Scott Roberts

When I think of building my network as a servant leader, I think more about building the impact and value I can bring to others as opposed to expanding the network. I have an expression "feeding my network" which relates to both listening to and figuring out what people in my network are looking for, and then trying to match them with others in my network who can fulfill and support their needs.

On our Business Development team at LinkedIn, one of our team's core responsibilities is to deliver Industry Insights. We gather these based upon our focus on the industries and ecosystems that we operate within and the relationships that we maintain with leaders in our field. Because this is a core responsibility of the team, we ensure that those expectations are made clear to current and prospective team members as well as our stakeholders. We focus on providing ongoing updates that share not only what is happening in the industry around us, but also the so what, that is, what those insights means for our company.

When identifying prospective partners, it’s critical to look for companies that have a strong overlap in serving the same customers or users of your product or services, and/or offer complementary products or services that can augment and add more value to those offered by your company to customers or users. By first focusing on helping solve the jobs to be done for your customers or users via partnership, it can help clarify whether there is a basis for partnership. With this as a foundation, you can then move on to evaluate what a potential value exchange can be constructed with a partner.

Whether culture eats strategy for breakfast or not, the importance of culture within a company that is finding its way to product market fit and, ideally hypergrowth, cannot be overstated. The odds are stacked against startups being successful to begin with and navigating through the countless challenges facing these companies requires amazing commitment and teamwork. I have never seen this work without a clearly articulated and demonstrated culture and set of values. Much of LinkedIn's success as a company, as it emerged from fledgling startup to successful industry leader, can be attributed to its culture, one that was supported and defined by a clear mission, vision and a set of values in a very intentional way by a thoughtful group.

As an investor in many private companies, I have seen various approaches to providing updates for investors. The most effective approach I have seen is providing consistent and recurring updates that cover: high level status update against highest priorities and objectives, when appropriate, detailed metrics achieved against plans, and how investors can help the company. The most important thing is to set clear expectations about when updates will be provided (ideally quarterly) and make sure those updates are delivered. There is nothing more frustrating than receiving sporadic and inconsistent updates.

In addition to defining the scope and objectives, I would add to start a partnership on a very focused foundation. There is often great interest from partnership practitioners to create bespoke, strategic partnership. While this can make sense sometimes, an alternate approach is to start a partnership on a clear value proposition to serve joint customer or users that has sustainable value for both partners. Once the companies show that they can effectively work together, adding more elements to the partnership extends that partnership on an existing and successful track record of collaboration.