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Partnerships Build Empires
Partner with established traders, or become a co-founder
Opportunities increase when you help each other win
What is a Partner or Co-Founder?
A co-founder, commercialisation or business partner will partner with you with the aim of working together to make a business a success.
A co-founder, commercialisation partner, or business partner, may bring something to the relationship which makes an idea or business a success. Ideally, the co-founder or partner brings something to the relationship that the other partners do not have. For example, sometimes that is money and sometimes that is mentorship, industry guidance, insider knowledge, industry insights, connections and knowledge.
Partnerships can be paid or unpaid. A partner may enter a partnership with no money but instead provide effort (known as sweat equity) or connections. Or a partner may buy into a business with money.
Partnerships are as diverse and creative as you want them to be.
Alone, we can do so little. Together we can do so much.
THE POWER IS YOURS
What does a partnership look like?
In the olden days, partnerships were mere handshakes where the parties would agree to work towards a single purpose.
Since then, partnerships have evolved, and now take many forms.
Partnerships are legal relationships between parties. Each party has a right to rely on and enforce the partnership.
Partnerships can be created by the actions of parties (without a contract) or they can be written agreements. Traditionally, a partnership is formed as a relationship between two people. In that traditional sense, a new legal entity is not formed. However, the term partnership is also used to describe relationships where two or more people own shares in a company. They act together as members or shareholders to further the company.
Each partner may bring different things to the relationship, and they may be an equal or unequal partner in the relationship.
WE ALL NEED A LITTLE HELP SOMETIMES
How can a partnership help me?
Business creators (and inventors) are wonderful, industrious and creative people. They have a knack of solving problems and getting things to work. But sometimes, they don’t have the marketing skills, industry knowledge or inroads into the marketplace for their business and ideas to thrive. No matter how talented they are, sometimes they can’t get an idea off the ground or into the marketplace.
This is where commercialisation partners can help.
People can partner with commercialisation partners to assist them in getting launching their idea or expanding the idea to the world.
Depending on the type of commercialisation partner, that partner may know exactly how to sell, where to sell the invention and have the connections to make that work.
The beauty of a partnership, is that people work together for the common goal and each is involved in the business.
PARTNERSHIP SCOPE
How do partnerships work in real life?
Partnerships can vary in their scope. That means that you can enter into partnerships on any terms you prefer. For instance, you could partner in respect of your whole business, part of the business, an industry or even location. Check out our partnership examples below to see how partnerships work in real life.
To build a successful partnership, it needs to be mutually beneficial and built on trust.
Famous Partnerships that changed the world
Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Founded Microsoft, brining personal computers into our lives. Without them, personal computing would never have existed.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Founded Google, bringing internet search engines into the modern age.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
Founded Apple. Where would we be without touch screen technology and iphones?
Bob Hewlett and Dave Pickard
Founded Hewlett Pickard, from a small garage in CA. Their first success was an audio oscillator that is the foundation of sound systems today.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield
You guessed it, Ben & Jerry's. They brought ice cream to the world, and our hips.
Evan Williams, Ben Stone and Jack Dorsey
The founders of Twitter. There has since been tweets sent from space and the deepest parts of our oceans.
Partnerships build empires - Start building your empire today
Let's explore partnership examples
WHOLE OF BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP – PATENT
Meet Luke
Luke is a trades person and is addicted to inventing. He loves inventing and loves tinkering in his backyard shed. Luke loves being “on the tools” but it is a hard life.
Luke has invented many things in his time, but his proudest invention is a tool that helps measure stair treads. He uses it in his own trade business and thinks that every other trades’ person could use it as well.
He wants to start a business that manufactures tools and sells them into hardware stores worldwide.
But Luke doesn’t know how to get tools manufactured and doesn’t have any connections to get the tools into stores.
Luke places an advert on the Rights platform to partner with an industry partner. He meets Jake. Jake is a marketer and could sell just about anything. But Jake has a background in tools. In his last venture, Jake worked for a large tool manufacturer and those tools were sold in 90% of the hardware stores around the world. Jake knows the right people in factories to get the tool manufactured cheaply, and knows how to market the tool to get it onto the lists presented to hardware stores.
Luke and Jake enter into a partnership. Luke brings the invention and his wonderful creative spark, and Jake brings his wisdom and experience in the tool industry. It is a great match.
Luke and Jake work together, to make the tool a worldwide success. Luke is still working with stairs, but now he is climbing the stairs to success.
PARTNERSHIP – DESIGN PATENTS and TRADEMARKS
Meet Sheetal
Sheetal is a marketer. Sheetal can sell anything … literally anything, to anyone! She has a passion for sales and can assess a product pretty quickly to work out if it will sell at the right price point.
Sheetal was looking for a new challenge. So she visited the Ipleft platform and saw an advert, placed by Diana, for a tooth whitening product with a really cool trade mark in a really funky looking container. Everything about the product was spot on and on trend, down to its name and the shape of the container.
Diana, the owner, had trade mark rights over the name and a design registration over the appearance of the container. Diana had great connections in manufacturing and knew how to get a product looking attractive. But she didn’t know how to get stores to put her products on the shelves.
Because of Sheetal’s background, she knew that there were two major suppliers to drug stores in her country. She knew how to market to those suppliers to get product onto drug store shelves. Sheetal knew how to sell the product into pharmacies, drug stores and chemists. The product looked “high end” and that was the marketplace she knew how to target. A little industry knowledge goes a long way.
Sheetal and Diana entered into a partnership where Diana would organise the manufacture and supply of the product and Sheetal would get the product into the shops for buyers to buy. This is a great outcome for Diana and for Sheetal as they are both playing to their strengths for the success of the product.
PARTNERSHIP – RESELLERS AND DISTRIBUTORS
Meet Roger
Roger is a businessman. He has a number of businesses and uses resellers and distributors all around the world to distribute his products. Roger has trade mark registration around the world and controls use of those trade marks by the resellers and distributors.
Some of Roger’s resellers have the right to manufacture his product, apply the trade mark and sell it into their marketplace, and so he has license agreements with those resellers to protect his rights. He uses that setup for foreign countries, where it is simpler for him to appoint resellers.
Unfortunately, some of his resellers aren’t performing well. They are not hitting sales targets and complaints are being received by head office. The reputation of his products is being harmed.
He wants to fire his resellers and either hire new resellers or run businesses himself in those countries. The problem is, he doesn’t have the funds to set up a business in a foreign country and doesn’t know anything about the local laws. Plus, due to that country’s law, one of the directors needs to be a local resident. He needs a business partner who is a local of those countries and who understands the local regulations around the products, to make that business model a success.
Roger placed advertisements on the Ipleft platform to find a business partner in those countries.
He receives an enquiry from Keith, a businessman in one of his distribution countries. Keith already knew of Roger’s products and knew where to sell them. Keith is established in business and has run successful businesses before.
Roger fires his resellers and partners with Keith in Keith’s country. Because Keith is a part owner of the business, he will make sure he gives the business all of his attention and make sure it is a success.
This is a great outcome for Roger as he can trust Keith, and he knows the reputation of his products is safe.
