How to find a partner?

Before finding one, you should ask, do I need one? Carl Schramm suggests that having a partner increases the chances of failure as partners can get into a conflict which may turn fatal for the new venture. Schramm prefers to have good employees in the beginning. Schramm's approach presumes that the entrepreneur already has enough capital to afford an office, and salaries of employees, which is not always the case with startup entrepreneurs. You might lack sufficient capital so you might want to have a helping hand to distribute the workload or bring in some capital to invest as well.

Usually, it is your best friend or a friend who knows you well enough to trust you. Important thing is that all partners must believe in the same values, have the same vision, and the same degree of craziness. It will be extremely unlikely that you find a person randomly on social media, for example, and expect him to work with you with full commitment and zeal.

In the Memon community, for example, you will often find brothers, and cousins partnering together, taking capital from their parents to invest in a business. Do not take your sibling as a partner until he or she is as hardworking as you are.

Universities are a good place to find one. Educational institutions can be the best place to network with like-minded people. But you have to be social enough for that purpose. Challenge is that at a young age, with zero experience of working in the market, one may not be a very good judge of the character, and skill of people around. However, good universities do have societies that various events, and while becoming a part of their organizing team, one may acquire some skills to judge people. Also working under pressure in such a team enables you to not just evaluate your self but also other people as well.

Partners do not fall off from the sky, and it’s better to have none, then to have a bad one …