Offline Joint Venture with stranger

If possible get legal contracts drawn up if you are really serious about this.
If you are just "kinda,sorta,maybe" thinking about this then it is up to you. DO you want him to own the domain,hosting etc?

Possession is 9/10 of the law, remember that one?

Owning the domain means you control the content.

Does that mean all I really need for now is an ownership of the 'domain'? (considering we are still in the very beginning of the startup phrase)

Do you need someone else to start? If so, why?

You may well need someone to help you. If you REALLY do need help from the get-go, here are some things that I learned (some the hard way). This is just my experiences...not legal advice.

First, my brother-in-law is an attorney and I had him to bounce things off of. Many don't have this and have to pay for an attorney..I consider myself lucky in this regard.

Here are some random thoughts about partnerships - in no particular order....

1) Get a teaming agreement if there is no corporate partnership. A teaming agreement can let you interact and work with another person or company and will specifically define what you're doing, who is doing what, etc.

2) Get an NDA. If there is no corporate agreement, get a Non Disclosure Agreement signed so that someone can't take what you're doing and run with it, or use it to harm you in the marketplace.

3) Don't work for free. If you are doing work with a partner, make sure you get paid for what you do by securing payment up front. If you complete work and then have to go back and collect, it can be a pain.

4) One person should own 51% of equity. If you split 50/50, disagreements can debilitate the business. Give one person a slight majority to make final decisions.

5) My first partnership was with another company like mine. This woman had a company and she called me to partner up. We started with me doing her production work: I did the actual SEO work on her behalf for one of her clients. We did this with several more clients until I was billing her a couple thousand a month.

She flaked out - big time. She started not returning calls, being weird. One day out of the blue I get this 700 rant about staying away from her clients.

She still owes me about 2500.

6) My second (failed) partnership was when I started doing production SEO work for another marketing company. We got to a point where we knew that we should combine our companies because we were doing so much together. At the end of the day, I didn't want to sacrifice my company and she didn't want to sacrifice hers. Then, she got pregnant and all but stopped working, so the entire relationship just faded away.

7) I started a business with someone I knew a little last Summer. I was to do the marketing and my partner was to handle operations (a home improvement company). I set up the website, corporation, PPC, liability insurance, everything. I even booked myself a seat to take my Class A contractors license.

After 3 months of planning and a few thousand dollars, she disappeared. I still don;t know what happened.

I suspect that she decided that she could get her own business and didn't need me. That's just a guess...she never told me. She just disappeared and stopped answering calls, emails and texts.

8) My most recent partnership (channel partners - not corporate ownership partners) was with a company who provides Business Intelligence and Share Point Integration. After 1 regular SEO client and 3 website jobs, we are going our separate ways (amicably) because the other company does not want to do websites or SEO going forward, they are focusing on BI and SP.

9) I am currently doing some work with another channel partner. IN this case, I am acting as a consultant - doing work for a fee. We have already discussed a possible partnership, but are using our consulting arrangement to see how we work together.

10) It's all about goals and personalities. If your business goals, personal goals and personalities are not exactly in synch - it will not work. By in synch I mean they have to be compatible, no necessarily the same.

11) For a small offline business, in my opinion there is no reason to partner with someone unless you really have to. I can't think of a reason why you would have to, but I'm sure reasons exist.

Hope some of this gives you food for thought.....

Thanks for the advice, Bredfan. Really appreciated. Its very informative.
I do see what you mean and where you're coming from. Its hard to find a trustable and reliable partner for long run.

To be honest, I am not too into patnership neither. But I was approached by an old friend (known him for 3-4 years now) about starting something together. The reason why is mainly because he has this 'idea' he wants to achieve, but has no idea about internet marketing stuff. I can see his idea quite interesting and can be profitable. Thats what lead me here asking this question.

I'm glad you got something out of the comment, Noob. You know...if you have the time and you can set this up without much risk - other than the aforementioned time - go for it.

If it's his idea, set up an LLC (here in VA it's $100 + $100 for legalzoom). Give him 51%. Document roles and responsibilities - just from a high level, get it on a single piece of paper. Sit down together and put together the framework of a business plan.

Ready, fire, AIM!

If you can get into it and give it a shot without much risk, I say do it.

One more anecdote....

In 2010 I got hooked up with this Kiwi chap. He had an amazing idea for an SEO product. The only problem was that he knew only the rudiments of SEO. So the guy reaches out to me - he got my name from an industry acquaintance of mine. We decide to partner up....

All we had were our Skype conversations and a one-page NDA.

For about 6 months, we got on the phone every night from 9-10, sometimes much later. We worked on everything: process mapping, marketing strategy, product development - you name it.

After all that work, something happened. Well, two things happened. First I began to realize that website traffic alone was not something of value. (It must be targeted traffic that converts.) And second, my partner sold a deal that used the idea in a manner we had never thought of.

These two things came together and made the project collapse.

We're still great friends, and I'm glad to know I have someplace to crash next time I'm in New Zealand. :-)

Oh....my point: This entire endeavor cost me nothing but time. It was worth it. I learned a ton and spent no money.