One of the words I'd recommend any entrepreneur to stay away from is 'exclusivity'.
I've often been asked by IT firms, ISPs, distributors etc. for 'exclusivity' to setup Skyrove Wi-Fi hotpots in certain regions or sectors. They often throw it in early in the discussions, I've always said no without beating about the bush, and never has it tarnished the relationship.
Besides for 'exclusivity' being a long, ugly English word reminding me of seedy gentleman's clubs, here are some of my reasons for not doing 'exclusivity' deals:
Firstly, exclusivity goes against our vision. The whole point of Skyrove is allowing ANYONE to start their own Wi-Fi hotspot and in this way earn an income while making broadband access more accessible and less expensive for more people.
Secondly, let's say you now have exclusivity in your region or sector: other companies that may want to resell our product are now forced to sell our competitors' solution. If instead they set up another Skyrove hotspot, we would gain customers signing up there. These customers can now also use your Skyrove hotspots, thus more income for you! Exclusivity has the effect of both of us losing customers.
Finally, exclusivity leads to mediocrity. If I gave you exclusivity, I'd want some form of exclusivity in return, e.g. you won't start selling one of our competitors' products. Without exclusivity, I have to work much harder to ensure Skyrove remains the best Wi-Fi billing & roaming service out there. Hard work you want me to keep on doing if you're selling my product. On your side, you can now relax a bit, because no-one else has the right to sell Skyrove in your region, except you. Both of us become mediocre. Because I'm not working so hard on my product anymore, and you're not working so hard on sales anymore, my competitors and your competitors now come in and take over the market.
When someone asks me for regional or sector exclusivity for Skyrove, I typically say: "Sure, but we would expect you to focus all your business activity exclusively on selling Skyrove". I say this as an obvious joke, but it puts to bed the notion of exclusivity pretty quickly, without me having to give the preceding harangue.
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2 comments:
Exclusivity is stoopid, literally... The smartest systems and companies these days are wide Open.
Lets look at it from a local perspective. What are your views on the atempt to rebrand the Geekdinner? I see a non tech company like Stormhoek sponsoring the beverages at the event as cool. No conflict of interest & free stuff. What if a tech startup does the same thing? Would that not prevent other startups from attending and sharing with the rest of us at Geekdinners? If you brand something TElkom would you expect Neotel to support it too?
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