The indecipherable expression on a young man's face as his business partner threatens to sue him for everything is definitely the best scene of Andrew Sorkin's The Social Network. Mark Zuckerberg just stares at his best friend Eduardo Saverin who is flipping out after being screwed out of their business. Jesee Eisenberg potrays Zuckenberg the youngest (self-made) billionaire in the world ($6.9B as at Oct 2010) who built facebook into a network of 500 million friends but lost his only friend along the way. No, this is not a how-to get into your business partners pants post. Rather I want to talk about the little considered but very important relationship that you have with your business partner and how to balance the pursuit of profit with keeping the friendship going. I cannot overstate the importance of maintaining a healthy friendly relationship with your business partner. As Eduardo found out, the minute the friendship starts deteriorating, so goe...
Thoughts from a Kenyan entrepreneur passionate about startups.