What am I talking about?! Here’s what I mean, and I think you all know what I’m getting at. Your ‘team’ is more than your co-workers. Sure they are the core, but without the support of others, you’ll never experience the level of success you can. Here are my startup stories this week.

So who are these ‘others’? Here’s my Key 3 that can add kick-ass value to your business:

Investors As Team

We are so lucky to have Matt and Judy from Cloud Apps Capital Partners, our lead investors in our Series A round, in our corner. If it was just ‘money’, I would have decided to do a small friends and family round and grind it out. Done that twice before, and was OK going down that path again. But when I started talking to Matt & Judy early on about Dasheroo, and the focus of their new fund (early stage + business freemium) I got intrigued. Plus, from what I already knew of their incredible connections, strategic focus and just overall ‘goodness’ I was sold. And from the get-go, their ability to help guide our strategy, establish our go-to-market plan and help establish partnerships blows me away.

Advisors As Team

It drives me bonkers when I see advisors as just names or business eye candy - good-sounding & looking names and faces to pretty up your website, but not folks that will help drive your biz. (Nothing personal but when Sheryl Crow went on the board of GotMarketing back in the day, I figured Got’s days might be numbered.) You need to really vet these folks out; they should be rabid about helping your cause. We currently have 3 top-notch, Grade-A rock star advisors. Who are they? I’m leaving that for an upcoming press release in the next week or so, but ‘who’ they are is not that pertinent for this post. They just really made sense for us from their ability to add value now, and over the long term.

One is a very successful and well-respected entrepreneur in the SMB world, and impresses the hells out of us with his practical, real world recommendations on what apps we should connect with or how we should price our agency offering. We have an all-hands with him each month. The second one is…well if I was a VC groupie he’d be on my list! He’s going to provide so much advice on how to successfully scale our business, and what pitfalls we can avoid along the way. And the third…that’s a real special one to me and our team for reasons that will be obvious when we release our press release. Tons of advice on scaling our young guppy to become a whale. She’s built a successful SMB from 0 to 1,000,000 users. Hell, that insight is gonna come in handy since we want every business in the world to have a Dasheroo dashboard!

Friends As Team

Either get them to help spread your word to their networks, plug them for some advice now and then, or both! For instance, my buddy Dave was a huge help in figuring out whether we need to charge sales tax or not; he’d just gone through a similar process with his own company. It saved me a ton of time, money and stress. Another ‘friend as team’ moment? My friend Kim included a mention of and link to Dasheroo in her company newsletter that goes out to 100,000+ SMBs! Free awareness and dozens of signups that day. So, Work Your Friends. But always give back!

What’s your experience working with advisors to expand your presence and grow your biz? Let me know!