Episode 2- Network Center

On this episode of From Idea to Done, Josh and Erick discuss Network Center and playing nice with your competitors. They talk about recently having made connections with the folks over at Network Center and share why it's beneficial to interact with the competition.

J/E: Hey Everyone, I'm Josh and I'm Erick

E: Today’s idea is playing nice with your competitors. Josh last month you spoke at the NVision conference can you give a brief overview of what you spoke about. 

J: Seven steps to startup success. We wanted to give an idea of how you can win by thinking like a startup.

E: What was interesting about this to me, was this was for network center’s conference. Can we talk a little about what network center does. 

J: Basically anything that has to do with computers or technology for your business they can help with. Everything from helpdesk and support to infrastructure design and implementation.  

E: This was interesting to me because they are competitors of ours. When we got there, we were chatting with my exact role at their company talking about a project we both bid. We ended up winning the contract, and everyone was actually really happy about it. It was kind of a very good weird conversation. This kind of takes us back to one of our core values and that is community. 

J: Yes I think we have a similar culture to Network Center’s that we don’t see each other as competition but that we are trying to do what is best for the customer. 

E: In all my sales various sales roles I have always considered no one as competition. It is up to me to find the right customer, and win their project. Then we have to crush it, so they don’t even listen to bids from other people for future projects. It’s as easy to say as that. Very tough to execute. 

J: It is, but it is also easier as we continue to define our niche as consulting and development for startups. Whether that is a true startup or just an existing business with a new idea they want to tackle. 

E: If I see one of our “competitors” I just did air quotes just as a heads up to people listening. If someone in our field wins a bid. Not finding the right person to be on that bid list, not not doing great enough work to even consider us is all on our team. A part of my role marketing too. If people don’t know about us, I need to do a better job of telling the story of our great work to everyone.  

J: Yeah it is all about brand awareness and understanding of what we do as a company. It is really easy to say here is the list of a hundred things that we can help you with, but at the end of the day it is confusing how a small team can fulfill against that. Doing things that others don’t such as this podcast or a random video series helps to differentiate us as a team and culture as much as anything.

E: I actually connected with their marketing person at the event. I said, we both have to market something as terribly unsexy as app and website development. I have a meeting with her next week, and we are going to chat strategies together. I am really excited about that. It all kind of goes back to our core value of community. I just wanted to thank network center for being like minded and open to collaboration. 

J: Absolutely, they have been great to get to know this last quarter and I imagine doing a lot more together as 2020 rolls on. 

E: Thank you for listening to this episode. If you know a startup that could use our random advice and thoughts have them subscribe and leave a review on iTunes.