Characteristics We Seek in Our Partners

We are currently looking to affiliate with exceptionally talented Web professionals. Common characteristics we seek for everyone we work with include:

  • Experienced Professionals.  Ideally our partners will have a minimum of 4 to 5 years of relevant professional experience. Our absolute minimum is 2 years, and in those case, the individual had better be a “hot shot” who is particularly good at learning new technologies. We simply do not have the skills or patience to train beginners.
  • Highly Competent.  We need people who are highly competent, who are good at what they do, who are up the learning curve. In The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks says the top programmers are at least an order of magnitude more productive than the average programmer, and this is also true of Web designers, developers, writers, and other Web professionals.
  • Continuous Learning.  We seek people with a high level of intellectual curiosity, who are continuously learning. Commitment to professional growth and development are essential. Interested in learning new technologies as they develop. We look for people who read the best blogs and other resources, in order to keep up to date.
  • Commitment to excellence
  • Highly comfortable with computers and information technology
  • Team Players.  None of our Web sites are the result of one person.
  • High Level of Personal Responsibility. We seek a very high level of professional and personal responsibility — People who return telephone calls and emails quickly, who do what they commit to do. In other words, acting professionally. We are continually amazed at how many flakes and space cadets they are out there. (Particularly if you advertise on Craigslist!)
  • Good at follow-through
  • Self Managing.  We do not have to time to babysit or to micro manage someone. Our partners need to be self-starters. We need people with whom we can agree on goals and then they get it done. If an individual has to be prodded every day to do their job, JI is the wrong company for them.
  • Reachable by Telephone.  Although we use e-mail extensively as well as a project management system to assign tasks, much of the time you simply cannot get things done quickly unless you talk on the phone. So someone needs to be easily reachable by telephone. If they live outside the U.S., they will need to obtain a free Skype account.
  • Excellent communication skills, both oral and written. Obviously it is important they speak and write English reasonably well. Although James and I do speak foreign languages, it is not realistic to think we can do business in those languages. In addition, our manuals are written in English.
  • We prefer full-time, but part-time is acceptable. If part-time, they need to work at least 20 hours a week.
  • Personal Life Under Control.  There are people whose personal life is always out of control — they are always getting sick, they are always having family crises, their kids are always getting into trouble, whatever. We have assembled a team of performers who have their s*** together, and it’s essential that that be the case with new partners.
  • Entrepreneurial Mindset.  Obviously anyone who joins us has to be somewhat entrepreneurial, in that they receive a cut of revenues. We look for people that realize that even when you sell your time for $75 or $150 an hour, you are still a slave to the clock and you are never going to make serious money. We want people who are financially ambitious, who are looking to retire five years from now, and realize that by obtaining equity in highly profitable Web sites, one can reasonably soon end the tyranny of working for clients.
  • Financial Resources.  They can afford an entrepreneurial work situation, both financially and psychologically — i.e. they can afford to work without a salary and instead receive a percentage of the profits of the Web sites they participate in. Our partners need to have some level of financial stability in their lives. Our approach involves some level of delayed gratification in exchange of extraordinary wealth down the road. (Note — Our partners do not invest any money, as the Firm pays all expenses. They do invest their time.)
  • Financially Ambitious.  Our best partners are those who are financially ambitious, who want to be earning seven figures (more than $1 million a year) within 5 or 10 years.


Please Read

If you are interested, you should read the following:

If you are interested, please contact James Mitchell at jmitchell@kensingtonllc.com or (781) 718-1301. He lives in Boston.