A founder struggled with his software startup until he studied how Bill Gates built Microsoft through partnerships. He copied the approach, demanded $13,000 upfront from a UK company for representation, and closed the deal. The lesson: find what works for others and adapt it to your own business.
Chapters
The fastest way to accomplish any goal is to model success. Find someone who's already accomplished what you want to do and copy what worked for them and make it work for you. Otherwise, you're going to end up spending tons of time, energy, dollars going in the wrong direction, beating your head against the table, and you're going to end up frustrated and angry. When I had my first business, it was a software company, and it took us so long to get going. It took us so long to get customers and to build awareness and traction, and we thought This shouldn't be that hard. We're smart people. We've got a great product. Why is this so hard? Why is it taking so long to get going? And one day I realized, you know what, I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before. And I looked at one of the biggest companies in the world, Microsoft, and looked at how they got started. I figured if they can make it work, I've got to find a way to make it work too. And I looked at how Bill Gates turned his idea into making his first million dollars. I don't care how Bill Gates makes an extra million dollars now, but how did he go from zero to one? That was interesting for me. And he did it through partnerships. Find someone who's already selling to your target market and find a way to make them help promote your product. So I said, "Hey, if it worked for Bill Gates, I'm going to try to make it work for me." You know what? I had nothing else to lose at that time because we were not moving. And I remember contacting a whole bunch of companies, and one of the first deals that I started working on was It was with a company in the UK and it was a great potential fit for us. They had offices all around Europe, could help promote our product, put us on the map there, and I just wanted them to say yes. And when they asked me their terms, I remember also adding in that they would have to pay us $13,000 up front for the right to represent us. And I wasn't sure if I should put that in or not. Kind of a bold move, but whatever. You know, I had nothing to lose. And so I sent it. I didn't sleep much that night because I doubted myself. Should I put that in? Because really I just wanted to work with them. And the next day an email came in and we all kind of huddled around my laptop and we're hoping for a good response. And they said, "Let's do it." And I closed my first deal. And we had $13,000 extra in our bank account. And that's not a lot of money now, but that meant a lot to us at the start. You know, that kept us going. That breathed new life into our business. And it could have been so much easier if we had only done this sooner by modeling success. So whatever goal you have with your business, whatever challenge you're facing right now, somebody has already solved it. Model the success that they've had, make it work for your business. Good luck.
