Guide to Choose the right business partners

Know your own skills and experience

In order for you to be able to find a business partner who's skills and experience complement your own, you should first take some time to think about what skills and experience you'll be contributing to your startup. Try writing down the main tasks that you'll be able to do. Think along the lines of functional areas. For example, if you're skills and experience are in sales and marketing you'll want to write down all of the sales/marketing/business development tasks that you'll be doing.

I recommend: Take a look at your skills in a variety of different areas by using a tool like the one offered by ACINet.Org or using another career/skills/experience assessment tool.

Know what type of business you want to start

Before you go out and start looking for business partners, first consider exactly what type of business you want to start. If you're idea is developing an electronic product and you're not an engineer, you'll probably need a business partner with electrical engineering experience. On that same note, if you're starting a greeting cards company, you'll probably have no need for an electrical engineer. So, it's important to put together a business plan that outlines your idea and what skills and experience you'll need to make that idea a success.

I recommend: For help putting together a business plan, you can check out SCORE, which is the Service Corps of Retired Executives. SCORE offers free assistance to people who are starting a business.

Find the business partners you need

Once you've finished putting together a business plan, you can then use that plan to look at all of the skills and experience that your company will need. Then, check out which skills and experience you can offer to your company and which skills and experience you'll need to find from an employee or a business partner. Then, start looking for business partners that have the skills and experience that you're looking for and are interested in working with you.

I recommend: PartnerUp is a great free resource that is designed to help you find business partners with the skills and experience that you need. You can also try posting an ad for a business partner on a site such as Monster, CareerBuilder, or HotJobs. Although, you'll probably find that using a specialized service such as PartnerUp will get more responses from entrepreneurs and people who are interested in starting businesses.