You are a generalist. You need a specific subject matter expertise. What do you do? Go out and find a specialist who can support you. Next you form a strategic partnership. Then you suck the intellectual property/knowledge out of your partner so the next time you need that specialty, you can do it yourself. It happens everyday. Every place. Today, it seems to be the norm, not the exception.
Why is this happening? Because the generalist is normally from a larger organization with deeper pockets and they know that smaller specialists won’t take legal action to protect their creativity, their innovations, their intellectual property, their life blood. They do it because they can. They do it because respect for another’s rights are simply ignored.
Being a “strategic partner” used to be a positive. Today, it’s just a prelude to the creation of a new competitor.
Think twice when the offer is placed in front of you to “partner”. You might be better off in the long run without the incremental business revenue and have one less competitor.
