As business-minded folk in Chicago like you work toward making your entrepreneurial dreams a reality, you’re likely to run into questions of whether or not to get other people involved in your plans. There are plenty of different partnerships you can look into, and each offers its own benefits. Let’s take a look at limited partnerships first.
The Balance sheds light on limited partnerships and their use, starting off with the telling nickname that limited partnerships are also known by: silent partners. This is because every limited partnership has one general partner and one or more limited partners. In this style of business, the general partner is the one that makes all of the decisions. This means you don’t have to answer to anyone else when you run the daily management; all choice-making is in your hands.
Of course, this also means that all liability is in your hands, too. Any debt you make, any legal issue you run into, you’ll be dealing with on your own because it was solely your decision that got you there.
Limited partners, on the other hand, only invest and do nothing else. They have no say in the structure or decisions of the company. They simply put their money into the pot with the hopes that they’ll be making a return on that investment.
Accordingly, limited partnerships are great if you want to have all of the decision-making capabilities or if your partners don’t want to shoulder any legal or financial burdens. On the other hand, you might want to keep looking if you and your potential partners want to be in on this together.