“To me, partnering with another company makes sense when the partner genuinely contributes to the growth of the business, either by bringing experience in an area where our company is weak or by investing capital. If the contribution is money, the most important thing is not to lose control of decision-making, so the partner should never hold more than 49% of the company. The partner should also share a similar philosophy to ours. In our case, we would never partner with an artist, because they are the customers we sell to, and if we did, other artists would stop seeing us as their supplier and start seeing us as a competitor. I have also seen in the market that, rather than partnering with a brand, the wholesale distributor ends up buying the brand outright, and in those cases a partnership becomes difficult.”