Venture Capital For Dummies

Chapter 7

Cultivating Relationships

In This Chapter

Leveraging your limited resources with strategic partnerships

Timing your VC approach

Attracting employees, consultants, and advisory boards

Starting your exit strategy now

Your company is more than the employees and the management team. You are building a series of nested circles made of intellectual and social currency. In the innermost circle are the founders, the management team, and the employees — people who work on your company’s mission every day and for whom the company is everything. Just outside the immediate company team circle is the support group of advisors and mentors — the consultants, investors, and strategic partners who make their living off your company’s needs but who truly care about the company and want to see it and you do well. Your customers are in the third circle. Although they’re often very removed from the operations and inner workings of your company, your company’s relationship with them is the most important relationship it has. The customer base means everything in terms of traction, revenue, ...