Thursday, January 27, 2011

Consulting Partnerships

Today's Lean Coffee Toronto features an interesting case study from Big Bang Technology. As usual, I took a few notes:
  • They are a conservative company
  • Diverse team with very different, non-overlapping skill sets
  • Started doing consulting work with hobby projects on the side
  • Found a partner that:
    • Had many years experience and successful offline business
    • Had a strong need for technical expertise
    • Visionary
    • Great with sales
  • They don't own the product, but they have a revenue sharing agreement
  • They do own 100% of their company
  • Goals are aligned
    • They put 100% of their passion into their client's product
  • Advice: Don't go cheap on lawyers -- good agreements are gold
  • What might they do different next time?
    • Take an equity stake? (Additional potential reward for taking on more risk)
And a few of my thoughts:
  • They have a really great agreement that seems to work very well aligning goals
  • A partner like this is probably exceedingly difficult to find
  • This arrangement came out of a failed project
    • Should you chase failed projects for opportunities like this?
  • What do you do if the client is a control freak?
Great job guys, and looking forward to the next case study!

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