Post #12 Co-Designing, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Part 2)

If you haven’t read part 1 posted last week, you can do that here.

So let’s talk about the division of labor. This is where a lot of partnerships fall apart. Cesar lives in an apartment and I live in a house with a garage. Therefore, the only shop space we have for building our escape boxes is in my garage, at my house. That means it’s a lot easier for me to do work since he has to drive about 20 minutes just to get here. Also, with my work schedule I get three days off every week, he only gets two. Sundays are usually our work days. We both have lives outside of the business but his involves a girlfriend he lives with 20 minutes away. Not as easy for him to hang out and work in my garage as it is for me. Which I do, sometimes for many hours in a row. I knew this going into the business. I knew that we would be working at my house and I would probably be putting in a lot more time only because of the location. I’m OK with that. I enjoy what we’re working on and my wife has her hobbies (painting and cats, not always in that order) so I can work until 1 o’clock in the morning without straining my marriage.

So if you’re reading this and thinking about starting a partnership, realize that one of you is probably going to do more work than the other. And if there’s more than two involved in the business that will still be the case. If you’re not OK with that then don’t form a partnership. Because down the road the one putting in more hours is going to feel some resentment. Now, if you know going in that one of you is going to put forth more effort, you can write an agreement to reflect that. Agreements… I heard an attorney on a podcast who said, “I don’t call them agreements, I called them disagreements because you never go back and read them until you disagree.”

Cesar and I are still working on writing down how our business will operate and it’s important. Right now, we are not making any money and we probably won’t for at least a few months. At this point it’s just spend and build. But when the money does start coming in we need to know exactly how it’s going to be divided ahead of time. Saves arguments and will keep us on track so the business goes where we want it to. We’ve had a few discussions on some things that we want to have in an agreement but nothing is down on paper yet. We don’t have a written business plan yet, either. Both of these are crucial steps that are going to come to the top of our to do list very soon. I have enough experience and education to know that we probably should’ve had all of this done before we even filed the LLC. But, in the real world that’s rarely the way it happens. You just start a little hobby business, and you’re having fun and the next thing you know people are paying you money and then you and your partner are fighting. You very much avoid that scenario.
 We certainly do.

There’s not much chance this business partnership will last as long as my marriage. For one thing, I’ll be over 90 years old in another 32 years. If I’m still going strong enough to be building escape room boxes then, I will have been far more blessed than I deserve. However, it would be nice to have a solid 10 year run. Cesar’s almost 20 years younger than me so there’s the possibility that he could continue on with the business after I retire. That’s a long ways down the road. Right now, we’re just looking at the next five or six months. Strategicon Orccon  takes place on Presidents’ Day weekend in February. We need to have mini Moriarty and our next mini box, “The Gambler?” (Working title) finished and play tested by then. There’s another Strategicon in May and then RECON LA in August of next year. That’s the big gorilla on the block. If you are a fan of escape rooms I highly recommend this conference. You can find the homepage here.

So we have a lot of work to do, lives to live and jobs to go to. The good news is there are two of us so there’s a better chance that we’ll get everything done. At the moment, my SOS affliction seems to be behaving itself. Maybe because we have so many things to work on there’s plenty of room for new ideas that fit in. That’s it for now, go out, have a great day and be nice to someone.