It is very important for all business owners to know how to find the right co-founder for a digital marketing agency because the presence of a co-founder is really critical in a company.
However, there are many companies that are owned by a single person but having a co-founder comes with its own advantages.
And if you are a digital marketing agency owner, then might you think about how to find the right co-founder for a digital agency?
Finding the right co-founder can be a tough decision to make when you’re starting your journey but this is something that can help you grow and rely on in the long run.
Table of Content
Who is a Co-Founder?
A co-founder is that individual who comes with different skill sets in your business and may not always agree with you, and they might have disagreements also. Remember one thing always find co-founders for different skill sets.
A co-founder is a person who has ownership/partnerships in the business.
They will be someone who is going to support you for your best but also going to pull you back when you are going wrong or too fast.
Your co-founder not only will support you emotionally but will also guide you in the big crucial decision that might be considered shaky for you alone.
Moreover, they will always bring you the new practical approach of getting through the things that you both want.
In short, having a co-founder by your side can be always a kind of backbone that will help you build your core foundation strong.
Why do you need a Co-Founder?
Startups are an incredibly intense and taxing journey and it’s great to have someone that you can lean on for support during your tough times and help you generate productivity & revenue out of work.
Well, I think there are 3 main reasons you want a co-founder when you’re starting a company.
Productivity:
- Lot of work can be done by dividing it.
- Better work can be done with your complimentary skills co-founder.
- You can brainstorm & discuss your ideas with them.
- You have someone to talk about your bad ideas.
Moral Support:
- You get great supports in your tough times by balancing each other.
- They help to uplift the atmosphere for each other.
- Your co-founder stops you from being carried away and bring you back to reality.
- They help even out the high & lows of the emotional rollercoaster.
- You can be open or honest with them.
Core Values:
- Same ethics people can have fewer chances of idea clashing & more chance of growing.
- One takes care of all backend management and the other takes care of branding by being a figurehead.
- They both can rely on each other with the idea they are generating.
Below are some examples of companies having two co-founders:
- Flipkart – Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal
- Microsoft – Bill Gates and Paul Allen
- Apple – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
- Twitter – Evan Williams and Biz Stone
- HP – Bill Hewlett and David Packard
- Google – Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Each of these 6 companies has 2 co-founders. In every company, the two co-founders had different strengths and they came together to form a very successful company.
That’s why it is important for your digital marketing agency to have a co-founder.
Stake sharing structure within Co-Founders:
Even Stake
- The first co-founding structure of many businesses is 50-50%.
- In this case, both the owners will have 50% stake in the business.
Uneven Stake
- Some founders have different ownerships. For example, if there are 4 co-founders in a business, each might have a stake of 25% or 1 co-founder might have a higher stake as compared to the others.
- It is really important to understand the stake because an individual does not become the stakeholder for monthly salary but they becomer a co-founder because they have that passion to take the venture to another level.
- They also know that the day the organization becomes a big their stake will increase to lakhs or crores.
Partnership and Stakeholder:
Before finding the right co-founder, the problem that you have to solve on your own is to decide how much stake you will be giving to your co-founder as in whether you wish to go for a 50-50% partnership or less.
To solve the problem, there is a very easy framework:
- Find out the skill-set of the co-founder and also figure out if the skill set is critical for your business or not.
- Figure out the amount of money that the co-founder is investing in your company.
It may happen that the skill set of the co-founder is so important that without their skill set your company won’t be able to move ahead and therefore, they might not invest the money.
On the other hand, if the co-founder comes with a skill set that you can get by hiring an individual, it becomes important for him to invest money in the company.
Where to find the right Co-Founder?
A co-founder is mostly that person with whom you have worked before.
The reason is you won’t involve any random individual in your business, even if you liked his profession or have met him in a social gathering.
Co-founding relationship is like a marriage. The way a husband and wife relationship is meant to last longer, the relation of co-founders also has to be equally strong.
You will face both good and bad times in your business journey and therefore, a co-founder should be a person that sticks with you during bad times also and won’t run away.
Co-founders are always those people who have spent some quality time together.
- The co-founders of Flipkart- Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal have worked together in Amazon.
- The co-founders of Google- Larry Page and Sergey Brin have studied together in Stanford University.
These co-founders understood the likes and dislikes of each other, had the same vision and had different skill sets.
Investors Trust Co-Founding Team:
- Having a co-founder is important from the perspective of an investor.
- Most of the investors feel comfortable in investing in your business only when they have the confidence of having a co-founding team. This is because if you have co-founders in your business, the investor is involved in lesser risks.
- For example, if you are a single founder and may fall ill or die, there would be no backup plan to run your company.
- So, the investors prefer a company with co-founders as they maintain balance in a company that helps in building good culture and new people are willing to join the organisation.
Conclusion:
Running a startup or any business today does not require multiple founders, but a good advisory board in your company is good to have by your side.
Who are ready to take equal responsibility for every up and down in your business.
Co-Founder must be willing to share the same pain when your business falls and also equally happy to feel the joy when your business skyrockets.
Okay, so hopefully, I’ve convinced you that you do want a Co-Founder when you’re starting your company.
But if you are strong enough to handle and run everything alone then you are good to go alone.
Then there is no need to have a Co-founder
Because there are always some exceptions to this rule and they tend to follow some patterns.
- First one is that single founders have a high conviction towards solving their goals
- And second is that they can make progress in a short time at least
But both factor is only going to work for all those single founders who want to start now that :
- They must be domain experts in their field.
- Your co-founder should be only doing business related to that.
- They must have a mind which is fully focused and full of conviction.
