How Embracing Cultural Nuances Led to a Successful Partnership with SoftBank

Yeah, so, um, the last, in the last 12 months, the, the most interesting thing that I've taken on is really, um, uh, combinations of, uh, doing it myself as well as working with the team. Um, I've not, I've never done this before. This is really working with the SoftBank team. Uh, as part of, so Petrom is actually a SoftBank investment company. Uh, so I was actually being tasked to go and help build the partnership uh between SoftBank Japan as well as Petron. So I took that on and led the efforts to build the partnerships between the two companies. Uh, and throughout that process, I had to learn what, um, how to build the partnerships between investment companies as well as Petron and how to generate results. Uh, one of the things that I learned very quickly was, uh, the, uh, the culture. is so different where I need to really pay full attention to how Japanese people make decisions and why they're quiet at certain times, but the net of it is that at the end of the, the SoftBank relationship, I was able to move forward and build that build that partnerships uh between the companies.

Yeah. So, uh, the, uh, the one very specific example was, um, in terms of negotiating the, so the partnership has to do with a reseller agreement that we were building with Soft Japan. So where they were going to sell the machine learning solutions that we were building here and resell in Japan. Uh, I've never done a reseller, uh, negotiations before. Um, and I've never looked at the, um, those types of contracts. So I had to start from scratch, really, um, Reading up on how I would, how I would do that, uh, talking with contacts of mine in the Silicon Valley who have built partnerships and relationships, especially from a reseller's perspective. Uh, what are some of the things I need to learn? For example, uh, what is the margin that I would need to provide to a reseller? Uh, what are the, uh, marketing support that I'll need to provide? Uh, what are the internal trainings, how it would motivate a partner's sales team to be able to, uh, sell our product because just because we, we signed an agreement doesn't mean that a sales team over there will be willing to pick it up and sell. Uh, so All of those different elements, I had to learn and go figure out and, uh, part of that was negotiating with Japan and another part is really talking with contacts here in the, in the valley who has done that before, where, where, where, where I learned to, uh, to do that, uh, uh, contractual negotiations.

OK. Uh, the most surprising thing, uh, this was partially, uh, um, this was partially a problem within the company itself, uh, uh, like Petrol, uh, because we didn't really have anyone who has done this before and the, the most surprising thing was how the leadership team was, uh, was wavering back and forth around the, the negotiation. So meaning that um there was a push from

my leadership team. So I, I, so I feel like I'm, I'm stepping into a trap that I set for myself as well because I don't want to bad mouth the, the, the, the Patreon team too much, but it was

Yeah, but the, but that, that was a problem where the CEO wanted to push forward, but at the same time, uh, because he never had experience with, uh, with partnerships before, he was also pulling back. So it was a back and forth. That was the biggest surprise because after presenting the business plan. And then the, uh, and then the, uh, and then the financial situations and then the negotiation results with Japan, uh, he would, he would, he had two minds about it. So I had to spend a lot of time, uh, working with the, with the CEO and educating him on what a partnership looks like, uh, even for Silicon Valley-based companies and then, uh, and then had to, so that was the biggest, biggest surprise for me, uh, really working with the leadership team and trying to educate them.

Uh, so the partnership, so the company actually had a new CEO that came in, uh, January of 2020, uh, which actually also the result of me leaving the company as well. Uh, when the CEO came in, uh, he decided that he wanted to change directions completely for the company. So he ended that relationship. He also refocused the company into an industry that was completely bogus. Uh, obviously I say this to you, but I won't say it to anyone else. He decided that he would focus on cement production companies instead of the wider usage of what ML can do. So, um, it was a big debate, but I think his position was he wants to find a new beachfront. Um, a beachfront that. Uh, I think he misunderstood the book Beachhead, uh, and therefore he said going for the cement industry is the way that you can build success. Uh, anyway, uh, that's, that's history now.