Taking on the 'big boys'!

Hi Daniel,

I agree with you about getting actively and directly involved in the start up phase. At the end of the day, it is your concept and you will be better placed to make most of (if not all) the important decisions. The decisions and processes that you put in place now will affect the business once it is in operational mode. As you may be aware, it is always hard to negotiate with the big boys since they have most of the bargaining power. My advice to you is: 1) bring on board a mentor/advisor that has expertise in that market; whilst this may come at a cost sometimes (for instance stake in your start-up), the benefits of finding the person with the right skill set will outweigh that cost; 2) Build your team i.e. make sure that you have your lawyer, accountant and other external advisors ready to go and you are confident in their expertise and happy with their performance; there is nothing worse than you are ready to rumble and you realise either you have to run around to find external advisors or your external advisors are not on the same page as you; 3) Protect your concept (I think you may have already ticked this one off) and see whether you can get a no-compete agreement from the big boys (your lawyer would be the best port of call); 4) Don't show all your hand the first time; as you said you are going to negotiate so this is not going to wrap up in one round; show enough to entice the big boys but show as little as possible to protect your idea and push into further negotiation; 5) Don't limit yourself to one partnership negotiation; try to negotiate with several parties even though they may not be as big this will improve your chances; and 6) Push your concept as far as you can; again this will increase your bargaining power in your negotiation process.

Hope you get the desired outcome.

Cheers
Yanese

Is the idea itself the make or break with the partner or do you think the overall package is a consideration too? If it's more than just the idea then i would suggest assembling a team and making a proper presentation. More often than not people don't want their time wasted, if you have assembled an impressive team that are all working on the same basis as you then half the battle is already won. In all of the cases where any deal of any size was made that i have seen it is more about the team and the sale of the whole package, including the returns that can be made, the investors/partners then asses that against their views of the people involved based on their own experiences/requirements and then go from there.