The Business Advice You’re Never Given
Someone I met recently at a business networking event emailed me asking me some questions about business, specifically business partners. They recently had a bad first-business experience and major financial reversal and wanted some guidance about shared business ownership.
Speaking to the person I could tell that their enthusiasm and energy would not be down for long, and they already had Plan B in the bag and ready to launch.
They stayed in touch and wanted some guidance as to “what next”… and as their next venture was very firmly in my “wheelhouse” we got along like pyromaniacs at an open house.
My initial advice was “”get a job”, might as well be earning whilst the flywheel of business spins up to speed. In my early years temping and ad-hoc jobs kept me in pasta and baked beans and very much got me through the economic choppy waters of a new business venture.
Before we get to the specific email in question here’s the three bits of advice I shared and it is broadly speaking the three things I suggest to anyone thinking of becoming self-employed or launching a new venture:
1) What’s Plan B if it goes wrong? Even if you do not have Plan B fully plotted, know what the signs are that you need to stop Plan A. What’s the cut off?
2) Do you have savings? Start today. Even if in debt, savings are a habit, even if it is a fiver a week, start today. If you are in debt, pay down the highest interest stuff first, and once that is paid, go to the next highest and so on. At the end, start saving the exact amount you were paying a month in debt as a reminder of what you have achieved. Well done you!
3) Is your lifestyle that of a monk in a cave? Get rid of every subscription, or payment you absolutely can and focus your attention on the basics and build from there. You will need every ounce of focus, attention and desire to grow your business. Financial jeopardy is always going to be a distraction, so reduce your outgoings as much as you possibly can.
These three points were the main area of our conversation, we exchanged pleasant series of emails and I thought no more of it… Leaving the door open to further correspone in future, because in business, you never know…
After a few weeks with no contact, I received this email, BOOM:
“Hi Stuart
Just on my morning commute to work (yep back to the 9-5!) and in the middle of the next business planning cycle.
I made friends with this girl who is an absolute fire cracker. She works in a high end clothes store in [UK TOWN] and is a demon seller. So I have been trying to convince her to start a side hustle with me.
I sent you the google drive link to the business idea. [REDACTED] sales training.
I think it’s time to give up on her. She has that employee mindset and is just full of ideas why not to do it.
I really don’t want to go into business on my own again. Where’s the best place to find co-founders who are super talented and available. I talk to so many people and it’s so rare to find people I would go into business with.
I’m really not fussed what it is at this point. Just want to make some proper money.
Any advice would be appreciated“
Wow… That’s quite a chunky chew…
So I replied… and with their permission, here is the reply.
This is business advice about business partners learned the hard way, over 30 years. If you are going into business with someone else, take INDEPENDENT LEGAL ADVICE. Do not use BizWoo sourced from a spicy on the Interwebs, do your own due diligence! USE YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT!
enjoy…
TO: Business Contact
FROM: Stu Morrison
SUBJECT: Business Partner Hell – Eye Witness Report
[NAME]
Well done on getting a job – they are useful for regular money whilst you figure out how to earn “f@ck you” money. But bosses suck, so get with the getting…
With regards to your email…
WOOOOAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…
Stop…
Take a moment, few deep breaths, box breath… in to a count of 4, hold (count 4) out (count 4), rest (count 4) do that a few times before reading the rest of my reply.
::BREATHE::
::PAUSE::
::EXHALE::
::PAUSE::
DISCLAIMER
I am not a lawyer, advisor or coach, I am, at best, an unreliable witness and your mileage may vary… that said… Here’s some direct, and unfluffy insight from someone who has spaffed so much money up the wall chasing pipe-dreams that I eventually had to build another wall, french drain, and sewer system…
You have an inner fire that is not going to be contained by a 9-5, you know that, I see that, but you need discipline to focus that into a laser. I’m not talking about “gym bro” type discipline, I am talking about the ability to remain on task, on mission and dialled in. Whatever the distraction, and there’s always a distraction, you keep showing up and doing the do.
Now, sure, that sort of grit, the get-it-done mentality is a given, right? Yeah, but here’s the point to it, no matter how much you THINK you have it, until the rubber hits the road, you may never find out if you ACTUALLY have it.
But like any “fucking hard” thing, you do it BECAUSE it IS hard. What’s the point otherwise? Right?? So if we know that the way to reach our goals is going to be one long hard slog, we better have a pretty frickin’ amazing reason for doing it.
And that’s what you’re missing. You’re missing a “why”.
So, why do I do what I do? My why is – 2 reasons…
1) I NEVER EVER EVER EV.AH. E.V.E.R. have to have a boss. Because bosses suck the joy out of life, and are usually wrong about everything and I never had a boss who didn’t think his position didn’t afford him some sort of grace and favour with the staff. We should all somehow bow and scrape… which I am never going to do, king or pauper, we’re all born with an arsehole and I am too fond of pointing that out for that employer/employee relationship to ever last long. Four jobs before the age of 23 and one of them was a five-year apprenticeship started at 16. So, yeah, bosses can do one. As you see, I REALLY do not want to have a boss ever again.
2) To keep my family from starving. Initially it was to keep myself from starving, and to be frank, I was doing a piss-poor job of that before I met my wife. Now, not saying “go get wifed up“, but sometimes you need to be fighting for more than just money and fame for yourself.
I’m better at fighting someone else’s corner than my own, or I used to be. Now I am a diamond-tipped, Teflon-coated mutha-fucker if pushed. Wasn’t always like that, but as that famous business philosopher Al Capone said: “You need two things in life, a smile and a baseball bat. 99 out of a hundred you just need a smile…” What people also don’t appreciate was the bit most people fail to quote: “the other guy also needs to know you have a bigger bat than him“.
Don’t go and buy a bat. This is not bat advice 101. This is:
YOU NEED A MISSION ADVICE.
A reason why. Beyond the fiscal reward, because earning money is straightforward, most people complicate it. Here’s my formula:
Find something you can replicate over and over, that’s not too complicated and is already in demand. One of the hardest things to do in business is change someone’s habit. Designing products, creating new systems and offering new ways of doing something is always, hands down, the hardest thing to sell.
Why?
Changing behaviour is hard; as a business or salesperson it’s the single hardest thing you can accomplish.
You ever try stopping a habit? Now you’ve got to convince someone else to do that, with words and pictures only… Good luck. It’s quicker to stand in your garden and burn tenners.
So. Don’t go and try to create a whole new marketplace – find a marketplace with money in it, and find a reason that you want to get into that market. You can sell anything, you know that – so why not sell something you love, have a passion for or otherwise just want to be involved with?
I found posters, novelties, and writing. I used websites and business to build out my wealth but remain passionate about communicating in the written form, as well as having fun and enjoying life. You also need an economic engine to provide for your lifestyle. Lesson for another day.
OK… Lecture over…
… to your actual email…
“I made friends with this girl who is an absolute fire cracker. She works in a high end clothes store in Guildford and is a demon seller. So I have been trying to convince her to start a side hustle with me.“
This sentence has one of the highest red flag counts for a potential business partner I think I have ever read.
Let me break it down.
“I made friends with this girl“
Exactly how, how did you make friends? Party? Queue for self-checkouts? I am going with ‘chance encounter’. So you have no idea about her values, what she’s made of under pressure. How will she react when you’ve got 14 days until payroll of £300K and only got £200K in the bank and a customer who’s just filed for bankruptcy owing you £200K…
You know how you do when in a “burning building“, how will SHE do? You have started to build your armour, how’s hers? Nothing will save your business if two business partners are not aligned, in sync, and fully understand where their respective strengths and weaknesses lie and are absolutely rock solid in their conviction for the business.
“who is an absolute fire cracker.”
Run, run fast, don’t look back. These people are absolutely essential, but make for terrible business partners. If she has dyed hair, then “AWOOOOGA!”…
Now, speaking as a fully-fledged and diagnosed member of the ‘Spectrum Gang’ and having had varying shades of bright hair colours, this is why I say run.
I know, I’m a fucking nightmare to be in business with.
Two reasons;
- LOTS OF GREAT IDEAS!!!!
I have learned to prune viciously and quickly.
and - ALL OF THE DETAIL ALL OF THE TIME.
I mean, the length of this reply, seriously? Who does that?
How you do one thing, is how you do everything, and if they are always coming up with GREAT IDEAS be careful, because that energy can be very hard to pin down to the grind of making it happen once the great ideas have been had. ::stuart skips away to his next project::
Some businesses thrive on that relationship, but for that to work the partnership understands the dynamic and is self-aware enough to ensure it never becomes a problem. Jobs & Wozniak spring to mind. But for that to work, you both need to know each other and have a “in the trenches” bond to make it through the tougher times.
“She works in a high end clothes store in [REDACTED] and is a demon seller.”
Says who? Never believe a salesperson when they say they are the best… THEY ARE SALES PEOPLE, THEY LIE FOR A LIVING! I know… I am one.
And when I say “lie” I mean bend the truth to the letter of the law and not beyond, whilst also showing the biggest upside to the customer.
“Oh, you look amazing in that, pair it with these shoes…“
See, you’re thinking about new shoes… and… Who owns the business? Family member? I’m going to say an aunt? Pure guess, but I know the store type and have done websites for a few in the past. I no longer do retail store websites because this type of owner broke me. 🙂
“So I have been trying to convince her to start a side hustle with me.” – AWOOOOOOOGA! Red flag trifecta. Cue the confetti canons, dancing girls and frustrating days ahead.
Business partners do not need convincing, it should be a mutual agreement, you’re dancing not wrestling. Plus, what happens if it goes wrong?
Let’s say, one year from now, everything’s proper fucked, people owe you money, cashflow is tight and their rent is due and you cannot, absolutely CAN-NOT, afford both of your wages. Who gets paid?
Do you do 50/50? How will they react knowing they cannot pay rent? And, with that domestic stress, how will they be performing? How quickly does it become “I was doing OK until you roped me into this bad idea, my aunt was right about you all along“?
You see when it is all cake and candles, running a business is a joy and, to be honest, a piece of piss once you get the hang of the cycles and master the mindset. But when it goes wrong, yeah, it will blow up like a Council JCB hitting WW2 ordnance. It’ll make quite the mess of your life. I know. Been there, got the drunk festival tattoo.
“I really don’t want to go into business on my own again. Where’s the best place to find co-founders who are super talented and available. I talk to so many people and it’s so rare to find people I would go into business with.”
Good idea, spread the risk, but that also comes with risk as you identified; how do you find reliable business partners?
By showing up and being reliable! You don’t find your tribe, they find you. If you want to be considered a proper business owner by other’proper’ business owners, then you have to walk the walk, a real chicken & egg scenario.
Having a side hustle is a great way to begin. You met me networking, and that’s where you find the gold — the people who show up, and where you find the people you want to work with.
You can also obsess about a specific business, contact the owner, ask for some advice, but they’re busy, they don’t know you and are likely to be dismissive. Unless you do something for them first.
A website audit was my way in. A piece of work with absolute business value, offered without any strings. Do business, don’t do business – here you go. That sort of thing gets remembered and remarked upon. And that’s when I did the hard yards – nowadays I rarely get asked to “audition”. That’s a privilege of rank and seniority, but you can achieve that in a short time with the right focus and of course product or service.
I would suggest you disconnect “time for money” as soon as possible, finding a way to have some income without having to work for it. A Stocks and Shares ISA with dividend stocks is a good shout. It’s going to take a while to get any meaningful income, but it’s the practice, the dedication, the life skill of saving, and getting some income.
Get proper financial advice — don’t listen to a weird rando on the emails.
So, to your final line…
“I’m really not fussed what it is at this point. Just want to make some proper money.”
Danger, and biggest red flag – you have ambition burning a hole in your pocket, and nothing the market likes better than someone keen to “NOT MISS OUT“… oof, I have been taken a few times because I naively fell for someone’s promises and wasted time, money and sometimes a lot of both at once. Be careful, tread softly and be strategic. Sure, AI is everywhere, but soon it’ll be a commodity like the “internet” . Plus, I got really lucky and ‘timed‘ the early internet wave right (right time/place) and AI is already starting to lose its lustre and small businesses are wary of new tech.
I often suggest “toilet paper and teabags” as my strategy. I offer businesses something they can’t do without, or will buy no matter what. Hosting, websites.
Also have other interests too: diversify from your main business to protect income sources. It’s more than just one thing, you’ve got to take a step back and do all the things at the right time and for the right reasons. Going out and shouting “I WANNA DO BUSINESS” is likely to end badly, desperation is never attractive in business or dating, again, red flags.
Your best strategy: find something you can get passionate about. Is that [REDACTED] sales training? Maybe? But ask yourself these questions before proceeding:
Is there a big market for this [INSERT BUSINESS IDEA]?
Are there businesses with budgets to spend on [INSERT BUSINESS IDEA]?
How many people do you have to convince in an organisation before you get an invoice paid?
Do you have a list of those people right now?
How long to get to those people?
3/6/12 months?
Can you fund the business until you are positive cashflow?
Plus what about the current competition? Are there already businesses doing this? Are you simply treading on their toes and inviting a costly legal battle? Even if unfounded, if they’re established their pockets will be deeper…
See how it starts to unravel. So, find something you can scale – that you have a ‘moat’ around, something you can protect. Forget Intellectual Property (IP) – that’s a moat but requires deep pockets to truly defend.
So what’s the best approach?
Find something you can get passionate about, go digging, get into an industry that you like, and do a deep dive. Spend 6 months REALLY understanding the numbers, the logistics, or the capacity. Find something that’s a broken pain point (oh, they’re everywhere). Something that causes genuine costs to a business. Next, find something, or someone, that plugs that gap, fixes that issue, bridges the problem.
Introduce Player A to Player B – with you taking a cut of whatever the outcome. Low risk for you, easy sell for each potential player. Eventually you get good at sniffing out where there’s opportunity, and that 6 months becomes 90 days, becomes a month, a week… you sniff out the deals quickly. If there’s no way for me to make a cut, then I introduce them anyway — then that’s two people who owe me 🙂 (or at the very least will remember me!).
Then you find something that is such a good fit between the two players that you buy into one or other, or both sides of the sale, and then you own a piece of the businesses. That takes longer, requires more stamina and insight, but here’s the thing, you have learned to manage your risks at every stage. You own the pie, as well as the tray it’s baked in! You might eat the pie, but you have the tray left to bake another, and it’s the recipe and ingredients that are just a cost of business.
You have to do the hard yards to get to eat the pie. It’s just how it is.
Well… Now I want pie and have to go eat.
Here endeth whatever this is/was…
Go get stuck in…
EPILOGUE
You might ask “What gives you the right to pontificate and opine on such matters, Treacle?” and, from the safety of the visitors side of the bullet proof glass, I would confess I’ve had some business “break ups” over the years, including a few “sub-optimal” endings. So I feel 100% qualified to share the lessons learned from being there when trust, money, and lack of principles play out.
Business partners can be very financially beneficial, or a lifestyle wrecking ball. Choose carefully because one type lifts you up, challenges you and always has your back. You remain equals and if the project ends, you have a useful business ally to call on in future.
The other type throws a strop, ignores the Share Holders Agreement (your business ‘Bible’ when it comes to partners), and demands unfair compensatation in a two week window, or they’ll close operations until compliance. This is all without seeing the most recent accounts. Before Christmas. Whilst you’re dealing with a friend’s funeral.
Yeah…
::deep breath::
Sometimes in business, it takes the best of you to make it past the worst of someone else and that’s why I feel very qualified to share my thoughts.
Working With Your Brain, Not Against It
There is a very specific brand of frustration that comes with knowing exactly what you need to do… and still not being able to do it!
It’s not because you don’t care. Not because you don’t understand it. Not even because you’re particularly busy. You can be sitting right in front of the task, fully aware that it would take about twenty minutes if you just cracked on with it, and yet your brain is skipping around a field, picking daisies. Not a care in the world!
For most of my life, I didn’t have any language for this. I was late diagnosed, which means I spent 51 years assuming that this was just how I was. Inconsistent, easily distracted, a bit unreliable when it came to getting shit done. I had zero idea my brain was neurodivergent, which is laughable really now I know that it clearly is.(Narrator: the signs were always there!)
I just thought it was ‘special’ and not in a good way. And that conclusion didn’t come out of nowhere either. It was born for a million moments where I was quietly made to feel like I was buffering ‘normal’.
I still remember an English teacher telling me “80% of this essay is brilliant, and the rest is pure fairy land,”. Now I’m proud of that part of me that wanders off on fabulous tangents, mid sentence. It’s a hugely important part of who I am. But back then I was filed under “lovely, but a bit strange”. And it left me pondering whether it was a world problem, or my brain. I had no idea that my magnificent brain just needed the right conditions.
So I did what most of us do. I tried to fix it.
For years, I assumed this was a discipline problem. That if I could just be a bit more consistent, a bit more focused, a bit less prone to wandering off mid-task, everything would finally get in line. Then when it came to work I bought into the idea that the ‘winners’ were the ones who showed up the same way every day and just got on with things, regardless of how they felt. It never crossed my mind that I might be aspiring to a rulebook my brain missed the memo for.
Most business advice is not for us
The majority of business advice isn’t neutral. It’s built for a very specific type of brain. And that brain is not mine. Which kinda sucks really.
It’s built for people who can decide to do something and then… just do it. No internal negotiation. No sudden urge to make a cup of tea, scroll something deeply irrelevant, and then question all of your life choices halfway through opening a document. No weird moment where your brain nopes, and disappears off to learn something fascinating but entirely unhelpful. (I once lost a solid hour researching what to do if you’re stuck in a lift. Do I need that information? No. Do I now avoid lifts? Absolutely yes!.)
And the thing is, this generic advice is given like it’s universal. Which means that when your brain bumps into it, it feels like a ‘you’ problem. You’re inconsistent, you need more self discipline. You haven’t found the right system. You’re just not good enough. (Spoiler alert: you absolutely are.)
But what if it’s not that you haven’t found the right system — it’s that you’ve been trying to force yourself into ones that were never built for your brain in the first place? Read that again. Because once you understand that, things start to make a lot more sense. Not in a dramatic “everything is fixed” kind of way, but in an ‘aha’ lightbulb above your head kind of way. Because it explains a lot.
Force it…I dare Yyou (really don’t)
When something doesn’t work, the natural instinct is to push harder. To sit there longer, try to force focus. Override whatever resistance is showing up. And to be fair, that can work for a while. You can absolutely drag yourself through a task with enough internal pressure and a slightly aggressive pep talk. But it comes at a cost.
Because every time you factory reset your brain in the hope it will operate against its natural patterns, you’re overriding signals that are there for a reason. That starts an energy fire that leaves you with tiredness and some lingering shame that something relatively simple has wiped you out for the rest of the day.
This is where the boom-and-bust cycle can creep in, and this was my strategy for far too long. You have a few days where everything flows, you get loads done, you feel vaguely invincible… and then suddenly replying to an email feels like you’re in an internal small talk convo. From the outside, it looks inconsistent. From the inside, it feels like your brain has just done an emergency stop with no warning.
These patterns aren’t random
One of the most useful shifts, and also one of the most annoying to accept, is that your patterns aren’t random. They’re information.
The times you can focus for hours without noticing. The moments where starting feels completely impossible until something suddenly clicks. The tasks that you avoid with Olympic-level skill, even though you know they matter. That’s not chaos. That’s data.
Executive dysfunction often shows up as that gap between intention and action, where you know exactly what needs to happen and yet… tumbleweeds. Not because you’re incapable, but because the conditions for action aren’t in place. Once you start looking at what those conditions actually are, things get a bit clearer.
You begin to notice when your brain is more receptive, what kind of tasks pull you in, and what are your resistance triggers. It doesn’t magically solve everything, but it does mean you’re no longer trying to operate blind.
When it’s interesting it works
There’s a particular brand of shame that comes with only being able to focus on things that are interesting. It can feel childish, or unprofessional, or like you should really be able to just get on with things regardless.And yet your brain has its mouth clamped shut and is shaking its head vigorously as someone is trying to spoon rice pudding into it. (Is that just me? yuck!)
For many neurodivergent people, interest isn’t optional. It’s the thing that actually switches the lights on. When something engages you, properly engages you, focus can be almost effortless. Time disappears, ideas connect, and you suddenly look like a highly functional adult who absolutely has their life together.
When it doesn’t, even simple tasks can feel weirdly impossible. Not hard, just… inaccessible. Like they are in a giant claw machine and no amount of pound coins and patience allows you to access one. Which is why trying to ‘business’ whilst ignoring that reality tends to backfire.
Designing work that has some level of ‘shiny new thing’ built into it isn’t indulgent. It’s practical. Because It’s the difference between pushing a giant rock uphill and surfing the focus wave.
When it feels like your idea, your brain chills out
There’s also something annoying that I’ve noticed over the years. Well, there is plenty that is annoying, but I won’t gallop after that squirrel. Tasks change depending on how they feel internally. I can have things collecting dust on my ‘to do’ list for days…weeks even, that feel impossible to start. Then suddenly the planets align, or whatever, and I complete them in 20 minutes.
The task didn’t change. Neither did the deadline. The only thing that shifted was my brain moving it from something it was told to do, to something it came up with itself. Like that boss (we’ve all had one) that dismisses your genius idea in the bored-room (yes that was intentional) only to “I’ve got an incredible idea” weeks later!
Because the moment something feels like a “should,”we’re back to the rice pudding shoveling. Not because the task is unreasonable, but because it feels imposed.
When it feels like a choice, even if nothing else changes, there is less friction. It becomes more doable, and far less dramatic. And once you notice this, it’s really helpful. But also horribly inconvenient, because you can no longer use the “push through the pain” strategy anymore.
It was never about trying harder
What becomes clear over time is that this isn’t about a lack of effort. Most people I know with neurodivergent brains commit to everything like there’s a million pound prize at the end of it. Cleaning the bathroom? I’m spending 4 hours with an old toothbrush making sure every inch of it is showroom sparkly. You with me? But…and it’s a big BUT. That effort, when it comes to business, is being poured into toeing the line with systems that don’t actually fit. And applying more effort to a mismatch doesn’t fix it. It just makes you even tireder, even faster!
A more useful question at that point isn’t “how do I try harder?” — because let’s be honest, you’ve already tried that and look where that got you! (no shame, just fact stating!) It’s “how do I make this easier to start?” Because that’s usually where the whole thing falls apart.
And that might mean changing when you do something, how it’s structured, or what you pair it with. Not in a dramatic, “new life, new me” kind of way, but in small, slightly less punishing adjustments that your brain might actually agree to. It’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about removing enough friction that getting to it doesn’t feel like wrestling a grizzly bear every single time.
You’re not the problem
The biggest shift isn’t tactical. It’s how you see yourself. Because when you move from “I’m unpredictable” or “I’m an out of control nightmare” to “my brain works differently,” something settles. Not in a dramatic, life-is-fixed kind of way, but in a quieter, “oh… that explains a lot” kind of way.
You stop trying to force yourself into ways of working that never quite fit, and start paying attention to what actually does. Less fighting it, more working with it — which, annoyingly, turns out to be far more effective.
You start to notice your patterns, and after a bit of practice, you start to trust them more. Instead of constantly second-guessing yourself or trying to override everything, you begin to work with what’s already there. I’d be lying if I said it suddenly made everything easy, but it does take the edge off that constant feeling that you’re getting it wrong. And without that shame everything feels a lot more doable.
So… what now?
You take this and you use it. Not perfectly, not consistently, and definitely not in a way that suddenly turns you into one of those people who just “gets things done” without thinking about it. Knowledge is power… but it’s not a miracle. Annoying, but true.
The goal is to stop assuming the problem is you. Because it isn’t, so let that shit go. When something feels hard to start, or weirdly impossible for no obvious reason, you pause long enough to ask a better question. Not “what’s wrong with me?” but “what does my brain need here?”
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And after that, you can no longer pretend you don’t know any better. So you build something that actually fits your fabulous brain. Bit by bit. Adjustment by adjustment.
And then comes the life-changing bit: you realise you were never the problem. You were just trying to run on instructions that weren’t written for you.