Dealflow Triage

by Joey Tamer

www.joeytamer.com


Silicon Alley Reporter #24 Digital Coast Reporter #6


Boom times are beginning again. A critical mass of consumers now use the Internet. Thousands of grassroots start-ups are in development, writing business plans, and seeking funding. Established Internet companies are in the midst of high-powered strategic alliances and exit strategies through acquisitions or IPOs. Investors from seed capitalists to investment bankers are in play. Vice-presidents of business development are contacting one another daily. Content and community developers, portal sites, infrastructure companies and their attendant attorneys are busy.

We are starting up the ramp on the emerging technology cycle again (see Digital Coast Reporter, October 1998). The buzz increased its noise level in January of this year. The next couple of years -2000 and 2001- will be even more hyperactive, barring any widespread global financial crisis.

This is the good news. The bad news, contained in all this hyperactivity, is that individual dealflow (yours) can be lost, slowed, or killed if you cannot establish priority within the bandwidth and attention span of the dealmakers.

There are so many deals in development that simple deals between colleagues who have worked together before get trapped in this bandwidth overload. Valid deals get tabled and stalled. The CEOs and investors with whom I work ask only one thing from me: to extend their bandwidth in strategic thinking, negotiation, and dealmaking. Many complain that strategic alliances move smoothly for several weeks, and then the phone calls stop. It isnÕt from lack of interest; it's from lack of time, attention, bandwidth.

George Aposporos, Vice-President of Business Development at Amazon.com, says "In the Internet space, events are moving so quickly that business development executives are in a constant state of triage."

Your position within this triage can be leveraged.