The 1% Collaboration Solution for Startups

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Cuban, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone, Lori Greiner.

Famous, successful, and wealthy entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who other entrepreneurs aspire to become.?

But, how to do it? How do you create the next unicorn (a unicorn is a startup company valued at over $1 billion)?

What You Need for a Successful Startup

There are four basic needs for a successful startup:

• A Big Idea
• Proof of Concept
• Funding
• Marketing

Of course, a Big Idea is key. In order to get funding, you need a Big Idea and a convincing proof of concept.

Moreover, you have to get the right Big Idea. If you get the Big Idea wrong, you could spend years you’ll never get back and tons of cash developing an idea that was “wrong from the start” (you just didn’t know it at the time).

So, how do you make sure you get the Big Idea right?

Collaborative Ecosystem of Advisors?

One way to do it is to build a collaborative ecosystem of advisors. A diverse group of smart, dedicated, and determined men and women with insights, ideas, and experience.

They will study the Big Idea, develop it, refine it and turn it into a winner.?

Having a collaborative ecosystem of advisors will ensure that you have the right Big Idea that is viable and attractive to the marketplace and will produce cash flow and revenue.?

There’s a book called Who, Not How, written by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. The authors contend entrepreneurs ask the wrong question all the time. When thinking about a new project, they will ask: "How do we do this?" Instead, they should ask, "Who can do this for us?"?

Their premise is an entrepreneur should locate experienced and knowledgeable people to work with to bring the entrepreneur’s vision to reality. If you think that way, all kinds of interesting ideas and collaborations become workable. This allows you to fulfill your project more fully and quickly than you could be going it alone.?

Here’s Where then 1% Collaboration for Startups Comes In

So always ask yourself, “Who can do this for us?”

The people that have the experience you want, need, and desire is far too expensive for you to hire. So how do you compensate them??

Sure, you could give them shares... but what does that look like? You would have to hire a team of lawyers, investment bankers, or business evaluation experts to create the documentation and contracts.

That is far too expensive for a startup that needs cash flow and has much more valuable things to spend its precious capital on.?

Not to mention, in the beginning, the company is worth $0, so there is no evaluation that makes shares worthwhile.?

Instead of going down that path, how about recruiting a team of advisors that work on the company and share 1% equity in the company??

This arrangement has definite benefits for the entrepreneur and the advisors:

Benefit to the entrepreneur:

-Taps into the skills advisors have developed over their lifetime;?

-No cash outlay; and

-The equivalent of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands in professional advice and experience.

Benefit to an advisor:

-Compensation method is simple and transparent;?

-Great potential upside; and

-Early stage so opportunity to provide massive value.

Why 1%?

Most startups go through at least three rounds of funding. By the fourth, they are considering going public.?

If a company gives away too much equity in the company in the early stages, that can have very serious and negative consequences. For instance, they can lose control of the company they created and dilute themselves.?

Sadly, many entrepreneurs don’t find out until later on what a mistake it was to give up too much equity.?

Conversely, with the 1% solution, it keeps the entrepreneur protected. And there will be sufficient equity to give to shareholders.?

There’s One More Factor

The other element necessary for your collaborative ecosystem of advisors is that there is an expectation of actual work product from each advisor. This means that no one is there just to lend ideas. While ideas are great, action is the only thing that can get a company to move and go forward.

A Case Study in a Collaborative Ecosystem of Advisors: Stories on the Blockchain

Here’s how every meeting of the collaborative ecosystem advisors for Stories on the Blockchain begins:

Welcome to the Stories on the Blockchain meeting.

We are in the promise that Stories live on forever. We are doing something that has never been done before, and something that could very well change the face of literature and stories and how they are handed down to the next generation forever.

We are a group based on getting things done. On ideas, but more importantly, action. The only way to make actual change is to make progress on the mission, and the mission of Stories on the Blockchain is for stories to live forever.

Cory Michael Sanchez is a co-founder of Mojo Global, an internet marketing agency based in Scottsdale, AZ.?

He is also the prime mover behind Stories on the Blockchain. He envisions an application that will help people tell the stories most important to them for their friends and families. Stories about a great parent, best friend, or teacher, surviving cancer or a car accident or overcoming obstacles in life.

Or any other story they want to save forever.?

He has gathered a collaborative ecosystem of advisors to bring Stories on the Blockchain to the market.?

Among the advisors are business and executive coaches, financial advisors and planners, authors, lawyers, marketing advisors, and techies.?

Cory and his collaborative ecosystem team are in the beginning stages of bringing Stories on the Blockchain to the market.?

“The power of a collaborative ecosystem is that it allows you to go to market faster, and with better intel, and more insights across multiple vantage points. This is critical in the nascent stages of a company. The best part is that Lois is a genius at putting a model that helps groups work together towards a common goal”. -Cory Sanchez

So the question now is, what impact can you make with a collaborative ecosystem?

Lois Sonstegard is the Chief Executive Officer of Build2morrow in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. She is a management consultant, executive coach, and advisor to C-suite-level executives. Lois is a vigorous proponent of collaboration in the business world. She sees it as a positive and necessary model of modern business. In fact, she acts as a neutral advisor to companies in collaboration ecosystems.?

If you would like to know more about collaboration ecosystems, call Lois at 952 200 6539 or visit her website here.?