Idea Lawyer Blog

From Los Angeles contributor Bob Coleman
I don’t often recommend an obituary as a jolly story, but this remembrance of Baskin-Robbins co-founder Irvine Robbins qualifies.

For one thing, ya gotta love a guy who ate ice cream for breakfast and still lived to be 90. For another, all props to the fellow who co-created what became the world's largest ice cream store chain while making life a bit more fun for us all by launching such flavors as Lunar Cheesecake (to celebrate Neil Armstrong's moonwalk) and Beatle Nut (to mark the band’s first U.S. visit).

But the Times piece also includes one point of interest to idea people thinking of launching their own businesses:

Out of the Army in ’46, Robbins had intended to go into business with his brother-in-law, Burton Baskin-but Robbins’ dad nixed the idea on the grounds that “partnering right away would cause them to squelch too many of their own ideas as they compromised in an effort to get along.” As a result, Baskin and Robbins each started their own small chains, and worked out their own ideas, before merging to create Baskin-Robbins, which became the great idea factory for new ice cream flavors.

What do you think? A lot of great companies have their founding partners enshrined in their names: Rolls-Royce, Hewlett-Packard, Simon & Schuster.

But is creativity really a solo act? Do partnerships stifle individual creativity? Are there specific ways to see each partner’s ideas get fair treatment—and to carry that respect for creativity forward (as HP, for example, has done) as the company grows?