Executive Summary

• This article is meant as a reminder to ourselves how bad our history with business partners has been.
• We cover how all of our business partnerships have fared.

Introduction

We have partnered with several individuals and companies over the years. In each case, the business partnership was a failure. This article is a listing of these partnerships, potential partnerships, the plan, and the outcome. We have coded the partner with the term ” potential ” for partners who never got through the initial discussion phase. We have coded the partner with the term “potential.”

Partner #1: Advising Companies Being Taken Advantage of by Consulting Firms

This first partner began as a coworker. This individual did close to no work and spent most of his time telling us how to do the work.

The issue of nonperformance on the part of a business partner turned out to be a common problem throughout our various partnerships. Many people are looking to start businesses, but a large percentage of these people want to partner with someone else who will do most of the work. This person previously was a strategy consultant, and this is generally a poor choice with which to partner. The individual in question eventually went back to full employment.

Total Time Wasted

It is difficult to determine how much time we wasted on this partnership. But a rough guess would be three weeks.

(potential) Partner #2: Associate of a Small Software Vendor

An associate of a person who was friends with and helping a small software vendor proposed some type of hazy partnership. The person was previously worked in finance. Nothing came of the relationship, and practically, the small software vendor ran reaching out for free information.

Total Time Wasted

We wasted perhaps 6 to 7 hours on this. This was at a time where we would talk to people without asking for compensation. We finally had to stop doing that.

(potential) Partner #3: Custom Development Company

A salesperson from a third-party support provider reached out to go after advisement business from third-party support clients.

As they had been laid off of their employer, a third-party support provider, the idea is that he could work his connections to help get leads.

Nothing ever came of this, and we wasted time on several conference calls.

Total Time Wasted

We estimate that in total, we wasted 10 hours.

Partner #4: Custom Development Vendor

A custom development vendor reached out to try to get us to come to a conference and speak. They offered to cover no costs but talked up the “potential business” from Europe. We asked for the travel costs to be protected, and they would not offer to cover anything.

We declined.

They reached out again around a year later, and we discussed on several occasions a relationship like the one described in the article The Brightwork Business Model for Vendors. This was supposed to go forward, but the contact we had finally gave up, as he said he was not getting support from anyone else in his company.

Total Time Wasted

In total, this probably wasted 2.5 days of our time.

Partner #5: Working With Us As a Researcher

We had a partner with whom we were in contact and who contributed some content, and it was great to bounce ideas off for roughly eight months. However, once we could not get them more than a small amount of revenue, they found full-time employment appealing again and left.

This was our best partnership, and one reason is that we had been interacting with him for roughly 1.5 years on social media, and we knew each other well.

Total Time Wasted

This is not wasted time because the individual was very talented and insightful and had a lot of good information. He contributed important content, although in a limited number of articles. If we could have obtained business in his area, we could have brought him on as a long-term partner.

Partner #6: Custom Development Company

The owner of a custom development company reached out and invited us to a conference where he said he could introduce us to people promoting Brightwork.

Upon attending the conference, the custom development software vendor had no interest in partnering, and the claim used to lure us to a conference was not valid. This owner then introduced us to a developer of low ethics who it was said would develop an application that we would market. The owner refused to confront the developer for essentially being useless and nonresponsive. After this, the owner repeatedly reached out to discuss and extract free information. Eventually, the developer just disappeared..

We wasted 1.5 weeks working on a low code environment until we found it was far less than advertised. We exposed IP to the developer, and we picked up a person who had to be told that we were not a free source of information. As with most vendors, they like to reach out and show appreciation for the work done by Brightwork, but there is nothing they do to support us, even in terms of introducing us as independent advisement to their clients.

This partner was probably the least concerned with wasting our time. If they had their desires, it would have been for us to work for free creating content based upon information they shared that they could share with their customers.

They continued to reach out to us, even though they were genuinely appalling as managers and refused to confront a freeloading partner. They continued to reach out for information years after the partnership did not work out.

Total Time Wasted

Including the time we invested in the low code environment would have to come to 2.5 weeks. But there was also the exposure of IP to an unethical developer.

The time was not entirely wasted. We learned some things. However, the case study shows the problems with interacting with vendors who frequently expect time from analysts to be provided to them for free. This led to our policy outlined in the article Why Brightwork Research & Analysis Has No Relationships With Vendors.

This is true of commercial vendors. However, we still interact with open-source vendors.

(potential) Partner #7: A Small Fledgeling ERP Vendor

A small fledgling ERP vendor owner reached out and asked if we could promote their ERP system. When we reviewed the ERP system, it did not seem finished. We never actually partnered with this firm, but we did spend some time discussing things with them.

Total Time Wasted

Roughly 1.5 days.

(potential) Partner #8: With an ex-Forrester Sales Person

This partnership started due to a Forrester salesperson who had left Forrester. We agreed in principle to the partnership because we thought this person could sell research. However, it was so unconsummated that we have it listed as a potential partnership.

After several discussions, a secondary partner who did not make much sense would be part of the partnership. The salesperson seemed interested in following up both a partnership with us and a partnership with this secondary partner. We exited the short-lived partnership when we found the salesperson did not seem to know some of the fundamental terminologies of software.

Total Time Wasted

Around two days.

(potential) Partner #9: With a Person in Ad Sales

We were contacted by a person who worked in ad sales for a supply chain periodical. Her idea was that Brightwork could sell ads, as this company sold its cover and sold ads to fund itself. We learned how the paid placement system worked through several discussions but told this person we could not follow this approach as we are a research entity.

Total Time Wasted

This partnership did not waste much time, and we learned a tremendous amount about the corruption in media, which we could roll into some of our coverage.

(potential) Partner #10: With an ex-Coworker Strategy Consultant

We had a person we had previously worked with reach out to try to leverage our SAP research to form a partnership. This resource had zero SAP experience (so would be leveraging our material), had no sales background (so could not bring in business), and was also an ex-strategy consultant, which means that he was not doing anything to be useful for anything by telling other people what to do. Furthermore, we had found this individual thoroughly unethical when we had worked with him in the past.

We passed on this “opportunity,” however, it shows how many individuals are interested in offering bad deals.

Total Time Wasted

Around 4 hours.

(potential) Partner #11: With a Website

We had a company that managed a procurement website reach out to us. They wanted to expand into supply chain coverage. However, their pitch was bizarrely self-centered. The following pitch was given once the compliments were given (this is how nearly all of these partnership discussions begin).

1. Brightwork Research & Analysis content would be subsumed within their website.
2. We would be responsible for producing two articles per day. (this was relatively easy for this website, but our material is more lengthy and complex than what they wrote – for instance, a typical article length at their website was 750 words, while many of our articles are several thousand words. They are also not a research entity and naturally follow no research rules and don’t bother with references. Our articles nearly always have references.).
3. We would be paid nothing for the content of the work.
4. At the end of the year, there would be “some distribution,” and at that time, the decision would be made to take out that money or invest “back into the business.” As we would be providing all of our content and new content, it seems like that would be “investing back in the business.”
5. Eventually, we would have the opportunity to sell off the website and make perhaps $5 M.

We had several discussions with the people from this company, trying to figure out how we would benefit and discounting the promise of some $5 M payout.

The question, of course, is once we had signed some contract, no doubt they would have received a significant percentage of any payout. It was also not clear why handing our content over to them would enhance our ability to sell the website — and it had never been a goal of ours the sell the website. If Brightwork Research & Analysis were sold, the first activity taken by new owners would be to change the research to sell out to industry interests.

This is a related issue that prospective partners will tend to project their interests onto you.

Getting Terrible Offers From Websites Smaller in Volume Than Our Own?

The other strange thing was the Brightwork website traffic volume was more significant than this website. So they were not going to be able to do anything for our volume.

This was a genuinely bizarre offer.

It was as if we had to keep rubbing our eyes to make sure we heard them correctly and understood the offer. We kept asking them to clarify because we did not understand who would accept a one-sided offer. This was a few years ago now, and at that time, we thought that people who reached out to partners had some type of good intention.

Years later, we realize that in most cases, this is not true.

At one point, one of the principles at the company stated that “I know you can do it,” when we had been “doing it” and better than this company.

This branches into another topic: those who reach out to partners often present the idea that they have a magic approach to make our website much more successful. We have yet to see the advice offered by various partnering entities as particularly beneficial.

Curiously, they were the ones who eventually disengaged from us, not the other way around. It was as if they were making us the worst partnership offer we had ever come across, and then they either could tell we weren’t interested due to our reaction, or they lost interest to follow through in victimizing us.

Total Time Wasted

Around 5 hours in direct discussions, then probably another 5 hours discussing this bizarre offer with family and friends.

Partner #12: With an SAP Consultant

This idea was to invite a number of SAP customers to a single location and provide them with independent views on SAP, which might lead to future advisement business. We conducted three sessions. It became apparent that the SAP resources were just there to access free information, and they had no intention of hiring the group.

This partnership came with another partner — who was old friends with our primary partner.

The secondary partner did close to nothing, and when we pointed this out, the primary partner defended them. We found a significant issue with when a partner brings in a friend. And this was a repeat of the partnership with the custom development vendor. Once a primary partner brings in a secondary — they usually have a long relationship with that individual. And when they do not perform, the primary partner will work against you and protect them, allowing the secondary partner to get off scot-free.

This was not a significant waste of time. Still, it would have to be at least a week of discussions and included the presentations to the SAP resources, who were not qualified beforehand as anything more than people who wanted to join a group and get access to free information and free bagels.

Why Did We Agree to This?

One thing we observed is that, in retrospect, this was a bad deal. There is little doubt that the consulting firm would have tried to staff a significant number of resources while we would have staffed one person and for a short period. This was highly advantageous for the consulting firm that the secondary partner represented.

We could have made a deal with literally any consulting firm (that is, have them leverage our IP, and then they obtain most of the billing hours); however, we agreed to it because of the relationship we created with the primary partner.

And this highlights another problem: the primary partner can often set up a reasonable scenario for them but entirely disproportionately beneficial for the secondary partner. And after the relationship is established, there can be a mental desire to accept the terms for the secondary partner.

In retrospect, we should have fought back against the unreasonable allocation of benefits from this arrangement. However, we did not think it through sufficiently at the time. But it began to dawn on us as the partnership progressed.

Total Time Wasted

Around 1.5 weeks.

Partner #13: With an SAP Consultant

We reached out to an SAP consultant that we knew and liked to see if they would promote our Brightwork Explorer. However, after discussing, we became convinced to go after some SAP support business. We spent roughly three weeks in discussions and working on content. However, the partner kept creating a company that we could then sell for a significant amount of money. We were then introduced to a friend of his, who, on the first call, said that both of these individuals should be added Brightwork and that we would be diluted. I then told our primary contact that we would not be working with his friend.

He accepted this.

However, not only was this person unethical and sought to rip us off, but every other company and individual the primary partner introduced us to was unethical. It turns out that this person had no ethical standards for who they would work with.

This individual did some work, but we were asked to do a higher percentage of the work. Secondly, this person seemed to constantly develop “ideas,” which we had to do most of the work to complete. Because he was always coming up with ideas — we were, in essence, driving the strategy.

“We need to do A, B, C, D, and F.”

It was essentially an endless list of things to do. The individual was somewhat manic, with a tendency to create lists of things every time a discussion arose. We were also put on a course of reaching out to different vendors to potentially partner with, something we would not have done except for being under the influence of the primary partner. The primary partner was not realistic, and we were carried away by his unrealistic expectations. As discussed, software vendors, unless one is a consulting firm of a substantial size or has personal connections into the firm, are tough to partner with. And as a research entity, we can’t trade our recommendations for preferential treatment.

This experience harkened back to our first partnership, even though we were supposed to be equal partners. We had taken a back seat. So now we were not only doing most of the work, we had less and less input into what that work would be.

And this person very much liked to talk, so the sessions were part to discuss business and plans and part just to chat. These conversations took up very significant amounts of time, and during these conversations, only perhaps less than 1/2 was related to the business.

Another problem surfaced when he brought up the issue of raising money. We had never discussed raising money, and I was not interested in doing so. Furthermore, there was talk of taking on fixed costs like an office that I did not think was necessary or prudent. This followed the pattern of us being hit with one idea after another. New partners, now going on a roadshow to raise capital, it was one thing after another.

We finally broke off from this partnership because we were not convinced of how possible it would be to break into the SAP support business, we did not like the people our partner was introducing to us, we felt we had acquired a boss in our partner, and essentially we wanted the time that we had been having consumed back.

However, we said we might be able to work on something else that was smaller in scope. But as time passed, there was less interest on both sides in following up that smaller scoped item.

Total Time Wasted

At around 2.5 weeks, this is the second most time we wasted with any of our partnerships. And it is a bit disappointing because, in a way, we repeated the same mistake from our first failed partnership, which was close 18 years ago.

One reason is that the partner has a habit of vacillating between different positions and is accommodating. It is odd because our partner’s personality is both assertive and flexible at the same time. But the frustration finally built up.

(potential) Partner #14: Open Source Entity #1

We were introduced to an open-source entity. We are very much in favor of open source.

We offered us The Brightwork Business Model for Vendors, and they declared that they were just too busy at one point. Then when we told them we understood they were not interested, they said they were interested but then failed to follow up.

Total Time Wasted

6 hours.

(potential) Partner #15: Open Source Entity #2

We reached out to an open-source entity whose product we liked and offered our The Brightwork Business Model for Vendors, and they agreed. However, they never made an effort to follow up on their side of the bargain.

Total Time Wasted

The time has not been entirely wasted as we still like the vendor and have obtained good quality information from the interaction.

(potential) Partner #16: Low Code Vendor

In December of 2020, we had a low code vendor we had known for a while reach out to us to meet. This company had raised $5 M and thought that Brightwork was the only entity writing anything that told the truth about SAP. The CEO stated that he would go back and discuss with his people. Then nine months after not responding, they reached out again with an idiotic offer to skim our research.

Total Time Wasted

Roughly 9 hours.

(potential) Partner #17: Custom Development Focused on UI

In April of 2021, we had a UI developer reach out to us and tell us the opportunity in custom UI development as a company. We put together a Google Sheet and filled it with data from our research into the field. However, the UI developer never followed up and either commented on or filled in any information in what was supposed to be a collaborative sheet.

Total Time Wasted

Roughly 6 hours.

(potential) Partner #18: Contacted by Two Software Vendors with the Idea of Creating a Rating of Software in the Category of Forecasting Software 

In March of 2021, two vendors reached out, one with the idea of creating a survey that software vendors would participate in to improve how software is rated. We started the sample site, but the other software vendors showed little interest in participating. Even though the interest seemed to be below, the two software vendors we worked with continued to press forward into creating the item because it was mostly our effort that was involved. The first vendor took some of the surveys to publish on their site, which violated the agreement. After being extremely opinionated about how the survey should be created, the second vendor suddenly disappeared as soon as they finally figured out what we had known, that the response from the vendors was not good. It would be difficult to get them to participate.

Total Time Wasted

Time spent was around 50 hours. However, much of this time was used in evaluating technologies that we used for other purposes. We also found that software vendors have no interest in research and only want marketing collateral they can rig in their favor. However, there was never any apology from the first two vendors about wasting our time. This is the consistent feature of dealing with partners. They can simply disappear when it is maximally beneficial for them to do so, and when they do this, they are not held accountable for how incorrect their projections were.

(potential) Partner #19: Introduced to a Company That Provided SAP and Other Vendor Negotiating Statistics

This contact came through an acquaintance. The idea was that this company helped other companies negotiate against vendors. The phone meeting began with the typical problem. The potential partner often proposes that since we both agree on a specific topic, we are not “friends.” While the individual representing the company did not say it, they just wanted free articles written about how great their company was. When we proposed that we could do consulting for their clients in our research and that this would allow us to access information from the account, which could later be published, the company never got back to us. The entire partnership was to obtain free coverage for this company. But naturally, this is hidden during the introductory call.

Total Time Wasted

Four hours. We took the call and then were asked to provide a proposal, which we never heard back on.

Conclusion

As can be seen, this is an abysmal history of partnerships and potential partnerships. And this is not all of them, but just the most substantial.

It was beneficial to write this article because it becomes easy to overlook how the same story has repeated itself without writing the partnerships down. There is a natural desire to partner, as one sees that skills and overlapping interests could be leveraged. However, partnerships are fraught with significant disadvantages, including the fact that no one is a boss.

Partners have not only been beneficial, but they have consumed substantial amounts of time, and at least one exposed our IP to secondary partners. In some cases, partners from failed ventures have “hung on” to be future liabilities. The idea is that since we had an unsuccessful partnership discussion that we should say in contact. The worst offender here was the custom software development company. They wanted to stay in touch and continue to use us for our access to information. This is something we had to remind ourselves — to take inventory of what was the actual history with the individual. It is straightforward to develop relationships that are entirely one way. There is a friendly demeanor and flattering emails like “Hey, how is it going,” that are used by these individuals to continue to exploit us, even after their initial idea led to nothing. Instead, they need to be actively confronted that the partnership/relationship did not work out, and we are not looking to become friends with individuals who sought to take advantage of us.

Partners are not only a threat themselves but, in many cases and an even more significant threat for who they can serve as a gateway to. One person vouching for another person is worthless because even if their perception is accurate (which it often is not), just the fact that usually the secondary partner or potential secondary partner has known the primary partner longer than they have known you mean that in a “lifeboat of three,” you will be the first to be tossed overboard when difficult times come.

Lack of Standards

The individuals we discussed partnering with never had any research background. Therefore, they did not value the fact that we follow research rules. The easiest way for us to make more money is to sell articles to vendors and consulting firms and function as their PR front end. Our inclination is that nearly all of the potential partners we interacted with would have favored doing this to make more money.

Secondary Partners: Uncomfortable Bed Fellows and the Absentee Landlords of the Primary Partner

Partners that bring in other partners usually cannot or will not police the secondary partner, and that secondary partner will often shirk their responsibilities. Now, obviously, in each case, we did not know the secondary partner, which would ordinarily make them strangers to us, but because they are on good terms with the primary partner, this has the habit of tying our hands. This is critical to be wary of. It means that the primary partner will allow the secondary partner to get away with not doing anything by offering a series of excuses.

This is a bit like having a relationship with a person with a misbehaving child. While you suffer the negative consequences of their behavior because you are not the biological parent, you don’t have the authority to discipline the child.

Overall, secondary partners are a severe issue and something to be aware of. Just because one creates a relationship with a primary partner does not transfer to the secondary partner. In almost all cases, the secondary partner will be bringing far less to the table than the primary partner and provides far less recourse than the primary partner.  For example, when I had to tell the secondary partner of one of the partnerships that I would not be working with him, they were concerned about how the message would be delivered.

Serving as a Pinata/Punching Bag for the Secondary Partner

We found that the primary partner applied open standards to who joins as a secondary partner on several occasions. They will select people they may like rather than people that have the right background or skills. And on several occasions, the secondary partner simply assumed they were “in” because they knew the primary partner.

This negates the will of the outside partner (us in this case) because it uses social or peer pressure, as the external partner feels an obligation to the primary partner to accept the secondary partner. Secondary partners will often feel entitled to negotiate for benefits out of proportion to their contribution because of their relationship with the primary partner.

Faux Entrepreneurs

In our view, most prospective partners that reach out do not bring enough to the table to be good partners. Typically, their only work history was working for large companies, yet they imagine themselves entrepreneurs, even though they have no experience. Those running companies tend to be obsessively focused on just their company, which means taking advantage of our company. They are not looking for partners. They are looking for victims.

Each of them was very optimistic about the prospects for the partnership, but the energy quickly left the partnership. This is a common issue with partnerships. How to reach out to potential customers is difficult. After the idea phase passes and collateral are developed, it becomes depressing how difficult it is to get customer contact information.

The Taking Up of Time

Partners are also very time-consuming. The curious thing is that we did not get to the point of having customers with any of these partners. In fact, in most of the cases, the interaction petered out long before anything happened, and these entities walked out the door with our time. However, we had a significant amount of time consumed just in communication.

If we had acquired a customer, doing the work, combined with having constant discussions with partners, would have been a problem. Equal partners are a problem because no one is superior, so each spends a significant amount of time trying to convince others of the right direction. In our experience hiring IT contractors, we preferred this interaction because we were paying the IT contractors to do a job.

Overall, it is clear that partners are usually a bad deal. Not only are individual partners a problem, but partnering with a company is extremely difficult.

Offering Partnership as a Type Parasitism

TypicMost people companies are looking for things for free from their partners. Ally, they may propose initial interest but then fail to follow through. And the failure to follow through has been the primary outcome of our experiences in partnership.

One of the things that a business partnership will do is alienate you from that partner. When one is just interacting with a person, their selfishness usually is not apparent.

However, when you partner with someone, the degree to which most of the population is willing to consume the time of others and make predictions that turn out to be untrue but for which they do not take responsibility becomes apparent.

The Common Feature of Running One’s Mouth Versus Doing Anything

Another feature is the vast chasm between how much people talk and what they are willing to do. Because we do much more than run our mouths, we are shocked at how the reverse is usually the case from people and companies that have reached out to us.

The Relief of Shedding Partners

We could follow up with partners after the partnership has failed; however, in most cases, we are just so relieved to get rid of the partner that we don’t. The idea that you can shed someone who begins as a partner but then morphs into a boss is just too enticing.

The horrible experiences in partnering have motivated us to engage with fewer people, even in informal interaction.