I've put together many multi-company product development partnerships. However, as a startup, the other company may not consider you to have enough credibility (longevity, need to pivot to better meet market needs, time for product to reach market) and may not want to expend the time and resources requied to make a partnership work.

The value proposition can be time to market, differentiation as far as a more complete solution, use of sales force and channel or marketing dollars to sell something that is more readily acquired by a customer. As the startup, you gain credibility through the brand of the other company, if it's established, trusted, and well known.

I would need to know more about your particular situation to be able to be more complete in answering this question. Please feel free to give me a call if you'd like to go into further detail.

I have built my business on strategic partnerships and it's great that you are thinking in this direction.

As for your questions:

1. You need to be able to define and prove the value for the other company to want to partner with you -- this is all about them and what you can provide. Do you have experience and can you prove that you can indeed do what you say you are going to do?

If you have these things, then you have to make the contact and pitch your deal.

2. This is too vague, so I unfortuantely cannot provide any advice towards it.

I am more than willing to sit down with you and hone your pitch and help you get this partnership rolling in a mutually beneficial way.

Thanks,

Jon Nastor

I'd want to make sure that whatever the outcome I wanted from the partnership, all of the partners wanted it just as much as me. It would be a mistake to enter into a partnership where something was of vital interest to you, but only peripheral interest to the partners.

Beyond that, it's just the usual factors about reputation, quality of work, trust, price, and so on -- factors that would enter into the decision of any important relationship. But being "just as vital to them as it is to us" is at the top of my list.

So, what happens if it isn't just as vital to them as it is to us? Then perhaps it shouldn't be a partnership. Perhaps it should be brought in house. Or perhaps a different partner should be sought. Or perhaps it should be structured differently -- perhaps a joint venture -- so that it can become more important to the partner.