Hello
Finding the right business partner is probably the most important business decision you can make. Do it wrong and life is miserable. Do it right and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In my first technology startup, I found a great partner while getting my MBA. He handled the technology, and I handled the business (fundraising, hiring, board and investor management, etc.). It worked out well — so well that we ended up getting married and now have two kids (human ventures)! We’re 7 years into marriage, so we’ll see how that turns out.
I’ve been going at it mostly alone in my current business, Babble Soft, with sideline help from my husband. And, although I’d made progress, it was tough and tiring. I didn’t have someone I could bounce around ideas with. I needed a partner. I found my first business partner in business school, so how would I find a partner working from my home office? How could I find someone who shared the same vision I did: to help new parents navigate the world of parenting in a digital age? I ended up finding her — where else? — online.
Once upon a time, I met Connie Reece, Austin’s social-media maven. She set me up with my first blog and began introducing me to people, including Wendy Piersall, who runs Sparkplugging. Wendy and I got along famously, and she invited me to join a Blog Mastermind group of extremely talented folks like Char Polanosky, Jill Koenig, Edward Mills, Easton Ellsworth, Dawud Miracle, and David Bullock. After one of our calls, Edward sent out links to articles he wrote on Sparkplugging about the experiences of a company called Pick Nick’s Brain, a baby sleep consulting site run by a woman named Nicole Johnson.