Going into business with your boyfriend… Remember that great bright idea one summer evening, chatting until the wee hours over a few beers? And all those meetings that filled your fall and winter weekends. Together, you worked on that project that fired you up. The desire to turn dreams into reality became very strong. You two know each other so well!

But is it really a good thing to go into business with a friend? You will become co-owners, partners or shareholders. You will have joint responsibilities to your creditors, your customers, your employees. You will have to make daily decisions together to steer your business in the direction you have chosen.

Birds of a feather flock together!

There was Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at Apple. And college buddies Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded Google. Childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who are the ones who gave us a great tribute: Ben & Jerry's ice cream! William Harley and his friend Arthur Davidson of Harley-Davidson? Several famous buddies have gone on to create successful companies. So why not you?

When partners fully embrace each other for who they are and truly appreciate their complementarity , the expansion can be grandiose. The synergy effects too.

Having a friend as a partner is very natural. Together, you have made your first steps, mistakes and successes combined. You know each other's reaction mechanisms, their strengths and weaknesses. The intimacy that exists helps avoid misunderstandings. Communication is undeniably more fluid . It is a precious time to gain in decision-making. Your values converge.

Long before you joined forces, you knew you were in the presence of someone brilliant, someone who could deliver. Someone you trusted completely .

And then also, you want to have fun with your business project! Who else but your best friend to embark on this adventure? In short, it is combining the useful with the pleasant to start a business in the company of people with whom you like to spend time.

Other benefits of starting a business as a couple:

1. A shared risk. Investing time and money together in starting a business distributes the risk associated with the project across your four shoulders.

2. Access to more resources. In addition, being two allows you to share the costs of daily management of the business.

3. A bigger network from the start .

4. The confrontation of ideas. Challenge yourself and build solid strategies! Together, you will also reduce the risk of error.

5. Moral support. Starting a business can seem daunting. Friends will motivate each other, push each other to excel, and support each other during times of discouragement.

In business, there are no friends!

On the contrary, there are all those entrepreneurial adventures that have broken friendships, except perhaps that of Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and his university friend Eduardo Saverin which ended up in court.

There are indeed some disadvantages. When you are at a restaurant with friends, you have to know when to stop talking about the company, especially when there are several of you. It is not always easy to find the best friend behind the partner.

There is also a risk that your friendship will lose its vigor. Seeing each other for ten hours a day, every day, and going out together on weekends is a bit much! The need to take a little space from each other is inevitable. No more good times getting into mischief, "like in the old days"!

In any case, it is almost certain that the friendship you had will gradually take another form. As in a couple, situations end up becoming heavy, complicated and conflictual. You no longer want to address them, for fear of crumbling your friendship.

Here are some common areas of disagreement:

• the lack of clarity on each person's "sandboxes"

• the perception of unequal contributions, one works more than the other

• not being equally involved in decisions, leadership issues

• not being able to take one's place fully, or feeling in the shadow of the other

The essence of the partnership and the details of each person's commitment should be clear from the start. Even if you are friends, you should distance yourself from the magical thinking that everything will naturally work out.

To establish solid and sustainable foundations, it is necessary to clarify:

• the company's reason for being, the mission

• the role and commitments of each person

• short, medium and long term vision

• corporate governance, decision making

• financial management, profit sharing

• human resources management, compensation, vacations, how to address conflicts

For a business partnership between friends to be successful, it must start on solid and clear foundations. It will be necessary to have complementary expertise, trust each other, know how to communicate, be able to compromise, accept each other's mistakes, share the same work culture and the same vision.

There is also the option of being partners first, and then good friends. The glue of the relationship becomes that of the business. Friendship is a business element in the cost-benefit calculation. " Nothing personal, it's just business ."