You can call shared interests believing your own BS or you can call them eating your own dog food. I like to think of it as having skin in the game, a phrase coined by Warren Buffet referring to a situation in which high-ranking insiders use their own money to buy stock in the company they are running. I use it in a much broader context and it’s something you should be looking for at every turn.
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I can’t tell you how many companies paraded into my office when I was in corporate life promising to solve issues we might be having with revenue generation, audience measurement, or dozens of other common problems. Many of the offerings were actually quite interesting although not yet deployed in the real world to any extent. If I was interested but skeptical, I’d usually make an offer somewhat akin to this:
I like your product but it’s awfully difficult for me to stroke out a check on something that is promising but unproven. So let’s do this. You provide the product and service as you say and I will pay you a much lower fee (or nothing!). However, if you deliver the results you say you will deliver, we’ll set up a success fee that will pay you more than you’re currently asking. In fact, if your numbers are right, you’ll earn double what you are charging.
In other words, I wanted them to have skin in the game. I wanted our interests to be perfectly aligned and I wanted there to be consequences for us both if we didn’t achieve what we set out to do. The reality is that you should always ask yourself who has what skin where because most businesses do their damnedest to avoid any sort of risk by putting in some skin. Sure, they pay lip-service to the notion of entrepreneurship but there are few who have put their money where their mouth is and invested into the tech ecosystem or directly into startups. Pay attention – much of the time the investment comes only after the product has proven itself or is a direct ripoff of something that’s already successful. I call this the second penguin strategy (you don’t want to be the first penguin that jumps in the water since there may be predators lurking).
If you’ve ever played cards, inevitably there is a kibitzer around. You know – the person who looks on and often offers unwanted advice or comment. They have no skin in the game. There are kibitzers in business too – you can find them writing for many trade publications – and you might even have some in your company as partners or clients or even employees. Not many companies took me up on my offer to make them more money. The few that did were fantastic partners and I still speak with some of the executives from those firms almost 20 years later. Having skin in the game made all the difference. What do you think?
Consult Keith 