Doing Biz Dev
A guide to Business Development at early-stage startups
“What title do you want?” my boss asked.
It was my first week at Zumper, a then seed-stage startup building a two-sided marketplace for apartment rentals (which they’re still at and killing it). I’d been hired to make both sides of that marketplace grow. Not yet sure exactly what channels I‘d be spending my time on, I lobbied for the appropriately vague title of “Business Development.”
The role sounded to me like what a mobster might say if asked his occupation at a cocktail party.
At established companies, BD is relatively well defined around partnerships. For startups, though, there is little in the way of agreed-upon best practices. The most common definition I could find was: the guy or gal, at the company, who “hustles.”
At Tradecraft, as we’ve built out our Business Development & Sales curriculum, I’ve gotten a better sense of what the role should look like at early-stage companies. For those of you who are just starting a BD role, or are looking to land one at a startup, here’s a guide to what the role entails along with some skills and habits worth practicing if you’re to hoping to make it a career:
What Biz Dev Does
Make Growth Happen
Winning startups set aggressive growth goals. The best BD people do whatever it takes to help their team hit the numbers week after week. Sometimes this means getting out of the office and selling customers. Other times it can entail growth marketing tactics like cold-emailing reporters. While partnerships are certainly part of the equation, any successful early-stage BD person should be willing to wear multiple hats.
Test the Market
In the beginning of a company’s life, every member of the team is working towards product-market fit. Unlike engineering, whose job is tweaking the product, Biz Dev should be running experiments on the market. This can involve trying out a new pitch to a group of existing customers or seeking out an entirely new segment to test out the product.
“Unlike engineering, whose job is tweaking the product, Biz Dev should be running experiments on the market.” — Tweet This (link will let you edit)
Evangelize for the Customers
Someone on the team needs to advocate the customer during product and engineering discussions. Since BD folks often spend the most time getting feedback from the market, they need to be skilled at synthesizing and communicating insights to the team responsible for deciding the future direction of the product.
Build the Network
While everyone else is heads down building product, someone needs to devote time to building the company’s external network. This network allows the team to surface useful intelligence and opportunities, such as competitors raising rounds of funding or larger companies seeking potentially lucrative partnerships. When this role isn’t taken by the CEO, it’s up to the BD person to make those connections.
Sound like your dream job? Here are some skills you’ll want to start practicing:
Skills to Build
Be a Human Lie Detector
Learners often want to skip straight to the latest “sales hacks,” and overlook the most fundamental skill that any deal-closer can possess: reading people. Being able to interpret prospect’s facial expressions and body language, to get clues about what they want, is a BD practitioner’s most powerful tool.
To learn more about this, I’d recommend reading everything you can get your hands on by Paul Ekman.
Never Eat Alone
If I had to pick only one factor to predict the success of a BD hire, I’d use the strength of their network. Does this mean you should go out and try to connect with the next hundred people you find on Linkedin? Please don’t. A great network is built by years of delivering real value to a diverse group of influential people. If you want to learn how the pro’s do it, take a look at Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone.
Make them Meet with You
Working for a large company, it’s easy to get people to answer emails and agree to meetings. At a startup, you don’t have the luxury of a well-known brand. For early-stage BD folks, the ability to craft the enticing email or phone call that lands a meeting can be the difference between a closing your next funding round or closing up shop.
To get good at this, check out Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
Get Deals Done
At the end of the day, if you can’t close deals, everything else is a waste of energy. While you can certainly learn the basics from books (I’d recommend SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham) there’s no substitute for the real thing. So get out there and sell products. Sell your vision. Sell yourself (legally, of course).
Play Nice with Others
Why hasn’t engineering built that feature you requested? Why did your designer get so upset when you delivered that feedback? What separates the talented individual contributor from the true multiplier is the ability to understand and communicate effectively with other functional members of the company from engineers to designers to growth marketers.
If you’re looking to get serious and make the leap into a Sales or Biz Dev role, I highly recommend submitting an application to Tradecraft’s Sales & BD Track. You’ll get to work on real projects for real startups alongside cross-functional teams of marketers, engineers, and designers.
If you’ve got questions about Tradecraft or thoughts on early-stage BD, I’d love to connect.
