the analogy we always say is date before you get married. to the extent that you can start working with somebody, get a little feel for how it s going to be, pay them on a consulting basis or say, look, i m not prepared to commit to your involvement in this business. let s start working informally and see where it goes. that s always better than rushing to form a partnership really early. often times that doesn t end well. what do you think, stella? the very fact that the question s being asked means that the role this partner is going to play isn t defined. and the strength that they re going to balance out in the team isn t clear. if you re going to take someone on, make sure that they re a genius at something you re not and really contributing. also, your equity is the most valuable thing you have in a small business. so often small businesses are hand i handing it out for things like a website and logo. hold on to that for as long as you can until you really need a partner. s
same here. nice job, precious. thank you so much for your help with this. if any of you out there have a product or service and want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, send us an e-mail. your business@msnbc.com. please include a short summary of what your company does, how much money you re trying to raise and what you intend to do with the money. you never know. somebody out there watching the show might be interested in helping you. it s time now to answer some of your business questions. stella and micah are with us once again. the first one is from david. he writes i have a great product. and i had some partners in the beginning that didn t work out. i m the sole owner now and i am terrified to get more partners. i m growing fast and have been approach bid several people interested in a partnership. if i take on partners, what do i ask in return for my shares of the company? great question. what do you think, micah? i m f
little nervous in the pitch was it sort of felt like you were vp of manufacturing, vp of design, vp of sales. that is a little bit of the entrepreneur s job but you don t want to boil the ocean. you want to pick perhaps it s the design you really want to win at. you can either find a partner to help with the other stuff or find other stores to carry it and don t spend as much time on the web but pick what part you re going to really own and be really good at. and stella? great advice. i love the story that you created, from yourself. it s about you. you re representing 40 million other women. you set out the market size. just fantastic. what i want to hear is how are you going to set yourself apart from your competitors? what s going to happen when v victoria secret hears about serving curvy women? how are you going to continue and maintain your brand and really stand apart from them? would you guys, based on this pitch, knowing what more you want to know, take another meeting?
wonderful thing. many small businesses can benefit by opting into co-ops. let s find out a little bit more by turning to this week s board of directors. adam schwartz is the founder and principal of the cooperative way. micah rosenbloom is a partner at founder collective, a seed stage venture fn fund and stella gravant designs creative team building experiences. great to see all you guys. great to be here. adam, this is interesting. we were having a conversation for carpet one, part of this collective, you have to be carpet one. what if you have your own brand and you re being clobbered by the big guys and you want to get purchasing power, can you join a cooperative and not have to change the brand? some operate by having a shared brand and others operate by maintaining the local brand