Lunch with Former Competitor Shopping.com

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One important lesson I learned from my boss Gary Ervin at Shopzilla was respecting each and every person that I came into contact with through my role as the Director of Business Development, regardless of the size of the company the person inquiring represented. As Gary often emphasized, it’s often difficult to determine which small Internet company today will become the next Facebook!! Would I ever want to be the guy that turned away Myspace as a partner before they took of???

To expand on his point just a bit, I believe that you should always maintain great relationships with virtually everyone that you come into contact with throughout your career, since you never really know if today’s small fry will become the next industry heavyweight, your competitor today will become your employer tomorrow or your vendor today wil be the same guy you are pitching for business next year.

I made sure that I integrated this philosophy into my everyday interactions over the course of my tenure at Shopzilla since I came into contact with virtually hundreds of companies each month. Most of these companies were seeking distribution partnerships with Shopzilla, typically requesting access to our content of product level advertising feeds. Unfortunately, only 1% of all the companies that reached out fit the mold of what our team was looking for in a partner with most just not generating a large enough audience to warrant access to our content. However, I provided everyone that I spoke with an opportunity to “pitch” their company and treated each person I spoke to with the respect and dignity that they deserved. In fact I developed many close professional relationships with people that I actually never really did any business with through the process.

This basic philosophy leads me to an interesting lunch I had with Jim Barkow from Shopping.com this past week. Jim was joined by his business development colleague, Ben Leaverton. Jim had previously been my business development counter part at Looksmart, where we had worked together on a deal. We built a great working relationship together over the course of our discussion and negotiations. However, just prior to consumating our deal, Jim left for Shopzilla’s #1 competitor, Shopping.com to assume a role within their business development organization, making Jim, immediately effective, my direct competitor. Though we were competitors for nearly a years time, Jim responded to my most recent email distribution, suggesting that we get together for lunch and meet in person for the first time while in Los Angles.

I took Jim up on his offer this past Wednesday, and enjoyed our conversation very much. (And the sushi lunch at the very LA Katsuya restaurant in Brentwood.) As it turns out, Jim has a similar passion for entrepreneurship, having started a food company some number of years back and I believe will no doubt seek out an entrepreneurial opportunity at some point again over the course of his career. After speaking with Jim for over an 1 ½ , I knew that Jim understood the type of opportunity that I was looking for and he even offered to make some introductions within the start-up community in SF over the coming weeks.

Sure, I could have been distraught over the fact that a previous prospective partner left to a competitor only days before consumating a partnership. Instead, both Jim and I took the high road, maintaining a positive relationship over the past year, even as direct competitors. Of course, I am no longer a competitor of Jim’s, rather, we are compatriots in the world of entrepreneurship. By maintaining this relationship, I have created yet another bridge that at some point in my future, may bring me closer to my entrepreneurial dream.

June 17th, 2007