You have a business idea but are unsure about starting alone. Or you have already met someone who seems an obvious business partner. In both situations, one question deserves a precise answer: what can you achieve together that you could not build another way?
A good business partner makes a lasting contribution, accepts agreed rules and works well with you when things get difficult. Contacts and personal rapport are not enough. Before sharing ownership, clarify the need, test the working relationship and organise both decision-making and a possible separation.
At a glance
- Taking a business partner is a choice: you can form a Swiss Sàrl/GmbH or SA/AG alone.
- Define the need before looking for a person, and test working together.
- Separate ownership, pay and responsibilities, and prepare departure terms too.
Do you really need a business partner?
Taking a partner means sharing ownership. Depending on the organisation, it can also mean sharing decisions, results and some risks. This differs from hiring an employee or contracting with a service provider.
In Switzerland, you can establish a Sàrl/GmbH or SA/AG on your own. These legal forms do not require you to find a partner. The decision should meet a commercial and human need, not an assumption that a serious business must have several owners.
A partnership may make sense when a project needs two core skills rarely found in one person, several founders make a lasting commitment, or an investor’s contribution matches the intended development. It is less compelling for a temporary need: building a website, maintaining accounts, obtaining a few introductions or coping with a busy period.
Partner, employee, contractor or commercial collaborator?
| Your need | Option to examine | What to clarify |
|---|---|---|
| An essential skill at the heart of the business | Operational co-founder | Commitment, responsibilities and equity |
| A recurring function you want to direct | Employee | Full cost, role and supervision |
| Defined expertise or a specific deliverable | Service provider | Deliverables, price, deadlines and ownership of work |
| Reciprocal access to customers or a network | Commercial partnership | Roles, remuneration and contact follow-up |
| Financial resources | Investor or financing | Cost, guarantees, dilution and decision rights |
These options can be combined. A business can have one owner and a strong team. Conversely, two partners may start without staff while outsourcing certain tasks.
If you need someone to carry out an ongoing operational role, prepare a structured recruitment process before offering equity. If shared ownership is appropriate, compare the Swiss legal structures available to your project.
Define the partner profile you need
Describe the work before looking for a person. “Someone good at sales” is too vague. Do you need offer development, prospecting, complex contract negotiation or sales team management? These require different abilities.
Clarify the project stage too. A co-founder available full-time now contributes differently from someone offering a few hours each month while keeping another job. Both can help, but they do not automatically justify identical roles or commitments.
Prepare a one-page brief covering:
- The customer problem and early evidence supporting it.
- Skills already present and those genuinely missing.
- The partner’s role over the next six to twelve months.
- Expected working time and availability date.
- Proposed contributions: money, expertise, equipment, rights or commercial relationships.
- Open conditions, especially remuneration and ownership allocation.
This makes the discussion concrete and prevents promising a company percentage too early merely to secure a meeting.
Where can you find a business partner in Switzerland?
Your professional network is often a useful starting point: former colleagues, partners, suppliers, customers or people met during training. You already know something about how they work. This does not remove the need for checks, but supports a serious first discussion.
Also consider entrepreneurs’ networks, chambers of commerce, incubators and industry events. For technical projects, specialist communities and higher-education networks can help identify expertise. On professional platforms, a targeted search is usually more useful than announcing only a “high-potential project”.
Present a proposition worth discussing
Explain the problem, progress so far and contribution sought. For example: “I am developing an IT maintenance service for small healthcare organisations in French-speaking Switzerland. Initial interviews confirm a need for an accessible contact. I am looking for someone to structure technical delivery and commit to developing the business.”
This helps the other person assess the opportunity and is more credible than unproven revenue promises. Explain what remains to be built: transparency attracts people ready to undertake the work, not just enjoy the presentation.
Initially, share enough to support discussion without unnecessarily disclosing customer files, access credentials or confidential information. If discussions progress to joint work, define confidentiality and ownership of deliverables.
How do you choose the right business partner?
Complementary skills matter when they are useful to the project. They do not compensate for disagreement about ethics, ambition or how company money should be used.
Compare expectations before CVs
Discuss personal goals. Does one person want a stable income-generating business while the other wants to raise investment, grow quickly and sell? Neither aim is inherently wrong. Combining them becomes difficult when nobody discusses the difference.
Address practical constraints too: minimum necessary salary, available savings, other work commitments, mobility and working time. Someone can be highly motivated but unable to work unpaid for several months. Discover this before formation.
Ask questions that reveal behaviour
- “Tell me about an important professional disagreement. How did you handle it?”
- “If sales arrive six months late, which costs do we reduce?”
- “What do you do when you realise you cannot keep a commitment?”
- “Which decision would you want to make alone?”
- “In what circumstances might you leave the business?”
- “What do you expect from me when you make a mistake?”
Ask for examples and explore the answers. “I communicate a lot” does not explain how someone delivers bad news. With permission, discuss reliability, deadlines and conflict management with former partners. Checks should remain relevant and proportionate to the project.
Test working together before sharing equity
A few pleasant meetings do not reproduce everyday business life. Undertake joint work with an objective, deadline and separate responsibilities: interviewing prospects, preparing an offer, building a prototype or drawing up an initial budget.
Observe how the work happens. Who makes decisions? Are tasks completed? Are problems reported? Does criticism produce useful discussion or defensiveness? Watch less glamorous tasks too: administration, corrections, meeting notes and follow-up.
Fictional example: Léa understands delivery for a planned consultancy, while Marc knows how to develop customers. Over four weeks, they define an offer and meet prospects. Marc secures meetings but sometimes promises deadlines Léa cannot meet. This need not end the relationship. It shows they need a sales approval rule before making binding offers.
Document the trial arrangements: authorised expenses, any pay, confidentiality, use of results and no implied promise of equity. Working together can already create obligations, so do not portray the trial as having no legal consequences.
Allocate equity, work and remuneration
These matters are connected but distinct. Equity represents ownership; salary pays for work; a shareholder loan creates a claim against the company. Document decisions consistently with applicable company rules.
A 50/50 split can be logical for comparable commitments, but may make disagreements hard to resolve. A 51/49 split does not solve everything: powers also depend on the articles of association, law, corporate bodies and agreements.
Do not allocate shares on a promise alone
Discuss existing contributions separately from future ones. A promise of work does not by itself constitute payment of share capital. Arrangements progressively linking ownership to lasting commitment need suitable drafting and assessment of legal and tax consequences.
| Topic | Question before formation |
|---|---|
| Capital | Who contributes what, when and in exchange for which shares? |
| Work | What responsibilities, availability and expected results? |
| Salary | What pay can the business’s cash flow support? |
| Additional financing | What happens if the business needs more funds? |
| Decisions | Who decides alone, who consults and what requires agreement? |
| Departure | How will share repurchases and their financing work? |
Owning half the capital does not necessarily mean receiving the same salary as the other owner when roles and working time differ. However, the rules must be understandable, accepted and applied correctly. Test affordability in a shared cash flow budget.
Organise decisions and prepare for separation
Articles of association do not answer every day-to-day question. A shareholders’ agreement can clarify commitments between its signatories. Coordinate it with the articles and other contracts; it does not replace them.
Topics to examine with a specialist include share transfers, pre-emption rights, deadlock and departures. Valuation and payment deserve as much attention as the repurchase principle. An immediate repurchase obligation can be impractical if nobody has the required cash.
For routine operations, schedule regular reviews using shared figures: cash flow, sales, commitments and difficulties. Distinguish operational decisions from major changes such as substantial borrowing, a new investor or a change of business activity.
Build a partnership that serves the project
Before committing, be able to explain why you are becoming partners, what each person contributes and how you will work together. It is better to postpone a poorly defined partnership than share ownership to artificially accelerate the launch.
Your next step can fit in three documents: a role description, a shared budget and a list of decisions requiring rules. Complete them after a real working experience, then formalise the agreement. Use our business plan method to structure the commercial project together.
Entreprendre.ch can help prepare and form your company. The aim is to align the chosen structure with how you actually intend to operate before committing to the formalities.
Frequently asked questions
Can you start a business alone in Switzerland?
Yes. A sole proprietorship belongs to one person, and a Sàrl/GmbH or SA/AG can also have a sole founder. The choice depends on the activity, risks, financing and intended organisation.
Should you partner with a friend or family member?
You can, but personal closeness does not replace discussions about money, work and decisions. Test the relationship and document rules as carefully as with someone from your professional network.
How can you find a partner without immediately promising shares?
Present the project, required role and open conditions. Then propose detailed discussions and properly framed preparatory work. Negotiate ownership when contributions and commitments are sufficiently clear.
Is a 50/50 ownership split a bad idea?
Not necessarily, but it requires arrangements for disagreements and decisions that cannot remain blocked. Equity percentages alone do not describe every power within a company.
Can you separate from a partner who stops working?
Stopping work does not automatically end share ownership. Solutions depend on contracts, articles and circumstances. This is a key reason to define commitments and departure conditions from the outset.
Sources and references
The example is fictional; agreements must be tailored to the project.
Romain Prieur is a Swiss certified public accountant and the founder of Entreprendre.ch. With more than ten years of experience in auditing and supporting businesses in Switzerland, he advises entrepreneurs on company formation, accounting and taxation.
