This is what I learned from a bad partnership

And how I choose my partners.

👋 Hey, it’s Orel here! Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share my journey and lessons as an entrepreneur who quit his job to chase his dreams.

I am a software developer, and so far I have x3 failed projects, and x1 ongoing.

I am also publishing along with Anton Zaides tech book summaries and practical tips here.

If you are very short on time, here’s what I learned about choosing a partner:

1. Trust your instincts

2. Talk about what bothers you and don’t hold it inside.

3. Choose a partner that’s communicative and engaged.

4. Repeated bad patterns = a bad sign. Consider how to move forward.

5. Have a fair labor division that both of you will show commitment from the start.

Now, if you are here, it’s good to have you, and let’s start from the beginning.

In June of 2023, I started my first cooperation to build a mobile app.
The app was meant to transform most manual tasks chess club managers have to do daily - automatic.

The start

In the beginning, it bothered me to see my local chess club’s manager doing so much work that can be easily automated.

So, I decided to offer him (we’ll call him Ray from now on) my services and to build up an app together to replace all that.

Ray was excited and told me how much he wants it.
He said that he has experience with many other startups he had and that he is ready for another adventure..

We met in Zoom a few times and decided which features we wanted to have and how we were going to divide the labor.

It was 50-50 equity, 50-50 payments, 50-50 work.

My part:
Manage the communication with the designer and the developers

His part:
Marketing, testing and communicating with other chess clubs.

Since Ray has no technical background and building the app would take a lot of hours, we decided to outsource the development and the design.

The building phase

At this point, we had a design ready and a mobile developer working on our cross-platform application.

Total cost: 1800$

Things seemed to be going well for the project.
But I felt bad.

I was managing the project myself at this point. I managed the communication with the designer and the developer, which is my job.

The problem was that Ray was not active at all.

He barely responded to me on WhatsApp, didn’t bother to check the app's progress and generally didn’t engage.

I decided to talk to him and understand what was going on.

The beginning of the end

On the call, Ray said that he was super busy the last couple of weeks and that he will be more engaged from now on.

And he was. For a few days.

He gradually stopped responding again and got back to how it was before I talked to him.

Now I really started feeling bad about the project, yet I feared of losing him as a partner and having to deal with the project alone.
This is an important part which I’ll touch later in the lessons.

So, I built up some courage and took a bus to the chess club and sat down to talk with him.

Again, just like in the phone call, Ray said that he is very busy with tournaments that he has to arrange and that he didn’t have time to review things I sent him.

So I asked him if he was ready to continue and work on the app together.
His response: “Absolutely. I will have the time, starting next week”.

Okay, at least he is honest now! That’s a good sign, right?’

The end

At this point, around mid september, our app was up and running and ready for publish.

This was Ray’s part to take on and do his part.
And if you are still reading this, you probably have a feeling to what happened next.

And your feelings are probably right. That’s how I felt as well.

Ray made a WhatsApp group, after I nudged him, with a group of people who can test the app.

And the group was great! They tried the app, they sent feedback and some even sent suggestions.

The problem? Ray did not respond to any of them. I waited for a few days to see how things are going and still, no response.

I confronted him again. And again, he excused his absence and responded to them.

At this point, 7.10, a war broke out. Israel was brutally attacked by a terrorist group and things were shutting down very fast.

I set up a conversation with Ray to discuss how we’re going to progress.
I thought to tell him that we need to renegotiate the equity.

He said that the club was shut down and that we cannot proceed at this moment.

I took the L, and moved on.

What I learned from the experience

1. Trust your instincts. They are usually right.

2. Choose a partner that’s communicative and engaged.
   At least as much as you are or very close to you.

3. Talk about what bothers you and don’t hold it inside.
   Otherwise, just like in any other relationships, it will blow up eventually and cause way more harm then it should.

4. Repeated bad patterns = a bad sign.
   If you talked to your partner about a unaccepted behavior that they have, yet nothing changes, consider the probable chance that it’s not something you’re going to change.

5. Have a division of labor that makes you both work from the start.

   that way, the both of you will have confirmation that you are engaged and ready to make it work.

Final words

If there’s one thing I would want you to take from this experience is this:

Say what bothers you. Quit fearing your partner will leave you.
And on the other hand, don’t fear leaving if things don’t work out.

I found that if your partner, both in business and in life, doesn’t want to be with you because of hard things you have say to make things better, it’s probably for the best.

I believe this is the main reason things didn’t go well.
I felt bad about continuing to work with Ray, and Ray probably didn’t care enough about the project.

So instead of dragging it, I should have been more courageous and tell him that I am not happy with the way things are going and that either we decide on a new equity and labor division or that I am taking a step back from the project.

Have the courage to speak your mind and get what you deserve.
You deserve it ;)

📣 Shout-outs of the week

Inversion - Mental Model on

Michał Poczwardowski

- Michal shares an interesting point of view about thinking how to make things better by thinking how to make them worse first.

How to get an enthusiastic yes on

Wes Kao

- You want to read this if you are interested in increasing your chances of getting a yes.
Especially if you have cold leads. I have recently stumbled upon her newsletter and subscribed, and you will probably do the same. (Did I do it right Wes? ;))

Why I write a newsletter every week even with a full-time software engineering job on

Jordan Cutler

- Jordan shares his journey as a newsletter writer, both the highs and the lows. Definitely worth a read to get a glimpse into the life of a great writer.

🎉 Welcome to new subscribers!

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Anton Zaides

P.S.

Sorry for those of you I missed, the search is awful.