Late-career partnerships
Oddly, in my late 60s, I’m now in a position to move forward with four different partnerships.
I’ve reached a point in my career as an author and editor where my long experience and highly visible profile create attractive opportunities. Even so, my time and energy is limited. So it’s natural that I’d consider working with an energetic partner to launch something together.
Early or mid-career partnerships are different — they go forward on the assumption that the the partners will continue to build together for a long time. I don’t know if I’ll still want to be putting the same work into a partnership when I’m 75 — but it seems unlikely.
Criteria for late-career partnerships
To evaluate these partnership opportunities, I ask these questions:
- Do I like my partner? No matter how talented and promising a potential partner is, I have no interest in spending time with annoying or pushy people. These potential partners are people I’ve worked with before and whom I admire — and they generally feel the same about me.
- Do I trust my partner? Life is too short to wonder at any moment if I’m going to get stabbed in the back. All the partners I’m considering are people who have a track record of behaving honorably, both with me and in general.
- Will the partner benefit? It may seem strange to worry first about the other person rather than myself. But a partnership persists only when both partners are getting a lot out of it. All my potential partners are younger than I am, so I’m asking myself whether we can build a business together that will benefit them for at least five years. That’s not just about getting them motivated to work hard. It’s also beneficial for me, because I enjoy mentoring people and contributing to their success.
- Have we talked frankly about compensation? In the end, we’re in this to make money. Unless that money is divided up fairly, somebody is going to feel sour about it, and that’s not a prescription for a good outcome. So I always speak openly about issues of ownership, payment, visibility, and any other potentially shared benefits of the partnership.
- What happens if it doesn’t work? It’s a shame when a partnership doesn’t work out, but it happens. It’s a lot more challenging if you haven’t planned for that moment (and described it in a written agreement). When things go south, it can rapidly get unpleasant, but you should at least have a plan for that eventuality.
- Can I step away or wind down? It’s unrealistic to believe that, at my age, I’ll continue to contribute energetically to a partnership for decades. At that point, the partnership will continue to grow without me, and I’d expect to step away from doing so much work. Even so, because the partnership launched due in part to what I contributed, there should be a plan for me to continue to get benefits, income, or an ownership stake even when I’m no longer putting in long hours for the partnership.
What happened to my past partnerships?
I can think of several strong partnership relationships I had over the last few decades that have since dissolved. These include coauthoring arrangements and joint ventures built around books we were working on.
In all of those cases, I left on good terms and remain on good terms with my former partners. We still help each other out when we can. I feel pretty good about that.
Don’t ask to partner with me
You may think this post is an invitation for you, my reader, to offer to partner with me. It’s not. Remember my two questions: Do I like you and do I trust you? If you don’t already work with me, the answer to those questions is “No.”
And I have no interest in coauthoring a book with you — no matter how great your idea is.
So don’t approach me. If you do, I will know you can’t read and understand a simple instructions, and I certainly have no interest in a partner like that.
It’s a shame I need to write that. But it seems like clueless AI-generated partnership pitches are on the rise. If you’re doing that, please stop.
If you’re not, stay tuned — I’ve got some fun announcement coming up.