The other day I met up with the VP of Marketing of a startup that is a portfolio company of a client. He cut his teeth in business development while at Microsoft and clearly knows what he is doing. Under his watch, the startup company has blossomed, signing several revenue-generating deals with partners and meeting targets for customer sign-ups.

While I was impressed with the company’s progress, I didn’t say anything, but I guess my face gave it away. He grinned and pointed to a cartoon graphic he had created — a picture of the purple dinosaur Barney with a red circle-slash on top of it.

“No Barney Deals,” he said.

That is, he didn’t sign any partner deals where all it did was generate “I love you, you love me” press releases, with no financial or otherwise strategic gains for either party.

He is so right. I have seen so many startups fall into the trap of chasing after a “deal” with an industry giant, with nothing coming out of it except a press release and press coverage by industry rags. The VP of Marketing looks good because he’s got a stack of positive press coverage he can show off, the company looks good because it looks like it is gaining traction, and the industry giant looks good because it looks like it has partnered with a nimble startup for innovation. But in the end, nothing of any real substance comes out of it.

The reason this happens is that these “deals” aren’t business deals at all, but are just publicity opportunities for everyone. For business agreements to succeed, the terms of the deal need to be clearly specified — whether sales leads, actual sales, or a warm introduction to target customer(s).

No Barney Deals!

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