Mike and I started IBC Illinois in 2007. We've been business partners for 17 years now. People ask how that works as much as they ask anything about the business itself. Here's what I'd say about it.
The original division
Mike came from industrial logistics — he understood freight, routing, customer relationships, money. I came from homebrewing — I understood the operational side, the chemistry, the equipment, the day-to-day of running a wash bay.
We didn't write down a division of labor in 2007 because we didn't think we needed to. By 2009 we had to, because we were stepping on each other.
The division we settled on: Mike does customer-facing and the money. I do operations and the team. Big decisions — capital, real estate, hiring above the supervisor level — we make together.
What changed in 2015
When we bought the Grand Rapids property in 2015 we had to actually formalize the partnership in a way that satisfied the bank and our personal lawyers. That forced a conversation we'd been avoiding: what happens if one of us wants to leave, retire, or sell.
We wrote a partnership agreement that includes a fair-value buy-out formula, a non-compete for a defined period, and a sunset clause for revisiting the agreement every five years.
I'll be honest — I dragged my feet on that agreement for six months. The conversation felt like an admission that we didn't trust each other. In retrospect it was the opposite: signing the agreement let us stop worrying about the hypothetical future and focus on the present business.
What works
Three things.
- We have explicit zones. Mike doesn't second-guess my wash bay decisions; I don't second-guess his customer pricing. Within zone we have authority.
- We disagree publicly. If Mike thinks I'm wrong about something operational, he says so in the morning meeting, and I say so right back if I disagree. We don't take disagreements home.
- We respect each other's expertise. When I push back on a freight decision Mike's already made, it's because I have specific operational information he doesn't. He listens because I bring data, not because I'm pulling rank.
What's hard
We've had three serious arguments in 17 years. Each one took 2–4 weeks to fully resolve. In each case the resolution required one of us to admit we were wrong about something we'd been confident about. That's hard.
The partnership has survived because both of us are willing to back down when the other one's right. Without that, no agreement on paper would have held.
What I'd tell someone considering a partnership
Pick somebody you can disagree with and stay friends with. The agreement on paper matters but it doesn't matter as much as the relationship that makes the agreement unnecessary 95% of the time.
A partnership is a long argument with somebody you trust. If you can't have the argument, you can't have the partnership.