Goals

• Why are we doing this project together?
• What do we hope to achieve?
• What do we want to replicate and what do we want to avoid from past experiences?
• Where do we see this project in 1 year, 3 years, and 10 years?
• How do we envision exiting this project, business, or partnership?
• How do we measure success?
• What do you expect from each other?

 

Roles

• What do you like working on?
• What do you hate working on?
• Where are the gaps between the two of you?
• What assets, skills, and resources are we bringing into this partnership?

Money

• What are your financial expectations from this venture?
• Is this going to be your entire household income?
• Will you be working on anything else while we work together?
• How many hours will we work elsewhere?
• How much money can you contribute to start-up? Will you contribute more down theroad? How much can you realistically contribute before things start to get scary?
• Are we contributing equally?

 

Values

• What are social/environmental/labor standards that are non-negotiables? Will we outsource overseas if that is the most cost-efficient thing to do?
• What are our views on “quality of life”
• What are views on being ethical? Is there a time when you sacrificed your ethics formoney? Would you do it again?
• Do we have the same approach to work ethic, quality of work, and customer service?

 

Work/Life Balance

• Are you inclined to bring work home, or do you consider home-time family time?
• Am I expected to respond 24/7 to emails, texts, and phone calls?
• What hours will you work in the office? What works hours do we plan to keep? Do youexpect the other person to keep the same hours?
• What is your current family situation and what changes are you anticipating? Whathappens if there is a short-term or long-term emergency?
• Do you consider yourself a stickler for rules, or are you laid back type of person?
• What if you decide to make a lifestyle change (new baby, ailing parent, etc.)
• Is there an age or life stage difference between us? How will this affect our relationship

 

Control

• Am I okay not having a final say over all or part of business?
• Are there some parts where I must have a final say? What am I okay giving up controlover?
• What position will we hold?
• How do we express disagreement?
• If things don’t work out can we pursue similar businesses separately, or will we signnon-compete agreements? How would we divvy up clients?

 

Communication

• What is our preferred method of communication? Email, text, phone?
• Are we comfortable talking about the big three? Money, Time, and Problems
• Have you ever yelled at someone? How do you respond to being yelled at?
• Are we constant communicators, or should we set a weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly,or milestones check-in to review these questions?
• What haven’t we talked about yet that we should.

 

Worst Case Scenario?

• Make a list of the worst things that can go wrong in this partnership?
• Discuss

 

Intuition Check

• What is my gut telling me about this person?
• Do I respect them?
• Do I want to work with this person? Do I like them as a human being?
• Am I recreating any similar relationship from my past?
• Did these questions eliminate doubts? Illuminate anything? Or make me question thispartnership? Do I still want to go into business together?