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To partner or not to partner...(long post, sorry)
Hello everybody,
Thanks for all the insight on this forum. I'm a long-time listener first time caller and I've found myself in a situation that I would appreciate your input on...
A little background:
My partner and I have started an advertising business in our hometown, and for the past two months since we've been working on it in earnest it's been going off like gangbusters. We're racking up sales, building good will, and generally exceeding our initial expectations. Without going into too many specifics, we have something no one has offered before and that fits the needs of our advertisers, and local businesses are eating it up.
Here's the rub: my partner and I are both heading into our final year of college, and will be leaving in three weeks to our school 500 miles away. Our sales have been part of a pre-sales process, and our actual advertising campaigns kick off October 18th. Operationally, we require one full-time employee to execute what we've promised our clients.
We've got an employee lined up for this job, and he is a good one. He's reliable, fairly smart, and good with people. Management and sales (which my partner and I could fulfill easily were we present) are the issue.
Our mentors have suggested we bring in a third partner to run day-to-day operations and handle sales while we're gone. We would still be actively involved with the business, but this partner would lay out some capital (which we have the cash to do ourselves) and buy into the company as a managing partner. As such, he would warrant a large share.
What we don't have is the capital to pay a competent manager 70k or 80k a year, so our option is running day-to-day operations and sales with our 30k a year employee (whom we would give commission on advertising sales) as employee/manager/salesman. Our experience has led us to believe he is very responsible and trustworthy, but as you guys well know, nothing is certain in business. Also, we'd want him to check with us via phone whenever he sneezed, because he doesn't have the capability to manage well without our micromanagement and daily directives.
So, do we put all our eggs in one basket with a low-level employee working hand-in-glove with us but only really being accountable to himself because we're not there to monitor directly? Or do we give away up to 50% of our baby (and decrease our capital outlay) by bringing in a competent managing partner?
I really appreciate your input. What we need is someone as enthusiastic and driven as we are to helm this thing. But at what cost? A business won't launch its self, and we're concerned that without our physical presence we'll be dead before we even start no matter how hard we sell and manage long-distance.
What do you think?
Nick
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