Warning: The following post may come off as a bit cynical, but I feel like the advice is sound, so I’m going to say it.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately talking to one of my friends about a new business he’s starting up in partnership with another company. He’s basically offering consulting services that his partners can offer as part of a larger package that they sell to clients. Things are going well, with one major exception: he has yet to sign a contract with his partners. To illustrate why this is a major issue, let me share another story.

Another friend of mine was hired to work as a contractor for a small startup. As part of his compensation package, my buddy was promised stock options “once things start to go well.” Things started to go well, and when my friend decided to have that conversation about the shares, which he described as “uncomfortable” at best, the earlier conversations about equity had been forgotten and at the end of the day my friend was left with a fraction of what had been promised him.

The moral of the story is twofold:

1. Contracts are great because they allow you to state the conditions of your business relationship at the very beginning. This allows for conversation that results in clearly-set expectations on both sides. And at the end of the day, those clear expectations can save you some uncomfortable, relationship-rending conversations down the road.
2. People will make deals for things: help, money, goods, services, and probably a lot of other things I can’t even think of/categorize. But the fact is, unless those deals are on paper, they never happened. Sure, your partner/employer/associate might still make good, even without a contract. But you’re throwing yourself at their mercy, and it seems that when a lot of money gets involved, people become a lot less merciful. Want a good example of this? Just look at how many families get torn apart by estate disputes when a wealthy relative dies without having a solid will in place.

Keep in mind that a contract still might not be enough to insure that the agreement happens. But it at least provides some extra protection for you, and more importantly, it provides a common frame of reference for your business relationship.

The moral of the story is this. Next time you enter a business relationship, get a clear, solid contract in place. LegalDocs.com has a good, free contract outline that can help you create your own contract, or you can hunt down something more specific in FindLaw.com‘s extensive list of contract examples.

1. Failure is humiliating. When you crash and burn, suddenly you realize you’re not quite as smart, not quite as talented, not quite as creative as you thought you were. You don’t have all the answers. And that realization makes you a lot more likely to listen to what your experiences, your friends, and your mentors have to say by way of advice and help. There’s something to be said for not thinking you know everything, and nothing proves that you don’t know everything like a big, fat failure.
2. Failure is motivating. The sting of failure and the desire to avoid it in the future can push you to examine the failure for lessons so you don’t make the same mistakes twice. After all, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And who wants to keep failing because of repeated mistakes?
3. Failure is an effective teacher. Turns out, the lessons learned from failure much more likely to stick with you: “I could have read what I learned from my failures in a text book, but I wouldn’t have internalized them,” says Alan Hall, one of the entrepreneurs quoted in the article.
4. Failure separates the men from the boys. While relatively few people get up the guts to try something once, even fewer get back up after a crippling failure to do so again. But consider this: every time you get up after falling down and try again, you build mental toughness and confidence to weather hard times without panicking. After all, if you’ve already hit rock bottom and survived, you know you can do it again. That coolheadedness could make all the difference whenever things get tight.

At the end of the day, the old adage applies: the greater the risk, the greater the reward. And while the timid may never fail, they’ll never achieve anything remarkable.

1. Learn some programming languages – Sorry, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty with some coding. Just keep in mind that you don’t have to become a crack programmer, you just need to know enough to hang out with guys who are crack programmers.
2. Go where these good developers are – This means attending Ruby and Python meetings, developer conferences, and open source events. This is where you’ll put that programming knowledge to good use. Being at least familiar with the languages your prospective programmers are speaking lets you participate in the conversation and start forging some relationships. And if you’re not ready to approach anybody, use these events as an opportunity to brush your coding up even more. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
3. Polish your pitch – Make sure that when you make your big pitch to your developer contacts, you’ve thought everything through a hundred times, and then think it through one more time on top of that, just to be sure. You really really don’t want to look dumb. Could be the difference between “yes” and “no.”

So if you’re looking for developers, crack open those Python, Ruby, and PHP books and get studying up. And remember, you don’t have to be a good programmer, you just need to be good at talking to good programmers. Good luck!

Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can’t be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.

Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won’t use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won’t abuse it.

Now this from a blog post entitled “Entrepreneurs Need To Suffer”

Too much attention has been focused on raising money in an age where “capital-light” startups are a reality. Entrepreneurs need 1-2 years of suffering while they build their businesses to sustainability.

The interviewee also stated that, had be been given millions for his startup as a 20-year-old, he “likely would have misspent it.”

So what does this mean to you? Well, there are a couple of things. First of all, when you’re going through your times of stress, it can be some consolation that this suffering is teaching you the discipline you’ll need to be a wise manager when success finally does arrive.

More importantly, it tells you that the harder you work to learn the principles of management that allow you to master your enterprise, the less suffering you’ll have to endure. That’s why getting to profitability ASAP should be your chief goal. It’ll teach you what you need to know to be successful, and the faster you can learn that, the better off you AND your company will be.