Deceit in startup land

There’s a lie that permeates startup culture and warps the perception of even the brightest founders, executives, and employees.

I call the lie — the instant scalability myth. It told people that success comes from instant scalability, and it’s been the cause of “thin” solutions where companies try to handle the narrowest slice of a problem and offer as little support as they can get away with.

The Instant Scalability Myth plays into a human’s desire to do little while reaping massive rewards.

Apply this to the partnerships world, and it shows up in the partnerships where people promise a lot and execute on very little, where there’s an obvious lack or mismatch in care.

If you’re going to build a business, and if you’re going to do partnerships, you’ve gotta care, and care isn’t scalable.

Read how one company is doing this right.

A better question than "will it scale?"

Pete doesn’t entertain that question at Databox. Instead, he encourages his team to ask the question, "How can we make it more scalable?”

Then, instead of killing TONS of ideas, you spur TONS of ideas.

The same applies to partnerships. As you seek to scale your Nearbound strategies, don’t start at the end; start with the first step.

Crawl before you walk before you run. Do the damn thing first! Find one partner you can go to market with. One Nearbound sales play to run. One event or content piece to do together. Nail it. Then repeat it. Then ask how to scale it.

Maybe a more clever way to word it is, nail it before you scale it.

Oh, and here are some cool ways that Pete makes things more scalable.

Quote of the Day

Everything in this business comes from how I see the world. It’s not about making money, it’s about making a difference. It’s not what you’ve done with your quarterly earnings report, it’s what you’ve done with your life. It takes a long-term commitment to care and doing things right.

– Harbinder Khera, CEO & Founder of Mindmatrix

If you ever find yourself taking shortcuts, recenter yourself on the real goal of business: to make a difference.

Caring isn’t hard when you realize the market rewards long-term commitments to solving problems fully.

Invite-only Nearbound par-tee 🤫 🎉

Recently I heard someone joke that HubSpot is partner-friendly all the way from the boardroom to the janitorial staff.

From what I can tell, it’s not really a joke.

In the past year, we’ve chatted with tons of HubSpot partners (and employees) and they have nothing but praise for the company and its leadership.

That’s why we’re excited to let you know about a special Reveal and HubSpot event to bring Nearbound to the green.

Less than 5 minutes from the official Inbound conference, it’s a night of toasts, mini-golf, drinks, great grub, and professional networking.

Let’s par-tee!

Request an invite here.

Request an invite!

Stuff you don’t want to miss!

• Today, August 21-23rd in Denver – Join us at Catalyst – Isaac, Jared, Ademola, and Will will be at Catalyst. Stop by the podcast booth, stop us in the event hall, or join us for impromptu interviews. Say hey, we’d love to meet you!
• September 7, 4-10 PM EST – INVITE-ONLY EVENT – Nearbound at Inbound – We’re partnering with HubSpot for some major fun on the green ⛳️. Only a 5-minute walk from HubSpot’s Inbound 2023 conference. VIP guest list. Toasts from industry leaders like Scott Brinker, Harbinder Khera, Tyler Calder, and more. Request an invite here.
• September 8, 12 PM EST - Game Changers: Isaac Morehouse — Isaac will join Oana Manolache to talk about how to use content creation to define a category. He’ll share the 3 elements to help you build brand awareness, drive pipeline, and unite your team. Register here.

How to make reading the PhD more scalable

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