#1 Startup Question From 2018
"How to get more partnerships and get them faster" has been a common theme during 2018. Many startups joined acceleration programs not because they needed exposure to get funding, but because they needed exposure to secure partnerships. Even regulatory approvals seemed easier in a way, comparing to getting sign offs from 25+ departments within your potential banking partner organization. There are no deadlines, no commitments, and things could fall apart or suddenly pick up pace at any given moment in time.
How to make it easier? Have the following documents ready to go every time you apply for the partnership or preparing to pitch to a large financial institution:
- Description of your business model and how do you make money (1 page), evolution of key metrics over the last year, e.g. growth in the number of customers, average monthly volumes, new customer registrations, increase in volumes per customer, new geographies served. This document should be very visual and well-formatted.
- Flow of funds diagram (1 page) – if you have existing partners, core customers, banks or other financial institutions working with you, put their names on the diagram, it will help.
- Your legal structure, depicting all entities in the group, what they do, where they are established, and who are the ultimate beneficial owners (ideally you don’t have a lot of entities incorporated in the B.V.I, Caymans, Seychelles & co.).
- Your organizational chart: number of people and how they are split across the teams (preferably, you have a lot of people in software development and fewer people in marketing).
- Summary of audits and external assessments you did and legal opinions you managed to secure during the last 12 months, their scope, focus, any findings and who did the review (BIG4 names count).
