Only Involve the Necessary People When Starting a Business

Before I started SportsLizard.com, I nearly started a product design company with a close friend from college. Prior to even completing our business plan, we had nearly all of our friends lined up for positions. I think that we thought that the more people, the greater the chance for success. A business advisor that we met with pointed out to us that this is not exactly true.

I think many entrepreneurs involve friends and family to make them a part of the excitement. I think that they feel that if they start a business with one friend then they have to bring on other friends, or they will feel left out. What they fail to realize is that first and foremost it is a business and you need to make your decisions accordingly. If a friend or family member will truly provide a valuable resource to your company, then involve them. But if your business already has the capability to do what they do, then you probably should pass.

By adding more people, you make communication more difficult and decrease your share in the company. You have to ask yourself the question: will this persons skills be more valuable to the company than the time and money that will be saved by not involving them in your business?

I am bringing this up because I know a group of friends who are starting a business that seem to be suffering from this problem. There are ten of them running a company that easily could be run by one to three people. I reviewed their business plan yesterday (which I think is great by the way) and that was the only criticism that I had was the number of people involved, for all of the reasons that I cited above.

Our product design company never happened for many reasons (the main one being that our cornerstone product had already been patented by someone else), but, among other things, I learned to only involve the necessary people when starting a business.