Why go into business with a partner when you’ve already succeeded on your own? I guess Amy and I could have weighed that question before launching Nine Lives Media Inc. together. But going solo never really crossed our minds.
Amy and I both enjoyed success with our own companies earlier this decade. But as we weighed our strategy for Nine Lives Media Inc., we kept realizing the following two items:
- 20 percent of our skills are similar. We tend to think similarly about business development, budgeting, customer service and integrated media development.
- 80 percent of our skills have very little overlap. While I continue to brainstorm about new directions for our sites, features, functions, audiences, etc., Amy continues to build sales relationships and sponsor programs, and even finds time to polish the Nine Lives Media Inc. brand (more on that, soon). We’re both creative, but not in the same areas. We also give each other some regular feedback about our respective efforts — we’re a sounding board for each other.
So far, so good. But I think the real key to a successful business relationship involves personal priorities and values. When it was time to launch Nine Lives Media Inc., Amy and I had similar expectations in terms of how much money we would pump into the company, how soon we would launch our media sites, etc.
I think we even surprised ourselves a couple of weeks ago, when we both decided to green light our next site launch. We quickly nailed down the budget, content concept, target audience, business goals, etc. You should see the fruits of that labor sometime in April.
In the meantime, I’m focused on our existing sites, new research and new content development. While Amy continues to build out our sales relationships across the industry.
