Quote: (12-10-2018 07:01 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:
Quote: (12-10-2018 02:00 PM)the-dream Wrote:
Yes, for all of my close friends and family.
On a slightly related topic, my dream is to have a successful business abroad and hire my friends from back home in their areas of expertise and let them live the dream with me. Has anybody here ever attempted this and what was the outcome?
Once you hire a few friends, you will like the idea less. It's very hard to mix business and friends or family. They almost never have the same attitude towards working hard and minimizing costs as you do as the business owner. They are looking to take it easy and get as much pay as possible, and start viewing you as stingy. It gets worse from there.
I would only have a family member or friend as a business partner if they had money at stake themselves, and even then it's hard. It's best to keep business and personal relationships separate.
Agreed.
Definitely would not hire friends or give them any perks related to business. You can end up hurting your business and losing friends on top of that. Upside on the other hand, is limited.
Regarding family, maybe, but only if your sibling is on the same page, you both have ownerships stakes/skin in the game, and there is a written out, expressly spelled out division of responsibilities. Otherwise, you end up duplicating tasks and some tasks won't get done, through no particular person's fault really, but simply due to a lack of organization on the part of everyone. Also, one person needs to own 51% and the other person, in addition to owning 49%, needs to acknowledge the 51% owner as being the one who calls the shots (but takes input from the other party). You could also do a 50%/50% split, but in that case as well, it needs to be understood between the two of you that one of you is the final decision maker, and this informal agreement is dangerous unless your maturity is high and your bonds are ultra close.
The upside has to be there, though, in order to include family. Don't include them either if the upside just isn't there for everyone. Everyone's strengths should contribute to the business.