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How Joint Ventures Are The Future Of Technology

June 2, 2014

Posted by: John Maddox

How Joint Ventures Are The Future Of Technology

Let’s be real. It’s hard to design and develop a tech startup MVP. While at the same time determining revenue models and customer acquisition strategy just to get beta clients. In a previous post on intrapreneurship, we talked about how many major corporations are beginning to develop startups internally, rather than force team members to exit and take all the risk.

On the software development side of the table, we are actively looking for joint ventures to help accelerate intrapreneurship. As the Director of Startup Equity & Joint Ventures, a major part of my role here at DevDigital is looking for JVs that fit into our wheelhouse; while in the process of normal business development identify key opportunities to take an equity stake in startup concepts.

Why We View This As The Future Of Technology

Sure it’s great to have a lot of traditional clients. They certainly help pay the bills and grow the company. Without them we wouldn’t have considerable development bandwidth, and be able to tackle everything from normal websites to enterprise software. We have entire teams of developers specializing in PHP, .NET, Java, Objective C...the list goes on and on.

Long term, we are looking for joint ventures and equity stakes in startups for a very simple reason. Simultaneous discovery.

Many of you probably just thought…what??? Simultaneous discovery is why you’re interested in startups?

Let’s Dive Deeper

Time to pull back the curtain and think about this logically. As technology advances, the ability to solve problems quicker creates demand for solutions. This sparks ideas in more and more people...at the same time. Same problem. Same solution. He or she who get’s there first wins.

While at DevDigital we have serious experience in a variety of businesses, massive bandwidth for development, and connections in a plethora of industries, our ability to identify the demand for a solution is limited. We are experts in technology development. Not every possible industry. Can we determine a problem at the top level? Yes we can. Are we going to know the intricacies of every market? Of course not.

Now given enough time for research, we could determine the problem/solution and develop it. However, since that takes time...and it’s better to be faster, logic dictates it is much more efficient to create joint ventures with companies or experts in a particular field. By leveraging our collective talents and knowledge, the ability to create a better solution in half the time becomes possible.

Our Long Term Vision

As technology adoption grows, and cost shrinks, it is much smarter for us to take equity positions in startups and form joint ventures. Business logic dictates you must always look at both short term and long term objectives. By blending our business growth into traditional revenue and equity stakes, we provide ourselves the opportunity to achieve both short and long term wealth generation.

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