If possible, partners should have many personal references, and you should feel a sense of compatibility and trust for one another. The longer you’ve known someone, the more qualified you are to consider them for a partnership.
If you can finance your small company without partners, then you can keep all the profits for yourself, as long as you can handle all the risk yourself. If you have the confidence required to succeed, then the risk is lower than it would be otherwise.
Also, take into consideration whether you’d prefer to own half of a business or a whole business half the size. Realistically, you want to own more than 51% of any company that you operate because owning more than half of a business leaves you with final control over the decisions, unless you have special covenants that specify otherwise.
Of course, you still need to have the self-confidence that we mentioned in the first chapter, or you are better off working for someone else. In that case, your bosses are likely to dictate how much, if any, stock you will get. They will avoid letting you get to 51%, to say the least.
