Joint ventures succeed where there’s a common goal.
If you want to bounce ideas off other entrepreneurs, then our weekly Sydney meet-ups give you the opportunity to share ideas with other business owners — living and breathing the same ups and downs that come with operating a small business. Similarly, enrolling in our Small Business Management Course gives you the necessary skills to successfully operate a small business and puts you in touch with other successful business owners. But there’s another way you can bounce ideas off other entrepreneurs: by entering into a joint venture.
At our last Sydney meet-up, one of the suggestions given to our entrepreneur struggling with how to proceed with her venture was to find a JV partner.
Finding the Right Joint Venture Partner
Joint ventures are a great way for businesses to accelerate and grow, especially if each party brings a certain skill set or asset — a database of potential customers, for example — to the table.
Finding a JV partner that acts as the Yin to your Yang, however, can be difficult; but it’s essential to the success of your partnership. Even though you may each bring different skills to the partnership, you must still share the same goals and vision for the “new” business.
Too many people have entered into JV partnerships with selfish motivations — to leverage the skills and assets of their partner to grow their business — and failed. A JV partnership won’t be successful if you continue to operate as two separate enterprises.
“I Do”
A joint venture is a lot like a marriage: you’re no longer single entities doing as you please; you’re a team with a shared goal, and you make decisions together that will help you achieve that goal.
Also like a marriage, JVs need constant work to make them successful.
JVs work well when:
- The vision for the new business is agreed by both partners
- Both management teams recognise that the JV is about the team creating better, faster way of achieving growth
- Partners are prepared to change what they “normally” do in order to make the JV work
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Leadership in a joint venture is about achieving the output of the JV, not the “contribution” of the partners. It’s usually behaviours rather than lack of business logic, that cause JVs to fail. Want to find out more about joint ventures? If you live in Sydney come join us at our weekly meet-ups!
