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Working With Your Friends Is Okay…But Firing Them May Be Part Of The Deal
One of my closest friends was a cofounder of my company. Another friend was a cofounder of the company too.
And he recommended we bring on another friend of his as a founder. The only person who wasn’t a friend before we started was our VP Engineering.
You have to be prepared to lose your friendship if you go into business with a friend.
“Ken” and I had know each other for over 20 years when we started the company together. We had vacationed together. Our wives were friends too.
In fact, I don’t even know if I would have, or could have, started the company without Ken’s help and support.
Ken was our Sales VP, and Ken was critical to our getting our first investor. At the time Ken was living in London running European sales for another company, and he was planning on moving back to California in the next month to join us.
Gill, our first investor, was adamant we have someone with heavy sales experience in the company. I set up a call between Ken and Gill. Gill was impressed with Ken, so he moved forward with the investment.
