How to find a driven business partner like Steve Jobs?

[John_ITIC]

I'm considering partnering up with a driven individual that can handle the business and sales aspects of my ITIC protocol analyzer business. The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business. Just like dating, I find the prospect of personally spending a huge amount of time socializing, socializing and even more socializing daunting. I'm a technology guy and can spend years in my lab learning the ins and outs of technology but find that spending days or weeks talking to people more or less randomly is extremely frustrating and emotionally draining. Business is a job for an extrovert and I am a hard-core engineer and introvert! Surely, there must be a better way to find a business partner online and I'm sure lots of people on the EEVBlog have much to say on the topic! Heck, I even found my wife online so surely society must have evolved to meet the right business partner online too; but where?

My goal is to find a person that will contribute the business experience, contact network etc., which complement my engineering skills. As an analogy, I'm more like Steven Wozniak that needed his Steve Jobs to get anywhere business-wise. Had it not been for Steve Jobs, Wozniak would probably still be sitting in that cubicle at HP (sorry Woz).

ITIC's site is here:
http://www.internationaltestinstruments.com/default.aspx

For project and product background, see here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itic/professional-usb-20-ls-fs-hs-protocol-analyzer-mod

My consulting practice is here:
http://www.summitsoftconsulting.com/

My original plan was to self-fund (bootstrap) the ITIC business by doing consulting on the side. I have done that for years with the result that that I'm constantly chasing the product-cycle bell-curve. These products are so complex that by the time they are completed, the market has moved on to the next technology. What is needed is to initially allow me to complete the USB 3.0 protocol analyzer project without having to do consulting on the side to self-fund the project. For that, some cash flow would be needed, around (net) $5K USD/month, for about 3-6 months. At a later stage, more engineering resources are likely needed to get to the market sooner. For this, a business partner is needed such that funding can be obtained. Personally (like Steven Wozniak) I prefer to stay in technology rather than being forced against my will into the business side of things. Steven Wozniak would never have gotten his "board in a box" funded had it not been for Jobs (sorry again Woz!).

Finally, this is not another "I have a great business idea - just need some money" post. I have plenty of skin in the game since I have put in close to 10 years and somewhere of north of $500K USD getting on top of these technologies. Actual products are sold and working prototypes of the latest product is available. I have sold some 850 of these protocol analyzers and am now about to complete the third unit, which is a USB 3.0 Protocol Analyzer. There clearly is a market for these high-speed serial protocol analyzers as everything is going serial. USB, HDMI, SATA, SAS, Networking, NMVe, PCIe etc., etc.  Now, it is time to leverage this knowledge and it is time for some seed funding!

Thanks,
/John.

[DimitriP]

You could start by adding a (Steve) Jobs section. to your website. aka "partner opportunity".
Or shoot an email to Woz. He is a nice guy, he may have a few people in mind.

"If you want something in your life you've never had, your'll have to do something,  you've never done"
as the saying goes...
 




 

 

[dannyf]

The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....

If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?

[John_ITIC]

The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....

If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?

20 years engineering experience, 10 years and $500, 000 product development and working products in a fairly hot niche segment. In addition, I have existing distributors in about 10 countries, including Japan, EU, USA, Australia, India, China etc. What is missing is business-savvy and cash-infusion to get to the next level.

I'm sure there are lots of educated, experienced, business-savvy people looking for good technologies to sell. The question is *where to find such people*?

[John_ITIC]

You could start by adding a (Steve) Jobs section. to your website. aka "partner opportunity".
Or shoot an email to Woz. He is a nice guy, he may have a few people in mind.

"If you want something in your life you've never had, your'll have to do something,  you've never done"
as the saying goes...

Serious responses only, please...

[Mosaic]

I feel your Pain John.
I am in the same position. My product has been awarded locally and by the E.U. Yet I am still to get it investment funded to scale into manufacturing and I quit my job to develop this over the last 2 to 3 years.
I am living in the developing world and sometimes it really sucks, no VC's , greedy middlemen, endemic corruption.

have a look....at my latest effort to get it going.
https://www.patreon.com/batteryguy?ty=h

[all_repair]

It has to be people around you.  People you already know and trust, and vice versa.

[John_ITIC]

It has to be people around you.  People you already know and trust, and vice versa.

The few entrepreneurs I know suggest going to the local meetings to network. Perhaps I will have to do just that but I wanted to find out whether there are better options than to enter the fast-pitch clown-suit competition each Tuesday...

https://www.techcoastangels.com/press/san-diego-tech-coast-angels-announce-finalists-sixth-annual-quick-pitch-competition

[John_ITIC]

I feel your Pain John.
I am in the same position. My product has been awarded locally and by the E.U. Yet I am still to get it investment funded to scale into manufacturing and I quit my job to develop this over the last 2 to 3 years.
I am living in the developing world and sometimes it really sucks, no VC's , greedy middlemen, endemic corruption.

have a look....at my latest effort to get it going.
https://www.patreon.com/batteryguy?ty=h

In general, to prove the value, one must have a proven track record of successful ventures to be taken seriously by investors. Investors are (as they should be) suspicious and need proof of the viability of the products. As a first stage, one would be expected to contribute lots of ones own time and money and take the product as far as possible. This is why I have spent 10 years and half a million USD to get to the point where the products are in the same ball-part as the major competitors, which are actual big corporations. As a professional engineer, I could very well have worked in one of those corporations but with real funding, and quicker time to market, the ITIC protocol analyzers have a good chance to be good sellers.

Nobody is expected to work for nothing so the "greedy middle-men" are unfortunately often needed. As they say, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing...

[all_repair]

It has to be people around you.  People you already know and trust, and vice versa.

The few entrepreneurs I know suggest going to the local meetings to network. Perhaps I will have to do just that but I wanted to find out whether there are better options than to enter the fast-pitch clown-suit competition each Tuesday...

https://www.techcoastangels.com/press/san-diego-tech-coast-angels-announce-finalists-sixth-annual-quick-pitch-competition

My emphasis is still on building up the pool of trusted like minded people and then choose from there, than aiming for the "driven Steve".  How sure can the "driven Steve" stay on the game? and fairly executing what he is supposed to be doing?   In your question, I can sense that you actually already knew the best course of action for your case which is to force yourself out of the comfort zone, and be the one driving and managing.  Development of the product is easier to delegate to hired hands.

[EEVblog]

The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business.

You mean "our" business, right?
You and your new partner.

[John_ITIC]

In your question, I can sense that you actually already knew the best course of action for your case which is to force yourself out of the comfort zone, and be the one driving and managing.  Development of the product is easier to delegate to hired hands.

Yes, I can drive and manage the technical side of things but my personality type is not suited for the business-side of things. I'd rather take a job in engineering than be forced over to the business-side in my own company. I can be CTO but not CEO. I know that the local Angel group"https://www.techcoastangels.com/" may assist with finding business-savvy people to run the business side of things but I have heard from a friend that they have no clue about technology, having made their money in real-estate, essentially. Having some investor choose the management team for me seems a bit risky so I would want to find the partner first...

[John_ITIC]

The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business.

You mean "our" business, right?
You and your new partner.

Yep, correct. But written in the present. Old habit and all that. I'm well past the thoughts that a tiny bit is given away to the partner. For the right person, I'm ready to give away 50% of the company. That requires a solid business experience of such partner. I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard. They rather sell Agilent than ITIC. Much better margins.

[EEVblog]

I'm not sure why you need a business partner to pitch the idea for you.
You already have an accepted polished product in the market, that's streets ahead of most other pitches with just an idea or a breadboard prototype.
I'd simply go pitching and see what happens.
Instead you seem to wanting someone to handle sales and business (combined CEO/salesman?) who can also pitch the business. That means simply another person to dilute the business share with when you get funding.
e.g. If you pitch and you get funding then you might still own 50% of the company.
But if you get a 50% partner first and then get funding, then you find yourself with only 25%.
I'd cut out the middle man.

[John_ITIC]

I'm not sure why you need a business partner to pitch the idea for you.
You already have an accepted polished product in the market, that's streets ahead of most other pitches with just an idea or a breadboard prototype.
I'd simply go pitching and see what happens.
Instead you seem to wanting someone to handle sales and business (combined CEO/salesman?) who can also pitch the business. That means simply another person to dilute the business share with when you get funding.
e.g. If you pitch and you get funding then you might still own 50% of the company.
But if you get a 50% partner first and then get funding, then you find yourself with only 25%.
I'd cut out the middle man.

I suppose I would want to have someone with a proven business track record to give more credibility. Just because one can create a product doesn't guarantee that one knows how to build a business around it. Engineers tend to think that it is the product that matters while it is actually the business processes around the product that makes it sell. I can deal with the product development cycle short-term but I don't have the business experience / savvy to leverage these products to make sufficient revenue to support the product development long-term. The first an investor would ask is "who is your team" - a response like "it's just me" doesn't instill much confidence. Perhaps, though, an investor would understand, take 50% of the company and put in enough cash to allow the business folks to be hired into the team.

[cdev]

You may be better off building it up slowly, on a shoestring, on your own, than asking somebody else to invest a lot of sweat equity in what in effect sounds like you want to still be "your" business.

[John_ITIC]

You may be better off building it up slowly, on a shoestring, on your own, than asking somebody else to invest a lot of sweat equity in what in effect sounds like you want to still be "your" business.

Thank you for your input. However, it appears you didn't read that I have already boot strapped for ten years. I have also been quite clear that I'm prepared to give up to 50% for money/expertise needed to grow. The product cycles are faster than I can develop on my own so more resources are needed to keep up with the market. Continued bootstrapping is not possible, realistically.

I'm currently watching (again) a nice video from our local angel investor group. What scares me a bit is that they appear to have very stringent investment criteria, like $10 to $50 million revenue per year after 5 years. I know that my smallest competitor is selling about 1/10th of that. Larger competitors sell in the $10M range, likely. Perhaps a more aggressive business plan and team can fix that...

[Psi]

The last person you want is a Steve Jobs type person.
Unless you want to give up all control to them and be a silent partner.

[John_ITIC]

The last person you want is a Steve Jobs type person.
Unless you want to give up all control to them and be a silent partner.

No, that would be a very nice position. As long as the goods sell and I can focus on technology. Some people want to be in charge. I just want ownership of the technology I create. Essentially, I want to create my own ideal job with ownership rather than work without ownership in somebody else's business.

[miguelvp]

Trade shows are full of business people, find one that impresses you and you have confidence by looking how he sells and how many contacts in the industry s/he has and that has the potential of a good CEO, you being the CTO.

But it depends what salary you can offer because they like to get paid. But be aware that rapid growth can result in rapid death too. He is going to need a sales force and more employees, meaning once you ramp up to that scale there is no going back until you stabilize.

Edit: The question is, can your product maintain that? Is the market untapped?
You can always go the Mark Cuban or Robert Herjavec route, they do have the contacts but not really full dedication, but they do have the money. Problem is you got to be a good salesman to sell your product to them 1st.

[Richard Crowley]

The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....

If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?

Because without some solid reason to be in business, s/he will be over on one of those sleazy crowd-funding places promoting something stupid and bilking people out of their money.

[John_ITIC]

Trade shows are full of business people, find one that impresses you and you have confidence by looking how he sells and how many contacts in the industry s/he has and that has the potential of a good CEO, you being the CTO.

But it depends what salary you can offer because they like to get paid. But be aware that rapid growth can result in rapid death too. He is going to need a sales force and more employees, meaning once you ramp up to that scale there is no going back until you stabilize.

Thanks. For that option to work, I would have to go in and pitch the company myself and later hire a management and sales team. With OPM (other people's money), this can be done. Given the feedback so far, this seems like the most viable option. As the above video shows, our local angel group also provide business coaching and introduction to business people that can even out the team. In addition, they provide a path to continued funding by venture capital firms once the business has grown sufficiently.

Edit: No, the market is not untapped. There are a couple smaller companies as well as 2-3 larger corporations in this field. One of the main business questions is how to differentiate the ITIC protocol analyzers. Frankly, the competitor's software is very bad - clearly created by hardware engineers trying to do software engineering. Software these days is a big part of the products so could be a differentiating factor.

[Smokey]

In my opinion (which doesn't really mean anything but you did ask on a public forum) you don't need a partner.  You need an employee.  If you are taking the passive role of saying you aren't any good at a MAJOR part of your business and you have no desire to learn or are incapable of learning how to get better at it, anyone you partner with to effectively run your company is going to crap on you and you are going to get screwed in the end.  Your example of Steve Jobs is a good one.  Look at how Jobs crapped on the Woz when he let him handle all the business stuff because Woz just wanted to play with circuits.  Their first business deal (where Woz did all the work) started with a lie where Steve lied to Woz about how much money they made.  Woz only ended up with tons of money because he and Jobs got lucky in the beginning.  Steve Jobs was a world class dick that got WAY more credit than he deserved and was by all accounts a shitty person to work with.  We need zero more people like him anywhere.  Are you really looking to infect your company with that?  It sounds to me like you need a sales and marketing guy and spend a little less time yourself in the lab.
One major tennent of owning your own business is that you should be spending the majority of your time working ON your business not AT your business.  After the initial just-you period, you should be doing progressively less and less work yourself and moving that to employees.  If there is one thing that will absolutely positively never ever ever (exaggerate much smokey?) scale to any reasonable measure of success it's a one man operation that stays a one man operation.

[John_ITIC]

In my opinion (which doesn't really mean anything but you did ask on a public forum) you don't need a partner.  You need an employee.  If you are taking the passive role of saying you aren't any good at a MAJOR part of your business and you have no desire to learn or are incapable of learning how to get better at it, anyone you partner with to effectively run your company is going to crap on you and you are going to get screwed in the end.  Your example of Steve Jobs is a good one.  Look at how Jobs crapped on the Woz when he let him handle all the business stuff because Woz just wanted to play with circuits.  Their first business deal (where Woz did all the work) started with a lie where Steve lied to Woz about how much money they made.  Woz only ended up with tons of money because he and Jobs got lucky in the beginning.  Steve Jobs was a world class dick that got WAY more credit than he deserved and was by all accounts a shitty person to work with.  We need zero more people like him anywhere.  Are you really looking to infect your company with that?  It sounds to me like you need a sales and marketing guy and spend a little less time yourself in the lab.
One major tennent of owning your own business is that you should be spending the majority of your time working ON your business not AT your business.  After the initial just-you period, you should be doing progressively less and less work yourself and moving that to employees.  If there is one thing that will absolutely positively never ever ever (exaggerate much smokey?) scale to any reasonable measure of success it's a one man operation that stays a one man operation.

Thanks for the input. Yes, I think I agree. I'm now leaning towards pitching my company myself. Up till this point, somebody had to actually do the work of creating the products, handle sales, work on web site and marketing etc so little time was left over on strategy and overall business strategy. With funding, parts can be off-loaded. But the question is; what parts? Given that my background is 20 years of hard-core consulting experience in both hardware and software, it seems like a waste of experience if I were to move over to the business side. People are trained in business just like people are trained in technology so I can only assume that it would take close to 20 years to fully know what you are doing on the business side. by that time I would be long retired, which is the main reason I originally asked for a competent business partner. But, again, this skillset could be bought once funding comes through. As can additional engineering and sales resources. Long-term, I can envision a more hands-off CTO role.

[EEVblog]

I suppose I would want to have someone with a proven business track record to give more credibility. Just because one can create a product doesn't guarantee that one knows how to build a business around it.

That's typically what the angel investor / VC's are for. They will often help with that and even appoint their own CEO's and directors etc.
They don't usually just give you money and hope for the best, they offer advice, help find people etc.