Partners don't need to agree. They need to trust each other

Yeray and I don't agree on everything.

Thank goodness.

People sometimes ask how a partnership lasts. They usually expect the answer to be something like "we think the same way". We don't. We never have. And I suspect that's one of the reasons it works.

We've known each other for more than twenty years. At fourteen we were organising events for around 3,000 people. Later, Foxnice started with the two of us, 300 € and nobody else's money. We went from two freelancers to a civil partnership. Two people, the same company, very different heads.

Agreement is overrated

If two partners agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.

That sounds like a joke, but I mean it. The value of having a partner isn't a second pair of hands. It's a second way of seeing things. If that second way is just a copy of mine, I'm paying for an echo.

I tend to run ahead. I see an idea and I want to build it tonight. Yeray tends to ask the question I skipped. Not always. But often enough that I've learned to wait for it.

That difference is annoying sometimes. It's also, more than once, what stopped us from doing something silly with great enthusiasm.

A partner who always agrees with you isn't a partner. It's a mirror with a share of the company.

What trust actually looks like

So if not agreement, what?

Trust. But not the vague, greeting-card kind. Something much more practical.

Trust is knowing that when he disagrees, it's about the company, not about me. Trust is not checking his work behind his back. Trust is being able to say "I think you're wrong" without it turning into a week of silence. And it's also accepting, sometimes, that he was right and I wasn't. That one's my least favourite.

When you have that, disagreement stops being dangerous. It becomes useful. You can argue about a price, a client, a direction, and walk out of it still on the same side.

When you don't, even small decisions turn into negotiations. And you start keeping score, which, in my opinion, is the beginning of the end of any partnership.

Why it matters more without investors

There's a reason this matters especially in a company like ours.

We don't have a board. We don't have investors to settle an argument. Nobody from outside is going to tell us who's right.

That's part of the freedom we chose. Nobody sets our clock. But it also means that if Yeray and I stop trusting each other, there's no referee. There's just two people and a company in the middle.

So I try to look after that trust the way I'd look after a server: quietly, regularly, before something breaks. Mostly by being honest early, instead of polite late.

We still disagree. On how fast to go. On what to say yes to. On things I'm sure I'm right about and probably am not.

That's fine.

We don't need to agree. We just need to keep knowing we're on the same side.

P.S. Yeray will read this and disagree with at least one sentence. Which rather proves the point.