It Takes Two

Ron Gilbert always knew he wanted to start his own company. He also knew that he didn't have the marketing and budgeting experience that he needed. So for eight years, he deferred his dream and designed computer games for LucasArts Entertainment. He kept adding new skills, broadening his experience, waiting until he felt ready. Then, one day, it hit him: What on Earth was he waiting for? A colleague of his, Shelley Day, a producer at LucasArts, already had the business know-how that Gilbert was working so hard to acquire. Why not start a company together?

So in 1992, with $100,000 in loans and savings, they cofounded Humongous Entertainment in Woodinville, Washington and began developing what are now some of the best-selling children's computer games on the market. Two years ago, in a stock swap worth an estimated $76 million, Humongous, now based in Bothell, Washington, agreed to become a wholly owned subsidiary of GT Interactive Software. Gilbert, 34, remains the company's creative director; Day, 38, is its president and CEO. "The two of us complement each other perfectly," says Gilbert. "We get along so well that sometimes our colleagues think of us as one person."

Richard Masterson, 38, was running a small leasing business when he first met Larry Smith, 41, in the cafeteria at Prodigy Services Co. in 1989. He and Smith, then an executive at a leading New York City advertising agency, were each trying to set up electronic storefronts on Prodigy's online service. Both had become fascinated with interactive marketing, and they hit it off immediately. "It was like finding a long-lost brother," Smith remembers. "From that point on, we talked on the phone almost every day."

Over the next five years, Smith, anxious to escape agency life, and Masterson, struggling to keep his business afloat, pooled their ideas for a joint venture. In 1994, Smith secured a $50,000 contract from Digital Equipment Corp. to develop a marketing plan for a new product. Then he called Masterson - and US Interactive Inc., an Internet-services firm, was born. Today the company has around 200 employees in five offices and boasts such high-powered clients as Unum, the American Stock Exchange, and Royal Caribbean International. "It just clicked for us," says Smith.

Say good-bye to the Unit of One. More and more businesspeople are learning a lesson that Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston first sang about three decades ago: "It Takes Two." Maybe you're starting a new company. Maybe you're leading change in a big company. Whatever your situation, your best resource is a great partner. If you want to go places, you shouldn't try to go it alone.

"More and more of us are faced with having to achieve breakthrough goals and to solve complex problems," says Robert Hargrove, a consultant based in Brookline, Massachusetts and the author of "Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration" (McGraw Hill, 1998). "You can't do that alone. The only way to meet these kinds of challenges is through collaboration." Authors (and partners) Sarah and Paul Edwards studied home-based entrepreneurs for their book "Teaming Up" (Tarcher/Putnam, 1997). More than 60% of the entrepreneurs whom the Edwardses surveyed said that they were teaming up more often than they did five years ago, and 70% said that they wanted to do even more teaming up.

"It's a matter of scale," says Bill Rosenzweig, a cofounder of Venture Strategy Group LLP, a San Francisco-based venture-capital firm and consultancy that specializes in emerging companies. "If you want to make a real impact, you have to collaborate."

Of course, for every partnership that makes waves, there are dozens that end up on the rocks of dueling egos, power struggles, or money squabbles. To explore what separates the successes from the casualties, we consulted leading experts on the power of partnerships - career coaches, venture capitalists, therapists, and counselors - as well as businesspeople who have forged productive and enduring relationships. We asked some basic questions: Do partners have to like each other to work together? How often do partners have to talk? How do you determine who does what? Must one partner be in charge? Can you avoid arguments? How do you know when a partnership is over? Their answers amount to a primer on partnerships: a how-to manual for creating and sustaining your most important professional relationship.

"Take away the sex, and partnerships are just like marriages," says Azriela Jaffe, a business coach based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and the author of Let's Go Into Business Together: Eight Secrets for Successful Business Partnering (Avon Books, 1998). "You have to deal with power, money, and conflict. And that requires work."