In college, a couple friends and I decided to start up a business venture to win a contest. The novel idea, at the time (the “time” being about 7 years ago), was to set up a social networking site for college students that was focused on the idea of 1) course reviews, 2) professor reviews, and 3) textbook exchange/sales. The textbook part was big b/c, at the time we were formulating the venture, there were student/professor protests against the university’s official bookstore re: prices.
All three of us ultimately decided that we would shelve the idea for about a month b/c we all had conflicting schedules and obligations. We planned to start the idea in full force come spring break. Since this is about business, you can kind of see where this is going. One of my friends decided to jump ship, without telling us, to another group doing something similar. That alone was pretty bad, but, to add insult to injury, he jumped ship with all of our notes and plans.
Finally, just for good measure, he also came back about a month later asking if we could distribute flyers for his new group for free. I offered to join up with him and his new group to help w/the marketing end of things, but he declined stating that he thought we were friends and that we’d do him just that simple favor.
Oh, and I learned to never fully trust business associates just b/c they were friends and to never let one person take/hold all the notes for your business.