People always told me, "Don't ever work with friends, because it will screw up your friendship."
I wanted to test this theory and a few months ago I on-boarded my best friend to work with me. Some things were great, but sometimes there was a lot of drama. Most of the problems while working with a friend comes down to the fact that the line between friendship and business becomes blurred. This causes a lot of issues such as, "I want to be nice and treat my friend fairly" etc. It is WAY harder to negotiate deals with a friend because you need to have the interest of your friendship in mind as well.
I found that 50/50 deals are too vague but that it is possible to work with a friend differently. You need to consider yourselves independent contractors who are merely trading services between each other. This kills the bullshit game of "who is working more or less" or "how to divide the money".
Create micro deals per process or percentages per procedure and stick to them. I call it the micro deal system (MDS), but it's not anything fancy. It means that each person is paid for a specific result that he/she can bring to the business. Watch the video we made about this!
LISTEN HERE FOR AUDIO:
https://soundcloud.com/mattlaker-podcast/what-you-need-to-know-if-you-start-a-business-with-your-best-friend-the-micro-deal-system
WATCH VIDEO HERE: