I’ve spent thousands of hours slaving away at building the various ideas that I dream up, however sometimes this hacker mentality of “build your dreams” is an inefficient use of your efforts. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve only recently begun leveraging what’s a far more powerful tool than intellect and sheer willpower: partnerships.

Yes, it’s a simple concept. However far too often we avoid leveraging our relationships to their greatest potential. While I unfortunately can’t speak specifically about the partnerships that I’ve been building, let me just say that asking someone for help can save you months or even years of effort. While there is no doubt that partnerships can go awry, bootstrapping entrepreneurs can use partnerships to multiply their results and accelerate the path to revenue.

For entrepreneurs who ever find themselves saying, “I’ll just build it!”, don’t be afraid of reaching out to people who have already built much of what you want. It may turn out that you can actually work together.