Hi,
I’ve recently started a venture with business partner, but things aren’t going as well as I hoped for which is completely normal and I am looking for advice because I am inexperienced in having a partner and unsure if my mindset is correct.
Bit of introduction
We are technology company and I am head of technology department, we sell tech products, I also have huge interest in psychology, human behaviour, marketing and been studying all of those topics for past 6 years and that is what I want to learn upon more, the business partner is more orientated towards sales and marketing which for me at beginning was good because I wasn’t too much of a public person, but more of behind the screen and business partner would do sales and talk to clients.
The issues
Recently we started arguing and have poor communication and it feels like it will go worse and worse, at beginning things were fine both of us were figuring out company name, domain etc and few weeks ago we got our first client, but for me it didn’t feel real nor good because I haven’t spoken to a client and since business partner is from another country the business partner insisted to find clients in home country because it would be easier to sell but it profoundly created barriers for me and the way I want to do business.
For me to lead a well company and be able to hire hopefully a good team these things are a must how our sales process starts, what we do we client, what are clients talking about, what are their issues, who is our main client, who will become recurring client, how we present ourselfs to clients and many more things are huge thing for me
And I cannot possibly lead company well if I don’t know our clients and can’t speak to them and what happend to our client process is this
1) Marketing
2) Potential client replies on email
3) Business partner talks to them, hopefully closes the deal
4) Tells me what needs to be done and about our client
But the last part got increasingly hard because not only do I feel like job regarding clients wasn’t well done, but I don’t know the client, don’t know the needs and only know what part of job needs to be done. Which might sound okay, but it doesn’t fit well for me and it makes me seem like just another employee (Am I correct about this mindset?)
Then there is also business partner completely denying feelings and how I felt because I was rude time to time which I understand it can be difficult to look upon someones point if he/she is rude, but these were business decision needed to be made. And time to time being completely out of reality of what is good and enforcing positivity when things should’ve been taken for what they are and solution is what should be looked upon positive not current situation (Am I correct about this mindset?)
Normally I am a nice person or try to be, but that also got hard because our product is tech product and we are selling tech product which I build and create and business partner delivers which looked unfair to me as well because then what happened business partner talks to client, delivers the product and I am left behind, cant even improve upon the product or what else can be delivered and it feels like I am just another employee who is told what to do (Am I correct about this mindset?)
I don’t want to seem like I have to be known in a business or people have to know I’ve build these products, but if I am gonna work on weekends (business partner doesn’t) and work 12 – 15 hours a day to deliver good product to a client at least I deserve a bit more respect on who has done what instead of clients praising business partner because client only talked to them and seem like business partner has done everything (Am I correct about this mindset?) + we are sharing 50/50 shares (I understand part of this is ego)
To make it all even more complex and insane, I’ve talked to business partner and said don’t want to put pricing on facebook posts, we are gonna forget about them, we offer custom pricing for each client and if we grow and want to change pricing don’t want any of clients being attached to previous pricing since we offer custom solutions (we dont have pricing on our website either), we agreed upon it and next thing that has been done by business partner is put pricing on facebook posts…
Even if I overlook these things. I feel like certain things the way business partner does are poorly done and I thought okay it’s completely normal we all make mistakes we can improve, but it starting to seem that business partner keeps beating dead horse over and over again and no matter what we agree upon it doesn’t matter. Another reason why I feel like 50/50 shares aren’t fair. For example we are partnering with a company to help client and they sent us presentation we can present to the client and it’s full of partners company logos and their ideas instead of making it about our company, business partner added another slide about our company and it’s literally presentation of partners company with their logo to our client and we have one slide about our company without our logo or anything zero creativity
It seems business partner has one vision it didn’t align with me, does work certain way which is okay, but having two separate visions colliding isn’t good and leads to nowhere.
What would be your advice on next step what should I do?
