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> some of the best value that a business co-founder can contribute is disproportionately building the relationships. The other subtle thing I take issue with o
by 827a 1y ago
> some of the best value that a business co-founder can contribute is disproportionately building the relationships.
The other subtle thing I take issue with on this is: What relationships, exactly? Most of the time I've seen this surface as a few early customers you might not have otherwise gotten, which is great and necessary, but IME that well runs dry pretty quick, and those customers oftentimes don't stick as well as ones that were found on merit. A better relationship with vendors? Again, weird, merit should trump that personal relationship.
If you're building a business that relies on a small number of very high value contracts, I think I could see a world where having a foot in the door on those high value customers is worthy of elevating the body that foot is attached to toward Founder. That isn't, generally, how most software companies sell software though.
- frenchmajesty 1y agoThe point I maybe did not stress enough on is the relationship aspect is two folds: - Have ability to gain hard-to-obtain relationships in the beginning - Have ability to grow the pace at which you gain those over time It the beginning it will give you the money to play the game long enough (ie: customers and angel investors). In the short term it help tremendously in deal-making, fundraising, enterprise sales, hiring superstar employee. In the long term, you can broker insane deals like OpenAI convincing Microsoft to invest $10B and bet their AI future on you or get acquired. PS: Microsoft is now backtracking out of that situation, but Altman convincing them to get in bed in the first place is very impressive.