Cheers to 2025
January 5, 2025
Every New Year holds promise, as though it is any different from the turn of
“The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risk” Mark Zuckerberg
By Jolade
Have you ever thought about starting up a business with someone or a group of people?
It has been proven over time that great businesses are built on effective partnerships and collaborations.
Many companies home and abroad were founded based on ideas conceived by someone or a group of people who are the founding fathers. A good number of Banks, Audit firms, conglomerates etc. boast of incorporation founded on effective partnerships.Â
Get it right and you may have landed yourself a goldmine but otherwise the dominos would come crumbling. That said, there is a right and wrong way to go into business partnership with other people. Follow the wrong path, and what started off as an amicable business relationship could end up dissolving into one filled with blame and bitterness.
I will share an experience.
Some years back, an old associate reached out to me from the blues about a fantastic business idea that was bound to turn my life around if I could team up with him. By the time he gave me the breakdown of the business plan it was easy to catch the excitement.
As a corporate worker, I was not really adept with the trading and importation business, which meant that I had to rely on his supposed expertise for execution. With the benefit of hindsight, I can say categorically that I was bamboozled by his entrepreneur skills way back in the university. He was one of those guys who would either sell a flash drive filled with music, or a photocopied and neatly bound textbook, and many more of such petty business ideas. So when he said to me that I would make two million five hundred thousand in returns within 6 months if I put one million naira into his business, I jumped at it. It looked good on paper and that was a cool 250% ROI! Sweet deal. What could possibly go wrong?
Ladies and gentlemen, what went wrong was that I lost my money without getting a call back as to why. The rest they say is history.
Of course, this is just a compressed version of the story and one would expect I should have known better, especially with my background in finance. But did I learn a lesson?
Oh Yes, I did! And I will be sharing some learning points on what to look out for when going into a business relationship.
Let us get some things clear, not everyone can run a business! But we must have multiple streams of income, whether we are in paid employment or not and this is where investing comes in handy.
There are many channels you can invest your funds; the stock, bonds, insurance savings, banks savings product, mutual funds etc. these are the types of investment you go for if your plan is to set funds aside over a long period of time and you want to rest easy. In short, they are the safest and least volatile bet, well except for investing in stock, especially with the way the market is right now.
However, some of us are bold and audacious enough to invest directly in viable business ideas and not through some private equity firms or the likes with an interest to build businesses. In essence we have no choice but to partner and invest our liquid cash in viable business collaboration with the hope of getting a healthy return on investment. This article is for people in this category.
Another thing to note is that although there’s no surefire way to avoid making a business mistake when it comes to partnering with others, but paying attention to some obvious signs can help us switch course before it’s too late.
So how do we make effective business partnering decisions? Here is what I am sharing with you based on experience and opinion-
- Going into business with someone should not be a decision you make in a hurry. Just because you are friends or you’ve done some business with a person in the past does not mean they’ll make a good partner in business. Remember, this is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make and it will pay off in the end to perform your due diligence and ensure you’re choosing the right partner.
- It is a relationship- get to know them first, especially if there is no previous working relationship. The biggest mistake you can make in partnering is going into it too quickly and blindly.
- You need to determine what your role would be in the business, i.e. active or passive? Would you be investing your money without taking any active role in decision making that relates to how the business is run or you want to be smack in the middle of the action?
- If it is too good to be true, then it probably is not true! Don’t be carried away by the optimistic figures on paper. It is never a good sign. All variables must be tested. Figures have to be realistic and achievable. There is hardly a business operation that guarantees bumper and unreasonable returns on ROI. Except it is a Ponzi scheme?
- Never forget your contract agreement- everything has to be spelt out in black and white. I tell my clients this all the time. Gentleman’s agreement rarely holds water in business. Quite frankly, having a contract drawn up is safer for all involved. A contract should cover all aspects of the business operation, expectation, obligations, buyout etc. Please get a lawyer with expertise in business law to draw up a legally binding agreement.
- Listen to your guts- not because it is always right but if you have a funny feeling about a business deal it is better to examine this feeling before proceeding. Clarifying and asking the right relevant question about the proposed business may help clear up your hesitation and put things in a better perspective.
- There must be synergy – you shouldn’t be afraid to go into a business arrangement with someone that is smarter than you. Isn’t that one of the reasons why you teamed up in the first place? A great many business collaborations have been ruined by ego. Simply put, if you cannot see the bigger picture with them, don’t do business!
- Don’t venture into a business collaboration that doesn’t reflect your core values- check for alignment and understand the key drivers of the business. This can be relied upon when things get difficult to avoid conflict of interest.
- Do not be afraid to walk away-Â it is possible that things would not work out as planned. You may decide to quit, lose momentum or carve another path. It is ok to do so in line with the binding agreement, remember point 5 above.
Keep in mind that these are just some of the important elements that should be discussed, agreed upon, when a decision to go into a business collaboration is being made. I wish you a successful journey should you decide to take the plunge!
Related Posts
The Constructive Generalist: How Akin Akingbogun is Engineering Africa’s Future and Writing Its Stories
May 8, 2026
In an era that increasingly demands hyper-specialization, Akin Akingbogun stands out as a refreshing anomaly. He is a man who refuses to be confined to a single box.
I Parked My Car Five Minutes Away: So the Kids Wouldn’t See It.
May 5, 2026
There is a particular kind of silence that falls on a man when the phone stops ringing, the proposals go unanswered, and the diary that once groaned under the weight of appointments sits quietly — almost mockingly — open. If you have ever been there, you know it.
Wired for Me
May 5, 2026
Let me tell you something uncomfortable: the most generous person you know — the one who volunteers every weekend, donates quietly, never asks for anything in return — is probably getting something out of it. Not money. Maybe not even recognition. But something.
When the Burnt Toast Saves Your Life
May 1, 2026
Adaeze had been awake since 4 a.m.
Not because she was anxious — though she was — but because this trip felt different. After eighteen months of follow-ups, phone calls, and PowerPoint presentations polished to a mirror shine, the deal was finally ready to close. An investor meeting in Abuja. A partnership that would change the trajectory of her small but gutsy consulting firm. She had triple-checked her flight, her documents, her outfit. She had prayed. She was ready.
The Loudest Person in Every Room Is Often the Most Afraid
April 28, 2026
When he told his father, Dare’s first response was a sigh. Then: “I told you to practice more. I told you months ago. You don’t listen. You never listen.”
There was no “I’m sorry, son.” No pause to let the boy simply feel the loss of the thing he wanted. Just a swift, seamless pivot to what Temi had done wrong — and, by extension, how Temi’s failure was evidence of Temi’s failure to take his father’s wisdom seriously.
You Only Heard One Side. That’s the Problem
April 28, 2026
I want to tell you something that took me embarrassingly long to learn. Not because the idea is complicated — it is not. But because it cuts against something deeply wired in us, something we are rarely honest enough to admit.
Everything You Were Too Embarrassed to Google About Mid-Life Crisis
April 28, 2026
You are somewhere between forty and fifty-five. You looked in the mirror recently and had a thought you immediately dismissed. Maybe you googled something at 2am that you would never say out loud. Maybe you bought something expensive and impractical and told everyone it was an investment. Or maybe you just feel — quietly, persistently — like the life you built was supposed to feel better than this by now.
Chekhov’s Gun
April 28, 2026
Anton Chekhov was a Russian physician and playwright — a man trained in the discipline of diagnosis before he became one of the most precise storytellers in the history of world literature. That combination of sensibilities matters, because the principle he articulated in the late nineteenth century was not merely a rule of dramatic craft. It was an observation about the nature of significance itself. About what it means for something to be present. About the relationship between introduction and consequence.
Fear Is a Prison with Invisible Walls
April 28, 2026
There is a prison that has no concrete walls, no iron bars, no guards posted at the gate. Nobody built it for you. Nobody sentenced you to it. And yet, for many people, it is the place they spend the better part of their lives — circling its perimeter, brushing their fingers against its invisible boundaries, and quietly retreating each time they feel the edge of something that might require more of them than they believe they can give.
The Closed Fist
April 25, 2026
Picture a hand holding sand. The tighter the grip, the faster the grains escape between the fingers. Ease the grip — open the palm, allow the hand to become a vessel rather than a vice — and the sand stays. This is one of the oldest paradoxes of leadership, and one of the least learned: that control, pursued too aggressively, produces the very loss of control it was designed to prevent.
The Growth Trap
April 25, 2026
There is a version of ambition that builds. And there is a version of ambition that consumes. From a distance — and especially from inside it — they look almost identical. Both are energetic. Both are forward-moving. Both speak the language of vision and possibility. The difference only becomes visible later, usually at the point of fracture, when what was built begins to come apart under the weight of what was promised.
The Frontline Disconnect
April 25, 2026
There is a particular kind of organisational absurdity that most people who have ever worked in a company will recognise immediately. It is the policy that was clearly designed by someone who has never had to implement it. The restructuring that looked elegant on a slide deck and chaotic on the ground. The customer-facing process that was overhauled by a committee that has not spoken to a customer in years. The directive that arrives from above, fully formed and non-negotiable, that causes the people closest to the work to exchange a look — the kind of look that says, without words: they have no idea what we actually do here.
Burnout Is a Leadership Failure
April 23, 2026
We have built an entire mythology around exhaustion. In boardrooms and business culture — perhaps nowhere more so than in the high-pressure, always-on professional culture many of us inhabit — busyness has become a currency. To be tired is to be serious. To be overwhelmed is to be important. To be burning out, quietly, is somehow proof that you are fully committed.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn