https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JShQ8BX08rs

1 00:00:00.000 --\> 00:01:00.000 when you're in a business relationship
you're in a marriage and their extracurricular life is going to get
dragged into the business i promise you in this video i want to give you
the keys to having a terrible terrible partnership and the reason we're
talking about in this perspective is because my my my big hero charlie
munger talked about inverted thinking as one of the best ways to solve
problems so rather than think how do i have an amazing partnership let's
think about how would i guarantee a miserable terrible partnership that
would uh definitely ensue in a terrible breakup with lots of lawyers and
all the paperwork and just honestly ideally take forever and result in
no benefit all right and if you don't know hi my name is alex shimozzi i
own acquisition.com it's a portfolio of companies over 100 million a
year and i have nothing to sell you i make these videos because i hope
that you make lots and lots of money from them and then hopefully you
apply to become a portfolio company with us as long as you're doing you
know three to let's say 20 million dollars a year and ideally an
internet business now that being said let's rock and roll on how to have
a terrible partnership now as somebody who has a lot of partnerships um
it has taken me a very long time to get here and i have learned a lot
along the way and the beauty of having stories is that you can get the
lessons without the scars and so i will give you let's see one two three
four five six seven eight

2 00:01:00.000 --\> 00:02:00.000 nine ten ten different things that you
can do to guarantee absolutely atrocious terrible partnership that you
wish you could just not live anymore right that is that's what's gonna
happen if we can make this partnership as terrible as we're gonna shoot
for here all right so number one is that we're gonna make sure that they
have the exact same knowledge base as you all right so this person that
you're gonna do business with knows the exact same stuff at you there's
no stuff that they know that you don't know all right because that way
one of you is unnecessary all right and so this is a great way to have a
terrible start to a partnership one of you being unnecessary to begin
with which means both of you are giving away half your equity for no
incremental benefit it's also not very good for the business because why
would you do that so that being said number one have the same knowledge
base and maybe even if we're being crazy which we are right throw into
the same experiences right if you both worked at the same place doing
the same thing why not start a business together doing the exact same
thing brilliant i know all right so number two is time right make sure
that uh they have the same amount of time as you all right or
disproportionate and what i mean there is the big three on partnerships
is knowledge money time right which means they either have to have
knowledge you don't have they got to have money you don't have or they
got to have time you

3 00:02:00.000 --\> 00:03:00.000 don't have right and so if you have no
time make sure they don't have time too right now if you do have time
and they have time then you're fine but the thing is is then you'd have
to look at one of the other three parts of this equation in order to
make sure that it's still a terrible partnership all right so make sure
that you're misaligned on time all right the next one is money if you're
getting to a partnership if uh one of you has money and the other
doesn't then that's value that's being out of the relationship but if uh
you're going to partner with somebody and they don't have money that you
don't have they don't have knowledge that you don't have and they don't
have time they don't have then why would you do the partnership i don't
know but it is a great way to have a terrible partnership which is what
the purpose of this video is now that being said let's say that somehow
we still figured out a way that we got in a relationship where one of us
didn't have the knowledge of the time we didn't have the money that the
other person had we got together okay cool there's still more ways that
we can we can torpedo this thing just wait buckle up so the next one is
that we can make sure that we have different expectations of one another
and the business all right so it's like hey what do i expect you to do
what do you expect me to do right and those expectations we want to make
sure and this is number five is that there's no agreements we don't
record it anywhere we don't write it down we do it on a handshake
because we're old school yeah great way to have a terrible business
relationship and the reason that people don't want to do that is

4 00:03:00.000 --\> 00:04:00.000 because usually they don't want to have
the hard conversations all right they don't want to say what happens if
this goes wrong right and like what do you expect you really expect me
to take the trash out every day like they want to have this unspoken
expectation you have unspoken expectations of you know what's going to
be magical where you you don't actually have to have hard conversations
with people and if you can't have a hard conversation with a partner
before even doing business before you are even married before you there
is even money or stakes on the table or equity value that's been grown
then dear god you're not gonna have a good conversation at the end all
right so if someone's like i don't do agreements just walk away i just
i've been doing this like just walk away it's only like very very very
weird people do that like banks banks don't just give you money without
expecting like come on like this is real world and i used to think i
remember earlier on i i heard someone tell me that and i was like oh i
don't want to be the guy he's like i'm the type of person that if you
can't uh shake your hand then blah blah and i just i just don't i just
don't trust people that much so the idea for me is make sure the paper
says we need to say but then trust the person right which is like i hope
that we never have like we write these contracts with the intention of
never having to look at them right but we still use the contract as a
vehicle to facilitate dialogue

5 00:04:00.000 --\> 00:05:00.000 around difficult topics and to have
shared expectations in a way that we both understand them and agree
right that is the purpose of the contract it's not to get lawyers
involved purpose of the contract is that we have clear expectations that
is why contracts exist clear expectations on agreements all right so if
we're making sure that we have a terrible partnership we got to have all
the same knowledge we got to have disproportionate time or money right
so all those things time money knowledge we're we're all matched on
those which means that one of us isn't necessary on top of that we have
different expectations we didn't write it down so there's no agreements
and there's no expectations that's been communicated about what you're
gonna do what i'm gonna do all right now the next one this big one give
away everything all right so make sure that you give away everything in
the partnership and do a disproportionate amount of work at the onset
because that way you'll just definitely make sure that you can garner a
resentment towards the other person and the flip side can be true too if
you know the other person doing a lot of work uh then you think yourself
oh well i'm going to squeeze as much out of them as i possibly can
what's going to happen they're going to resent you and they're going to
try and renegotiate later once reality sets in so if you can think a few
steps ahead of the person rather than saying like oh i'm going to get
them just say like hey i don't know if this is going to be equitable in
the future like give them more and you'll actually start to create a
relationship rather than a negotiated contractual agreement which at the
end of the day

6 00:05:00.000 --\> 00:06:00.000 that's all contracts are supposed to do
is just outline the expectations between two parties that's it all right
now the next one is that we want to make sure that we have not we won't
have a misaligned three things mission values and vision all right which
means that we don't actually want to take this business to the same
place and this may sound hilarious to you but you would be amazed at the
amount of partners that we get on the phone with that i'm like what do
you guys want to do this business and what person's like i think we
should go this way the other was like i think we should go that way i'm
like i think that you should figure that out right or one of you
shouldn't be here right figure it out all right which is where do we
want to go and the next one is the values which is how we're going to
get there right what are the things that are important to us about how
we deal with other humans right what are those values and if some people
have different values becomes very difficult to do business even if you
want to accomplish it the same thing because you want to do it different
ways right and then it'll create endless strife and conflict throughout
now the last one is what you consider lifestyle right which is what do
you uh similar interests lifestyle uh it's very difficult to do business
with somebody if you're like you're a dave ramsey saver and you you know
you're you live far below your means and you're doing business with
somebody who lives far above their means and goes into debt all the time
because the thing is is when you're in a business relationship

7 00:06:00.000 --\> 00:07:00.000 you're in a marriage and their
extracurricular life is going to get dragged into the business i promise
you i promise you it is going to get dragged in right and so you've got
to look just like you uh you marry the girl you marry the family that
whole thing um it's the same thing with business if like they've got all
this crazy stuff going on in their personal life it's a great way to
guarantee that that stuff is going to trickle into your business and the
thing is is if you have an unreliable partner creates an unreliable
relationship which creates an unreliable business and so it's a great
way to have a terrible partnership all right and so when we're thinking
about partners big picture i give you two frameworks and then some
in-betweens so framework one is that they got to have knowledge money or
time that you don't have if both of you have the exact same experience
knowledge time and money one of you isn't required i know crazy the
thing is is just because you need something for example if i need an
accountant for business doesn't mean i have to partner with my
accountant it means i have to pay them for services so just because you
have a need doesn't mean they have to have equity all right it's a big
aha moment here if you're like well i don't know how to do that he does
it's like well can you pay someone to do it like equity is the most
expensive thing that you give up in a relationship so you want to make
sure if you especially want to build something big then you're giving
away equity to people who are going to really drive the

8 00:07:00.000 --\> 00:08:00.000 growth and you have to see this thing
10 years in the future which no one thinks 10 years in the future
anyways which is why everyone's small okay so boom so knowledge money
time you got to check those boxes make sure that you're aligned there
next one is expectations agreements all right make sure that they're
equitable make sure that they're well understood and making sure that
they're documented right if you do those things then it's very very it's
much less likely that you're gonna have a terrible partnership you can
still have one but it's much less likely all right and point of this
video is to guarantee a terrible partnership all right now the next big
framework is that mission values and similar interests it actually works
the same way in marriages as does in partnerships and to be real it's
very similar so you got to make sure that you want to do the same thing
with the business big picture you got to make sure you want to do it the
same way right and then you got to have similar interests and lifestyles
right which is making sure that they don't have a messy life which is
you want to be proud to associate with the other person that you're
doing business with and i'm saying proud not okay with but proud to
associate with them you want other people to meet them just like you
want to meet you know the girl meets the parents you want to be proud to
present this person not like that crap right big picture great ways to
guarantee a terrible partnership is if you do all those things all right
so on the flip side make sure that they have time money and knowledge
that you don't have right either they got money you don't have they got
time you don't have they don't they have knowledge you don't have or
experience right so they can bring something table you don't have so one
of

9 00:08:00.000 --\> 00:09:00.000 you or both of you are required and
that the company grows based on the shared skill sets that both of you
have all right you want to make sure that you set expectations that you
document them and then you make sure that they're equitable all right
because if you do that then it's very unlikely that you're going to fail
all right and the next one is that you want to make sure that there's
aligned mission values and similar interests you want to deal with the
types of people who see the world the same way as you have the biggest
long-term goals and they want to do the process of getting from where
you are to where you want to go the same way you do and the easiest
litmus test is if you present both of you with the same data would you
make the same decision if these answers yes then you'll have far less
conflict in your partnership over the long haul and so the idea is can i
find people who have complementary skill sets but align mission values
and interests if you can do that you can make room for a magical rather
than terrible partnership all right keeping awesome donation lots of
love and i'll catch you guys next video bye moseynation if you enjoyed
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