Have you had indie hacked in collaboration?

Indeed :) we also have both experienced collaborations gone wrong, and have witnessed many businesses basically killed by their collaborative founders relationships.

If you're joining forces with another business because "they have some resources you don't have" or vice/versa, I strongly advise caution and concern.

One theory I have is that i you don't have the experience running your own business, it's hard to really approach a business collaboration with the sensibilities needed to navigate a business collaboration. A lot of critical lessons and the psychological tools needed to navigate them simply can't be gained from a book or reading articles, you just have to practice it.

So...the differences between Amy and my successes and failures (owned and observed)?

• People build partnerships because they "complete each other" instead of having a sum greater than the parts.
• People aren't really honest with their goals or motivations - usually because they aren't honest with themselves first.
• People set (often unspoken) unrealistic expectations of themselves or others, and then act out towards the other person when those expectations aren't met.
• People try to partnerships before they've built a solid foundation for themselves.
• People imagine, design, and even document (in terms of revenue sharing and control) their partnerships based on what everything will look like when things are going great, but never take the time to imagine, design, or document what will happen when things go to shit.
• People do not own up to their mistakes, or work to correct them.
• People have different (and often complicated) relationships with money. This includes what happens when you don't have money...but also what happens when there's a LOT of money.
• People act entitled.
• People treat their collaborators like employees.
• People treat their collaborators like a boss.
• People don't tell their collaborators when they are really upset.
• People don't tell their collaborators when they are really happy.
• People try to control things they cannot control.
• People don't set or respect each others' boundaries.
• People value anything more than the relationship between the collaborators.

I'm sure there are others. This is off the top of my head.

I often compare business collaborations and partnerships to marriage, except that it's often easier and cheaper to end a marriage.

Things Amy and I have done during our 10 (!!!) year arc of collaboration:

• missed goals and deadlines, but adapted and course corrected together
• fallen short on commitments. we've adjusted our compensation distribution several times, and one time, I even returned a sizable chunk of money I had been paid because I was unable to follow through.
• helped each other understand our strengths and weaknesses.
• gotten frustrated with each other, but talked it through and found a way to make it better.
• supported each other through extreme personal challenges that had nothing to do with the business.
• prioritized our friendship over the business.

None of these things were easy, but they're why our friendship and business collaboration has endured and continued to grow.

I was on the Mixergy podcast for a (kinda weird) interview about these topics late last year if you wanna check it out. https://mixergy.com/interviews/stacking-the-bricks-with-alex-hillman/