Pitching a new product to potential partners is a key part of getting a startup off the ground. It’s also a risk to be managed. How do you disclose enough to get them engaged and excited while still protecting your intellectual property?
The larger company in a partnership often assumes because of their size and potential impact on your business that they have the right to exclusivity. They’re wrong.
In the course of negotiations, prospective partners often ask for some kind of exclusivity. This generally takes the form of an exclusive technology license for what may as well be eternity plus a year, or an exclusive right to resell your product in an overly broad territory; say, the world.
How to make the most of a partner pitch
After an initial call and one or two follow-up conversations, you’ve secured a face-to-face meeting with the decision makers at a prospective partner. It’s your one shot to make a strong impression and sell the value of a partnership. You know your product cold, and you’re passionate about it and your company. You have reason to believe they will be too. So what could go wrong?
As many learn only after a great deal of lost time and opportunity, business development is a process, not a point-in-time tactic. Applying this process effectively means continually scanning market, customer and competitive landscapes for new opportunities and threats. An ecosystem map helps identify potential partners that can grow your business and strengthen your position against competitors.
From enterprise software to mobile devices, rarely, if ever, does one company deliver the whole product.
The evolution of computing, and specifically software, as an industry can be seen as having moved through three major phases: first, a period dominated by industry giants like IBM, Honeywell and Burroughs, providing fully-integrated products to fully captive customers; second, the personal computer revolution of the 1980s, a time when discreet layers, or stacks, of hardware and software emerged, available from different vendors, yet tightly coupled to create end products; and third and presently, the emergence of technology ecosystems, like those of Apple, LAMP or Microsoft—entire communities and constellations from which customers acquire solutions, in part or in whole, locally or in the cloud.
