Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Nathan Parcells

This article is about how to bootstrap your way to cheap, impactful, and creative partnerships in general. I am going to use a recent success we had in making a high quality video for $150 to explain more.

So, if you are like most early-stage companies you have minimal resources and a long-back logged list of businesses partnership ideas (which you fully believe can benefit both you and the other company in a significant way). Whether your goal is advertising partnerships, content partnerships or something more creative, you are likely spinning around looking for people willing to get on board and help implement your vision. 

When trying to cut a deal you probably start by sending out some emails to key decision makers at a few choice companies. 

You wait, and don’t hear back. 

Not disheartened you send out a brief follow-up email to make sure your last one didn’t slip through the cracks. You get one response this time, with a half-interested request to send more information. You reply and ask to setup a phone meeting and don’t hear back again. The game continues for a month until you have shifted energies into a something new. Sound familiar?

A lot of entrepreneurs who start a company after working at some juggernaut like Microsoft or Google underestimate the challenges of getting a deal done, when your company has little to no brand recognition.

To be successful you need to be really resourceful and really persistent. Recently InternMatch partnered with one of Seattle’s top improv groups, Wing-It Theaters in an unusual partnership that lead to us getting a great video on the cheap.

Here are some steps that work worked for us in this deal and continue to do so whether the project is big or small.

Find a partner with the right fit:

There are many metrics of what the right fit may be, but to me nothing is more important than finding a partner company who is already working on a campaign that is similar to the one you are suggesting. When you suggest the idea, it will be instantly understandable and really easy to act on – they simply need to re-skin something they are already working on (low barrier to partnering!).

Second most important, is to make sure the target audience you are suggesting is a top priority of the partner. This means it will immediately solve one of their major needs. It also means whoever you are pitching the idea to will have a much easier time re-selling the idea to their boss and co-workers to get company-wide buy-in.

In the case of our video with Wing-It Theaters, many improv groups do only live shows, but Wing-It was already doing video work for companies making humorous videos. They also had a real interest in reaching college students so doing an improv video about a nightmare interview scenario was easy and solved one of their big advertising needs.

Call the person.

If you have found someone who is the right fit a call is in order. An email leaves unanswered questions, is easy to ignore, and is inherently prone to lag. When discussing a partnership there are a lot of questions (who, what, when, where and why). This means a lot of emails (if you go that route), and each one increases the odds of something falling through.  

A phone call on the other hand allows for a more nuanced conversation, an ability to shift focus to details when the time is right, and most importantly the ability to garner excitement on both sides (excitement is really critical when trying to do something on the cheap – they are doing this as a favor to you or because it will be a fun change of pace for them not for money so excitement must be maintained). 

How it worked for us: For a long time we wanted to make a movie mocking the often awkward interview process. I sent an email to Andrew McMasters, Director of Development at Wing-It, did not hear back so a week later I called him and we both laughed about the idea, discussed logistics and set a date for a month down the road to film.

Be Persistent

9 times out of 10 these longshot ideas fall through due to one of many reasons. Either it is just not the right fit, people are too busy, someone in the office gets wet feet, etc. But every now and then the fit is perfect and if you push those conversations forward the results can be powerful.

The end results for InternMatch?

A month later we hired a local filmographer (also on the cheap) went to the Wing-It offices and filmed a fantastic video that has garnered interest and links from a number of top media sites like Break.com.

Check it out at InternMatch.com/tigerteam and see what $150, a lot of persistence and some fresh ideas can get you!

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