingly reaps the benefits.
Any advice is appreciated.
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