OK, this is coloured significantly because I’m currently working with a company in Canada, not strictly a start-up since they’ve been going 3 years (and not strictly working as I’m not getting paid, as Sam keeps reminding me 🙂 ). That time has been the founder boot-strapping his way towards the point where there’s a compelling business case to be made. So I’ve joined (informally at present) to round out the concept and put it into investor friendly format.
The link with productivity is that he’s in Toronto, I’m in Bristol and there are 5 hrs between us (which is why I’m writing this at 10pm just as he’s finishing his formal working day). We’ve just been working on an elevator pitch to be sent by email to a potential door opener that’ll get us a long way to the strategic partnerships that we’d like. What would have taken several days by email and I dread to think how much by mobile phone international dialling, was completed in a couple hours and document exchanges.
The fact that Skype is a free download, and broadband is a flat bundled cost, means neither of us think anything of pinging the other for a chat about whatever the current priority/crisis/wtf moment is. The 21C equivalent of leaning across the desk and tapping him on the shoulder for a chat over a coffee (Whittards‘ Co-op Libertad Heredia Valley, Costa Rica).
Now on to the other partnerships, raising finance, licensing, cash flow, finishing off the business plan, firming up the technical infrastructure………