You and Jesse Warden qualify as consulting businesses that "count". You guys are your own shop.

I hope that clears things up. :)

Perhaps you don't need to write a formal business plan for everything you do; but "just starting" is often a recipe for disaster.

And yes, I think you two would benefit from going through the business planning process. Getting formal company goals down on paper that you can both get behind and agree upon will bring fantastic clarity.

I think biz plans make sense to help solidify what you want to do. I'm thinking if Tom and I go looking for SBA money, we'll need one, so we'll make one. I also think they're a good exercise, and one that Tom and I should do because as you say, it answers a lot of questions. Most of which Tom and I haven't asked or answered LOL

"Development of what?" Asks me.
"Our Product" says he.
"Which will be?" says I.
"It will be driven by our customers" says he.
"And who are they" asks I
etc.. etc.. you get the idea.

Another was shocked I had the audacity to ask because he felt it wasn't my place to review such documents.

The one time I had the discussion with a friend, top of our list of "why not" was "we'll end up hating each other."

It may also help my "odd egg outness" that I've worked for a lot of small companies who had partner problems and my client has had to buy out a partner or two and/or the company went under.

Plus, when you go into a partnership with friends, like John and I did, you think you already know things. "I know him. What he wants, how he thinks, etc."

I know many people say that going into business with friends is bad. However, John and I are of the belief that our friendship has carried us this far. We may fight and we may disagree, but we're still friends.

Plus I too would be weary if someone came up and asked me to be partner in something, I think it is more organic than that.

Everyone wants to partner w/ me, and I used to get 1-2 requests a year. "Come build this for us and we'll give you a piece of the pie"

I had serious conversations with three different people about it on 3 completely different business ideas. And we attacked it from every angle, including discussing what to do when one of us leaves or what would happen when the company goes under, how to define budgets, who owns what percentage, etc.. etc..

Nothing ever came to fruition for various reasons, partially because we had these talks and worked things out and realized it wasn't a good fit.

Am I just wired differently?

Nowdays, when someone asks me to "partner" with them on their next great business idea i ask them to send me their business plan before I'll talk to them. I never hear from most of them again.

That's the thing about partnerships. They're not really written about much, so I'm going to try to write more about my experiences. The biggest question I had for so long is: Do all partners argue this much?

I'm guessing perhaps some do. Which is good, since that means we're "normal". LOL