Service and Resource Providers
Part of building a successful team, includes building a successful team of resource providers. I've talked about the important of have excellent legal counsel, here are some more general tips on service and resource providers.
- You need strong legal counsel, accounting/audit and tax accounting support and banking.
- You may also need marketing, PR, advertising
- In some cases, such as law, consider having multiple providers (e.g. 2),
especially for specialized work
- Intellectual Property, Real Estate
- Great for Backup if you have a time
crunch
- Feel free to have them compete for
business for a specific, big ticket items such as prosecuting a group of patents.
- Ask for discounts, - you're small, they know it and the folks who "get it" will work with you on price now in exchange for the opportunity to have your loyalty in the long run
- Some firms, especially the smart law firms, will take equity in lieu of some fees or significant fee reduction
- BE LOYAL to the small handful of firms you pick - they are part of your team!
- Refer and Recommend (I still refer and recommend the great folks who worked with DoBox)
- Make friends with your banker, they should
ADD value!
- Generally your local "business banking services" are NOT what you are looking for - go for a Venture Bank
- We used Silicon Valley Bank, they were servicing Utah out of their Portland office (at the time) and had a depository relationship with a local bank - so it worked like a charm. I tell the president of a local, well known bank, that once we had the $1million, we closed down the little account we had with them during the fundraising stage and shipped it all to SVBank. I'm still not sure he gets it!
- Make the bank earn your business too
- Access to VC information, Venture Lending
opportunities, good rates of interest on what you're holding are all
items you should look for
Cool site.
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