Finding the right people to build with
Everyone talks about focus when it comes to side ventures. I think the real unlock is people.
20 May 2026 ยท 2 min read
The most common advice you get when you are building something on the side is about focus. Pick one thing. Say no to everything else. Protect your time. Guard your energy.
It is good advice. I have ignored most of it.
I am running consulting engagements across three universities and a clinical research organisation, coaching a small number of SMB owners, building an electrolyte brand (HTP), launching a mobile vet platform (MobiPet), and developing a container gym concept (CRGO). On paper it looks like the opposite of focus. And on the hard days, it feels like it too.
But the thing that has made any of it work is not discipline or time management or some mythical ability to context-switch. It is the people I am building with.
Pete, who co-founded MobiPet, is a practising mobile vet. He understands the clinical side of the business in a way I never will. When I am stuck in a consulting engagement until 7pm and cannot look at the MobiPet build, Pete is already three steps ahead on the vet network, the referral integration, the clinical records routing. He does not need me to tell him what to do. He needs me to show up with the commercial and operational lens when it matters, and to stay out of his way the rest of the time.
That is the pattern. The ventures that move are the ones where I found someone who owns a piece of the problem that I cannot, and who trusts me enough to let me own the piece that I can.
The ventures that stall are the ones where I tried to do everything myself. Where I convinced myself that nobody else would care about it as much as I do, or that it was faster to just handle it. It was faster, for a week. Then it was slower forever.
People first, always
I used to think the sequence was: find the idea, validate the idea, then find the people. I have it backwards now. Find the people first. The right person will sharpen the idea in ways you did not anticipate, and they will carry the parts you cannot reach.
This is not a co-founder manifesto. Not every venture needs a co-founder, and not every collaboration needs equity. But every venture that runs alongside a full-time career needs at least one other person who wakes up thinking about it on the days you cannot.
The focus advice is not wrong. But I think it is incomplete. Focus matters for deciding which ventures to pursue. People matter for whether those ventures actually move. And when you are building on the side, with limited hours and divided attention, the people question is the one that determines everything.