1. Business Alliances
Jan Urban, May 2, 2013
Cash is king and time is money.
Save your cash and buy yourself time...
...by building productive alliances
2. Me
• Lawyer & Mngmt consultant
• Took first chance to „desert“ the corporate
world (dot.com)
• Entrepreneur –> „incubator“ –> investor???
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4. Elevator?
Patent filing by Elisha Otis
(courtesy Wikipedia) 160 years ago
Pulley - one of „simple physical machines“
Will get you there with a fraction of resources
(power, work -> time, money, effort)
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6. No rocket science
• Common sense
• Emmotional intelligence (listening)
• Patience & persistence
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7. What?
1. Hypothesize (partner, motivations, story) / if possible, test
hypothesis with an insider or an „informed“ friend
2. Prepare an intriguing teaser
3. Find a „champion“ (Google, LinkedIn)
4. Cold-call or, better, get introduced
5. Meet f2f
6. Test hypothesis(es)
7. Understand motivations (even „unreasonable“), stakeholders
(company, „champion“, manager...), constraints
(time, money, capacity, skills, regulations)
8. Follow-up / summarize
9. Iterrate
10. Thank them
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8. How?
• Assume good will
• Be open about what you want
• Give / share / exchange (contacts, non-confidential
data, opinions, know-how) – people do business with
„friends“...
• ...but don‘t compromise yourself
• Be open-minded, expect the unexpected, don‘t assume or
jump to conclusions
• First grow the pie, than split it
• Be non-orthodox, test the limits („what if“?)
• Tell stories / „visualize“, be as concrete as possible, use
plain words
• Spread your network
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9. Why will they listen to me?
• Content (better product / service offering) or at
least activity
• Increase in revenues
– Revenue sharing deals
– Money „later“
• Ability to complete / deliver in no-time and at no
costs
– Cost savings
• Ability to syndicate (sometimes better from the
outside than inside)
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10. Will they steal my idea?
• Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration
(Albert Einstein)
• Execution is what matters
• Partner will not be able to execute, unless you are
exactly on their trajectory and in clear sight
(probability 0,001%)
• How many times did „they“ steal my project? – 0
– Usually:
• I don‘t even sign an NDA, only ask for confidentiality...
• ... don‘t tell all the details
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11. My examples
• Palmknihy -> MNO
– Content
• Expensa -> banks
– Content, revenue share
• HypoAsistent + realPad
– Improvement of service offering to joint clients
• Klikpojisteni –> large retailer
– Client base monetization, revenue share
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