I love thinking about good business opportunities. I like thinking about what else I could do. And what else can be done. If there’s a niche that hasn’t been considered, an interesting idea, that could become something more. And when I do all this thinking, I usually have a friend close by. Thinking about business is so much better with a friend. Which in turn means, I know full well how it is, when your friend also becomes your business partner or coworker.

A lot of things are better if done with a friend. Why would that be any different when we’re talking about a career. Here are 5 reasons why I love to bite into a business challenge with my friends – even best friends – and why working with friends can be successful in the long run.

#1 .. An honest opinion is always available

I know that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to have a brutally honest opinion thrown in their face. We all need a gentle and kind word here and there or at least have a deserved critique wrapped up nicely to soften the blow. However, when dealing with things in the business world, I prefer honesty in its purest form. And I can expect exactly that when working with a longtime friend.

This is how I can be sure that I will never work under a false influence of incorrect information or wrong assumptions. This way, I know how things are – every day. No surprises. And that same friend also delivers an opinion, which I can always accept as it being truthful. She is, after all, the one person I trust the most in a cold business environment.

#2 .. A strong support system when things go wrong

Regardless of what you do, I believe that when things go wrong in a business world (and, inevitably, they will go wrong at some point), people that are involved will instinctively start looking out for themselves. They’ll cover their asses, everyone else is collateral damage. It’s sort of understandable. Jobs are precious and climbing that career ladder can be ruthless. In this kind of a system, who can be a better support system than a long time friend? They say you truly get to know someone once you experience a crisis situation with them and friends are usually exactly the people, who have lived through many of them with you. We know our friends in all their nuances.

This is why friends can offer reliable support when things at work go wrong. They’ll always be part of your team, they’ll always take your side. And because we know our friends so well, we also know exactly how they can help us out when needed.

#3 .. A friend understand who I am, even in a business environment

In relation to previous section, I can also say that the concept of a support system works both ways. Obviously. Since my closest friends know me very well, down to my core, they also understand that in certain circumstances I can behave, act or react in ways that might deviate from the person I am when we’re just hanging out, drinking coffee or attending a concert. But they will always know who I am at my core.

When someone knows you at your most essential level, they can better understand what drives you outside of your comfortable, private world. My closest friend will always know what will be the most important thing to me when we approach a new work project or a new business challenge. She will know what I will focus on, what will consume most of my time and energy and, last but not least, she will know what will most likely drive me crazy.

If I, at any point, come out as harsh, when at work, she will understand that it is not a personal attack. That this sudden change in attitude is nothing more than me feeling powerless or frustrated at the moment.

#4 .. I always have someone, who will have my back

A working environment is a conjunction of various personalities. So, if they say, that even our life partners are not completely known to us, this is that much more true for coworkers. You can never be sure that you know everything that’s going on in the background at your workplace – unless, of course, you are one of the major players on this background scene. And even then it’s highly likely that someone’s already talking behind your back.

A friend at work is an ally as well as an extra ear or an extra eye that’s keeping track on whatever might be going on behind my back. In 99% of cases, there’s obviously nothing going on, mostly because all of us at work are cooperating with an assumption that we still want to have our jobs tomorrow. Regardless, we all know that assumption is the mother of all fu–ups. And for chaos, you only need that 1% you might have missed.

#5 .. Working with a friend is more fun

Save the best for last? As it was my initial thought – doing anything with a friend is more fun. Our inside jokes translate smoothly from personal world to the office, we can finish the chatter we started last evening, intense challenges are much easier to cope with, if I don’t see them as hurdles, but a joint project with my good friend.

And we can run to the shoe store during break. Just a quick peek. We’ll be back before they notice.

The one danger when working with a close friend

The problem is simple, but undeniable – you can quickly lose that friend. Friendship can be a strong relationship, but in some cases, it might not translate well into the work environment. My experiences have showed me that before you decide for a joint business venture with your close friend, regardless of how long and loyal this friendship has been so far, you need to give it a serious and careful thought.

Whatever bothers us at other people is even more emphasized when you’re working together. Because whatever bothers us is now injecting itself into our work bubble. A bubble that we do not want to disturb unnecessarily and especially not for something as trivial as a friend not functioning according to our expectations. Here’s an example: you have a friend, who’s always late? Is she’s 20 minutes late for a coffee appointment, it’s no big deal getting over that (at least not the first two hundred times, right?). However, if she’s working with you and she keeps being late on meetings, appointments or missing deadlines, her annoying trait becomes a liability.

Don’t worry, it goes both ways. Sometimes our closest friends have personal traits that are actually exactly what we need to get a career boost or start really flourishing in our business. They can be the yin to your business yang, that last missing piece you needed to turn your project or idea into a success.

Now I know that I’ll definitely think it through before I take up any work projects with my closest friends, if only to analyze how we would function together in an environment that goes beyond chit chat and shopping adventures. If there’s a chance that their personal traits might come out as an annoyance or frustration once we start working together, I’d rather dodge that bullet sooner than later.

At the end of the day, I’d still rather have a close friends than a business challenge that might destroy something that’s so hard to find as it is.