Partner qualities to test before sharing equity

In the preceding section, I talked about how and where to find a co-founder. Here I will try to be a bit more specific on attributes that might indicate an ideal startup partner. Even if you are looking in all the right places, it helps to know what you are looking for.

In this context, I'm broadening the definition of partner from co-founder to business partner. The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to external partners as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO.

In all cases, the challenge is the same, of finding people that you can work with and enjoy in the business relationship. The relationship has to have trust, communication, and respect in order to work. So the following attributes have to apply to both sides of the partnership to work:

• Enjoys working with other people: Some people are too independent to be partner material. If you find it hard to trust others, love to work alone, always have to be in control...