business owners with business partners - what do you when having disagreements?

[purbeast0]

just curious what you guys do when you and your partner have disagreements and how you resolve them.

i'm working with 2 other guys as cofounders of a company and we're coming to a disagreement with the logo. one guy really likes it, one guy could kind of go either way, and i personally don't like it very much.

i'd say it's a 5-6 out of 10. it is just basically a 180 of our initial discussions of what we were thinking with the style of the logo. it's gone from a more simple look with a clean/modern looking font to a busier logo with a more whacky looking font.

so i'm just curious when you have disagreements on things, how do you go about coming up with a solution that makes everyone happy?

 

[kranky]

You can have equal shares of ownership and different levels of authority. You need to decide who is president, and what roles the other two have. Someone has to be the final decision-maker. You'll be glad you settled this now when the issue is only a logo.

 

[TwiceOver]

You're majority owner, right? You should be making the decision.

 

[purbeast0]

nah i'm not the majority owner, i'm 35%, one is 45%, one is 20%. but we all agreed that we'd all have equal say in what decisions that go on within the company (more so me and the 45% guy since we're original founders) and it may even be in the contract i'd have to check.

and since we're pre-launch right now it's not like we're pulling in any money or anything yet, it's still in development.

 

[rh71]

for a logo, simple & clean is better, you win.

 

[vi edit]

I'm in a partnership with 3 other guys in a small business and shares are distributed differently. 30/30/20/20. The higher two are founders, the 20's are two of us brought in after the company was formed.

We have structured domains that we are responsible for and ultimately have decision making function over. While everyone has a vote, if it's in your domain you have ultimate decision over that. Equal say sounds great on paper, but it just doesn't work out that way on split decisions.

What I can say is, if you are very passionate about a choice or decision, back it with a good reason or alternative and toss it out to the group. Usually I can steer decisions back my way with appropriate reasoning. But don't expect it to be your call. You need to persuade/lobby the suggestion.

[EDIT]
FWIW, I definitely error on the clean side of things too. It just looks better on letterhead, signatures, printed items, ect.

 

[akugami]

Absolutely agree with what kranky said.

This is actually a good time to work out how you want to handle disagreements. This is a minor issue (relatively speaking) but it gives you the opportunity at this early stage on how you want to handle it for future disagreements.

There's really only two ways to do things in a small company.

The easiest method with what you have described is to have one partner as having final say on all matters (with input of course) even though there is no majority shareholder.

You may also separate duties where Partner 1 might have final say on certain issues but Partner 2 has final say on others. Either way, the most important thing is to make the rules and abide by it.

We've had to hammer out arguments over similar things to logos before and usually we have a couple guys coming out with the design of things, but one guy is in charge. We solicit input from the whole company. But at the end of the day, there is only one guy who will have final say.

 

[purbeast0]

I'm in a partnership with 3 other guys in a small business and shares are distributed differently. 30/30/20/20. The higher two are founders, the 20's are two of us brought in after the company was formed.

We have structured domains that we are responsible for and ultimately have decision making function over. While everyone has a vote, if it's in your domain you have ultimate decision over that. Equal say sounds great on paper, but it just doesn't work out that way on split decisions.

What I can say is, if you are very passionate about a choice or decision, back it with a good reason or alternative and toss it out to the group. Usually I can steer decisions back my way with appropriate reasoning. But don't expect it to be your call. You need to persuade/lobby the suggestion.

[EDIT]
FWIW, I definitely error on the clean side of things too. It just looks better on letterhead, signatures, printed items, ect.

yeah i've made my points clear for sure. the guy who is kind of on the fence has been quiet the past day or so so i'm curious what he has to say.

i have some suggestions and have a rough mockup of what i think would be a better clean look, and it's something we discussed earlier as well. our app overall is a very minimalist look/feel and very clean looking, so the current one that he likes doesn't fit the app IMO.

also one thing to keep in mind, this is just our "text" logo. it is not our app icon or the "icon" logo. this logo may only actually be on our landing page and not even in the app anywhere. it may be on the splash screen of the app but that's undecided at this point.

EDIT:

and yes i agree with kranky and akugami that this is probably a good time we should bring up this point that we need to assign "final" decision makers. and i agree in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of an issue.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Uh, this is America, dude.

You sue them.

Duh.

 

[Humpy]

This is why the forum has a poll function for cryin' out loud.

Post all disagreements and let ATOT decide.

 

[TallBill]

Woof I dunno, never owned a business. Would be hesitant to open one with someone at this point in my life since I'm not close to anyone like that.

 

[ponyo]

My partner has the final say. I was brought in later so I think it's only fair. It works for us.

 

[Jeeebus]

Didn't you post about going into business with these guys some months ago? And didn't the actual ATOT lawyers uniformly advise to have a thorough llc/partnership agreement in place that would handle things like decision making/disputes?

 

[dirtboy]

but we all agreed that we'd all have equal say in what decisions that go on within the company (more so me and the 45% guy since we're original founders) and it may even be in the contract i'd have to check.

This was a big mistake. As others have mentioned the resolution is to appoint someone into the role of President or final decision maker.

 

[zinfamous]

Since you don't like it, convince them how the logo either looks like a toilet or a dick, then they will change their minds.


After that, you guys need to discuss who gets final decision on various issues before anything else comes up.

 

[purbeast0]

Didn't you post about going into business with these guys some months ago? And didn't the actual ATOT lawyers uniformly advise to have a thorough llc/partnership agreement in place that would handle things like decision making/disputes?

yeah i did. i mean i'd think that the majority shareholder technically has the final say, which is the main guy. i did have someone check out the contract though.

i mean it's not like a huge deal because we aren't 100% going with it yet and everyone is still discussing it, but it definitely is a good thing to bring up about decisions in general within the company.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Holy shit. Three guys can't even agree on a logo??

Your company is doomed before it's even begun.

 

[elitejp]

Carson you've never ran a business before.

Op, like others have said you guys need to resign to the idea that someone gets to call the shots. And once that decision is made(ie, someone in your groups make the final decision) everyone needs to basically move on to the next matter.

 

[purbeast0]

Carson you've never ran a business before.

Op, like others have said you guys need to resign to the idea that someone gets to call the shots. And once that decision is made(ie, someone in your groups make the final decision) everyone needs to basically move on to the next matter.

i'm kind of at that point on this right now. like if there is a majority (there are 3 cofounders) and it's 2-1 and i'm on the 1 side, i have no problem sucking it up. i've let them know that too. however the one guy who is all for it wants to be sure that it's "the one" if we do go that route as well. i've already told both of them that too.

i don't hate the logo, i just don't like it. and i feel we need more choices to pick from before we just jump into this one.

 

[Ns1]

pardon the obvious, but why don't you guys try talking about what you like/don't like about the logo and see if another design might be the winner, instead of settling for a design that 1.5 of you don't care for.


couldn't do any worse than this I suppose:

 

[Rakehellion]

i'm working with 2 other guys as cofounders of a company and we're coming to a disagreement with the logo. one guy really likes it, one guy could kind of go either way, and i personally don't like it very much.

If one of you could go either way then that's a negative. If you guys don't like something, then your customers certainly won't like it.

Also, three people is an uneven vote. As a decision maker at the company, the third guy should make a decision and stop leaving it up to everyone else.

 

[Carson Dyle]

If one of you could go either way then that's a negative. If you guys don't like something, then your customers certainly won't like it.

Also, three people is an uneven vote. As a decision maker at the company, the third guy should make a decision and stop leaving it up to everyone else.

So the guy who says "I don't give a shit. We have more important things to worry about." is the sticking point? LOL!

Doomed. From. Day. One.

 

[purbeast0]

If one of you could go either way then that's a negative. If you guys don't like something, then your customers certainly won't like it.

Also, three people is an uneven vote. As a decision maker at the company, the third guy should make a decision and stop leaving it up to everyone else.

that's not necessarily true at all. none of us are UX experts so we value opinions of people who are. it's just personal opinion though for the most part.

 

[Rakehellion]

that's not necessarily true at all. none of us are UX experts so we value opinions of people who are. it's just personal opinion though for the most part.

I'm saying you should expect your customers to be more scrutinous and fickle than you. Only ONE of you likes the logo, so why bother? Just revise it.

none of us are UX experts

Neither are the clients, but they know if they like something when they see it. Also, I'm assuming the logo was designed by an actual graphic designer?

 

[purbeast0]

I'm saying you should expect your customers to be more scrutinous and fickle than you. Only ONE of you likes the logo, so why bother? Just revise it.



Neither are the clients, but they know if they like something when they see it. Also, I'm assuming the logo was designed by an actual graphic designer?

long story short, some of them were, some of them weren't. the ones by the designer sucked ass and he bailed on the project but took the money. the one that is in question wasn't designed by one. but like i said, not set in stone yet and we may have another guy lined up to do the work already to try other ideas out.