Negosentro.com | How to Find a Development Partner for Your Tech Startup | The world of business can be a ruthless one and difficult to navigate on your own. It is always better to have a strong ally on your side in the form of a reliable business partner. Here’s how women can find the ideal candidates to act as development partners on their tech ventures.
Define Your Long-Term Goals
Having a partner who thinks differently to you can be invaluable. In fact, you don’t need to have someone alongside you who agrees with everything you say. In that case, your partner isn’t bringing anything new to the table.
However, when it comes to your long-term goals and aspirations, it pays to have a business partner who thinks like you. A development partner who helps you to build your business from the very beginning can help to infuse it with a different way of thinking, something that it would otherwise be lacking. But if they aren’t heading in the same overall direction as you, your startup will be pulled in all directions, and conflict is inevitable.
The tech sector is not as male-dominated as it once was, but it is still a difficult industry for women to rise to the top in. If you want to overcome the systemic barriers that often prevent women from rising to the highest echelons of the tech industry, then you need someone with as much drive and passion as you at their side.
Vet Candidates Properly
Before you approach anyone about a potential partnership, it is important that you know who you are getting into business with and whether you can trust them as a partner. Whether you wait for candidates to come for you, or you take the initiative and go and search for yourself, vetting the candidates properly will help to ensure that this is the case.
Candidates’ resumes are a great way of learning more about them, as we have already covered. However, if you don’t check out the details that they give you, then it isn’t a very useful tool. You should check out the references that they provide, and don’t be afraid to check up on the other details they provide.
You aren’t just restricted to the information that they provide to you, however. For example, you can use Public Records Review to search for public information, including County Records, police records, birth records, and a wealth of other information. This is a valuable tool for completing the vetting process. Without it, a lot of the information you are given is difficult to verify.
If you are specifically looking for another woman to partner with, then there are a number of things that you will need to consider. For example, if prior experience is important to you, you need to find out what the average turnover rate is for your industry. In some cases, working for multiple different businesses is common. In other tech sectors, people tend to stay in their roles for longer. Women are less likely to have experience than men because of a hiring disparity which also limits women’s ability to move freely around different employers.
Make sure that you are realistic in the criteria that you set. It is worth considering people who fall a little outside your preferred parameters if they can charm you at interview.
Consider Your Offer Carefully
Once you have identified a final candidate to approach about a partnership, you then need to formulate your offer. You should have already defined the long-term goals and objectives of your tech startup, so your offer is mostly about conveying this to a potential partner.
Remember that partners are different from investors, so you don’t want to present them with a dry business proposal. You should include relevant facts and figures about your new venture if they will help the other party to make a decision about whether to partner with you. But you don’t need to overload them with projections; you can always make those available if they request them.
Don’t just think about what you are going to say to a potential partner, as the way that you say it is also important. If you are approaching a potential partner out of the blue, you will need to compose your opening email thoughtfully. You might want to arrange a face to face meeting (or a video call if Covid-19 is still around when you read this) or you might want to initiate a dialog first. It’s up to you to make the right judgment here based on your circumstances.
Finding the right development partner for your technology startup means that you can get things started on the right foot and give your business the best possible shot at success. But finding the right partner can be a fraught process, especially if you aren’t certain of what you are looking for yourself. You need to take your time working out what your goals are and what you want from your partner. Once you have all that worked out, though, you can begin your search properly. Make sure that you vet any potential partners before you approach them with an offer.
