Give your partner room

Give your partner room, and let whoever is best at a task take care of it. For me, that division is one of the great strengths of a good partnership. I experience it with both Henrik at SPAMfighter and Nikolaj at Amino.

Henrik visits after Christmas 2010

So we’ve made it through Christmas. I hope yours was good. I had a lovely Christmas here in Florida, although it’s a little hard to get the proper Christmas atmosphere. We have Christmas lights and all that, and it’s actually cold. Last night, it was one degree. But there’s not much snow, and I can envy you that a little. I love snow at Christmas.

My partner Henrik from SPAMfighter is visiting here at the moment. It made me think how lucky I really am. I think partnerships are a brilliant thing for entrepreneurs, provided you can make them work sensibly.

The great thing is how much we can divide the tasks between us. Henrik and I have been partners for around 15 years, and one of the best things is that we’re quite different.

We don’t need to be alike or holiday together

We don’t go on holiday together, and we don’t see much of each other socially. On the other hand, for long periods we’ve seen more of each other than of our wives while working hard at the office. Of course, everyday life is different right now because I’m over here.

Henrik is good at accounts and budgets. He’s good at selling, and he’s a good leader and CEO. He has an overview of the organisation.

My overview is more about the future of the products. I’m interested in marketing, PR and outward-facing activities. That’s where my strengths lie.

The division wasn’t decided from the beginning

When we met, we didn’t know exactly who would do what. We could simply see we were different and had different abilities. Gradually, it became clear who was best at each area.

Luckily, we were relatively sensible on that point, even though we were young: We let the other person handle what he was best at. It wasn’t predetermined, for example, that I’d do the marketing.

Henrik also enjoyed marketing. He had training and experience from a juice factory where he’d worked. But it turned out my talent for marketing and PR was greater. So that became my area.

Conversely, I thought I’d be CEO. But I discovered Henrik was incredibly good at the whole organisational side. How many employees do we need? How should we lead and motivate them? How do we make the organisation work? Those are some of the things he can do.

I see that clear division as one reason things have gone well in the companies we’ve built together.

I get better when I let go of what I’m bad at

I have no bloody interest in accounts. In the video, I say I barely know what debit and credit are and can’t read a set of accounts. Of course, I know a little, but it’s incredibly little compared with the areas I spend my time on.

That doesn’t mean Henrik knows nothing about marketing. But our strengths lie in different places. The longer we work together, the more I can relax about what I don’t know much about because I know he’s taking care of it.

That gives me room to sharpen my skills in what interests me. I can get even better in my own areas instead of spending all my energy on things I have neither talent for nor any desire to do.

The same principle at Amino

I do the same with Nikolaj at Amino. I handle marketing and keeping the portal together: What products should we have, and how should they be made?

Nikolaj handles sales. He’s CEO and runs the organisation day to day, and he does it fantastically. He also handles the accounts, which I have neither much understanding of nor interest in.

He keeps me informed about cash flow. I’m interested in how that’s looking. But I try to stay out of the other accounting matters. Henrik, Nikolaj and the accountants can handle those as well as possible.

Give your partner room and drop the pettiness

If you’re in a partnership, give the other person the chance to develop in their areas. Try to work out as quickly as possible where each of you is good, and divide the tasks accordingly.

Where you overlap, look honestly at who’s best. If one of you is perhaps ten per cent better at something, give that person room to do it. Don’t hold on to a task just for the sake of it.

And don’t spend all your energy on whether the other person squeezes the middle of the toothpaste tube. Give your partner room and don’t be petty. If you become petty towards each other, making the partnership succeed becomes difficult. I tell my own story of building companies with others in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

Those were the thoughts Henrik’s visit sparked for me. Have a fantastic day.

Best wishes, Martin