Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
Any suggestions on the best way to set up this endeavor? Are there any things we need to be particularly careful of, both collectively and individually?
What happens if one person does most of the maintenance work? What if a person dies, quits or turns out to be a control freak?
Having things be explicit can save you a lot of grief.
This provides the other parties with your specific responsibilities. In the future, growth of the site and the business it generates can be re-negotiated.
Stay tuned to WebmasterWorld. Best of luck.
I am from india and i am also a web programmer.. i am also ready for online business like affilliated shopping website.. i am also individual.. can u agree with partnership for me..
waiting for ur reply..
deepak
As one of my business lecturers once said:
"No one plans to fail but many people fail to plan."
Something quick and dirty should do the trick and should really be just about solidifying the ideas.
last 4-5 week i hv. search some websites and i get not any problem about affilliated commission.
second.. i know what is the best way to promote website and how to optimize website.. i think this is no risky... if u agree. give me reply.. i am waiting for ur reply..
deepak
Do they have a business plan? That's usually my main question. If they don't have a plan, chances are it's not going to work- it doesn't have to be complicated, even a 2 pager can do the trick.
What happens if one person does most of the maintenance work? What if a person dies, quits or turns out to be a control freak?Having things be explicit can save you a lot of grief.
That tends to be the greatest problem regardless of who is involved.
Without a plan roles in the business have no structure, as such partnerships have no place to go but down.
Additionally, for any business (virtual or otherwise) to achieve a measure of success the "idea" is only the very basic concept of a business.
Planning specifically for the Internet is a necessity - it moves fast and basing decisions based on what you think might be true is often flawed.
Don't make the "idea" the "plan" - spend time together with each member taking a share of the planning workload... management roles, industry research, market research, marketing plan, and financial statements.
This also helps develop better partnerships as well.
How far in the future should our business plan reach? I assume there will be some things that hold true in perpetuity, but there are also some specific steps that should be planned... six months for specific plans, then reevaluate?
I'll be doing virtually all of the work for the first 3 months, then my input will reduce somewhat while the workload of others will increase; how do we make the share owned by each person representative of the work they put in? How do we make it fair for all involved?
If you don't have the time to explain the business basics to me, if you could point me to a book that might have the answers, I'd appreciate it a great deal.
Thanks for all the input!
Clearly define what each of your roles are to be
Don't forget to include thing like bookkeeping/accounting, who's going to write the business plan, etc. You may also want to specify how much time per week each of you will commit to performing your "duties." This will prevent you from spending long hours developing and maintaining the site, while others do very little.
Decide if/how you'll be compensated for your "work"
If there is an uneven distribution of labor required (i.e., you'll be doing most of the work, while the others have little to do), then consider including a clause that states that you'll be compensated for your work before profits are distributed.
Have an exit clause
In the event that any of the partners want out, you should all agree beforehand what the exiting partner will get. The worst time to do this is after someone has decided they want out.
Decide if "shares" can be sold
Decide in advance if a partner can sell his share of the partnership (or his stock, if you're incorporated). Otherwise, you may suddenly find yourself in business with someone you didn't expect to be, nor like. Also, in the event of a partner's death, will you allow the spouse or whomever the shares are willed to become the new partner?
I formed a partnership with a friend and someone he knew. I was to do front-end design, my friend would program, and the other partner was our salesman.
About 9 months in, it became apparent that our salesman wasn't really catching on to selling technology services (his background was selling tangible products). It also seemed like my friend and I were spending most of our spare time designing and programming, but he was doing little to bring in work. Lack of an exit clause (and the fact that we all had become friends) made this difficult to address. He eventually realized that he wasn't pulling his weight and voluntarily stepped out. It all worked out amicably and we're friends to this day, but if we'd been raking in big bucks, he may have wanted his piece of the pie. If I were to do it again, I'd definately do it differently.
The other issue we encountered was that my programmer partner spent a disproportionate amount of development hours due to some prorietary CMS software we purchased, which had to be installed/maintained. We only recently began to keep track of those hours to figure out how to compensate him for all this "research and development."
Yes, and it also sounds they want you to do all the work, too. Why should you risk your time and effort working with people who have nothing to bring to the table other than an *idea*?
If you're serious about doing this, my suggestion would be this. Find someone who already runs their own business but doesn't have a web site, and partner with them instead.
I had some nebulous thoughts of this nature, but hadn't sorted them out - hadn't even got far enough to CONSIDER sorting them out!
Since I'm the webbie in question in our potential partnership, it's pretty important to me that I don't short my OWN irons in the fire during the set-up and ramp-up phases.
Again, thanks. One more example of the helpful info one gets here.
I've given up partnering sites with people as I've been bitten too many times (perhaps all my friends are just lazy), nowdays, if I want a job doing, I do it myself.
