
Ask HN: Advice on partnering with a friend for a startup - throwaway2838
I have been working part-time in a SaaS for 6 months, with a big chunk of the MVP coded and no customers yet.
I want to invite a friend to join me as a partner. He has the selling skills that I am missing, experience running a company and he is also a very capable engineer. We know each other for 10 years, we have done projects and traveled together, and I think we match in terms of skills and personality.<p>However, as I have seen multiple times in this forum (eg https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17169080) sometimes the startup pressure breaks people apart and there is no way to know if this will happen to you beforehand.<p>It would be useful to have clear and fair &quot;way out&quot; mechanism for both ways in case this partnership doesn&#x27;t work as planned.<p>I would like to know your advice and experience partnering with friends. Thanks.<p>Note: Throwaway account
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I founded a company with 3 friends. We'd all worked at the same company
previously. Two of us took on more leadership roles in the new venture, two
more focused on engineering. Between the four of us, 10 years later, two of
the original founders don't really get on anymore, but the rest of us remain
friends.

From my point of view, the friendships helped us to overcome difficult
situations where we disagreed strongly. I found it helpful to be able to trust
the others to speak honestly, to advocate strongly, and to work towards our
common good. Also, if you're going to be spending all day every day working
with someone, liking them helps a lot :-)

I suspect there's no good way out when breaking up a partnership as intense as
a startup. No matter what the reasons, it's hard on all parties. Making sure
the legals are clear up front can only help, of course.

I would say "do it": the benefits outweigh the possible costs.

