Partnering and competition

As startups grow, there’s a lot of partnership opportunities with other startups and companies. These partnerships need to be mutually beneficial in order to work. You need to give as you receive in order for these things to work out correctly.

Unfortunately, one trend I’ve seen over my few years is that a lot of startups are overly protective when it comes to partnering. They view other startups as threats or competition rather than partners. That of course can be true, but more often than not, these things are not a zero sum game.

I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that most startups are inherently neurotic. They’re coming in to disrupt an industry and they view it as a race to the top. Founders often have a winner take all mindset. In reality, very few industries fall in the winner take all category.

I’ve tried to keep an open mind with a lot of our partners, despite the fact that there may be some overlap with potential customers. That has led to some great partnerships where we share the pie, but quite often it’s a bigger pie to start with.