Founder Fridays No. 80
Founder Fridays No. 80
Channel Partnerships -- MVP or SLC? -- Politics and Work
Happy Friday.
Channel Partnerships
Here are the five types of channel partnerships: 1) Value-added resellers (VARs) enhance a vendor's offerings by bundling in additional services, customization or integrations when reselling to end customers. 2) Resellers purchase a vendor's products at a discount and resell to end customers at a markup to earn a profit on each sale. 3) Service partners provide complementary services like implementation, training or consulting to offer a complete solution with the vendor's products. 4) Referral partners recommend products to potential customers but don't sell directly, instead referring leads in exchange for a referral fee. 5) Marketplaces are online platforms where vendors can showcase their product and integrations to reach more potential buyers. Check out this article for the 101 on channel partnerships. Bessemer Venture Partners (11 minutes)
MVP or SLC?
You’ve heard of MVP, but have you heard of the SLC? The key differences between an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and an SLC (Simple, Lovable, Complete) are: 1) MVPs are minimum features to test ideas fast, but customers dislike their incompleteness. SLCs are simple but complete, focused on delighting customers. 2) MVPs aim to maximize learning through real-world testing. But they often frustrate customers by launching before they are ready. SLCs also enable validated learning, but ensure customers enjoy using the product too. 3) MVPs help teams learn quickly but are selfishly company-centric. SLCs balance learning with delivering customer value in a lovable product. The insight is that simplicity does not preclude completeness. You can build a bare bones but customers love finished products. This ultimately benefits the company too. A Smart Bear (7 minutes)
Politics and Work
In May of 2021, the founders at 37signals (maker of Basecamp and Hey) felt that too much energy was being wasted on political debates and basically banned that from the workplace. There was a big backlash in the press and on Twitter. People left. But more than two years later, they stand by the decision. They believe it was a hard but right decision. Jason Friedman, one of the founders, said, “We’re really focused now. We’re able to do more than we’ve ever been able to do before. And there’s no distractions that were really kind of souring the interactions between people. It didn’t feel great to be at work. There were too many debates about things that didn’t actually matter to the work itself. Most companies are dealing with this. I see lots of companies suffering through it. They don’t know what to do, and they’re trying to toe the line. It’s incredibly hard to do. We’ve moved beyond that. It feels like an expansive place to be, not a compressed place to be anymore. But yeah, we didn’t expect the media eruption. But we also realized that there’s the world on Twitter and then there’s the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is quite large and not interested in those kinds of things. And it turns out there’s a lot of people who actually agree with what you do, and they don’t live on Twitter. You can be scared of doing things because you’re afraid of the reaction there. But it’s really a relatively small universe of people who are just up in arms about pretty much everything.” Future (6 minutes)
Founder FAQ: What are bylaws?
Startups need bylaws to establish clear guidelines and protocols for key decision-making processes. Bylaws serve as a roadmap that outlines the company’s vision, mission and values, which helps ensure everyone is on the same page regarding goals, operations and decision-making processes. They provide clarity on how the company should operate, how decisions should be made and how potential conflicts should be resolved. Bylaws also help to minimize confusion and misunderstandings among team members, investors and other stakeholders. This is particularly important in the early stages of a startup when roles and responsibilities are still being defined. Moreover, bylaws offer legal protection for the company and its founders. They can help ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations and limit liability in case of disputes or legal issues. Westaway (5 minutes)
Startup Funding Guides
I’ve put together a series of guides to equip founders to excel at fundraising. These guides break down the deal term-by-term and give you negotiation tips so that you can speak to investors with confidence.
Convertible Note: Guide / Video
Saving Time and Money on Legal
When we met this Series B startup, they were frustrated with their law firm's slow turnaround and high fees. Contract reviews took four to six weeks, and they charged $250,000 annually for basic work. The startup wanted to reduce sales cycle times and legal spend. They switched to General Counsel at Westaway. In year one,
· We saved them about $200,000 in legal fees.
· We shortened their sales cycle by about 4 weeks.
· Our streamlined processes saved their ops team eight to 10 hours per month previously spent managing legal.
By switching to Westaway, they expedited deal closures, saved hundreds of thousands in legal bills and regained one day per month in productivity. If you’re curious if we could save you time and money, let’s talk.
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