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What Does A Biz Dev Person Actually Do?

What Does A Biz Dev
Person Actually Do?

Theory of Business Development
According to the Grand Unified Theory of Business Development, Biz Dev is simply about pursuing opportunities for long-term growth from customers, markets, and relationships.  Sounds simple enough, but has anyone ever set out to describe what a “Biz Dev Person” actually does?  How do they spend their day?  What should you look for when hiring someone for a Biz Dev role?While Business Development may still mean many different things to many different people, at its core I believe a Biz Dev job is focused on 3 activities:
  • Customers: Find new ones and extract more value from current ones.
  • Markets: Figure out where new customers “live” (both geographically and in terms of "buying mindset") and find a way to reach them.
  • Relationships: Build and leverage relationships founded on trust and integrity to facilitate opportunities.

“Well,” you might say.  ”That sounds pretty straightforward.” Yes, it does sound that way.  In the simplest of terms, business development may be about figuring out how to sell more to customers or finding new customers to whom to sell.  But to suggest that “that’s all there is to it” is to suggest that running a marathon just requires putting one foot in front of the other for 26.2 miles.  Of course, training for and running a marathon requires a unique approach to making sure you don’t peter out before the finish line.  Similarly, business development requires a unique combination of skills to ensure that the value you derive from an opportunity persists for the long haul:

The Biz Dev Skillsets: Strategy, Sales, and Relationship Management

  • Strategy: How should you go about pursuing an opportunity?  How do you know which path is best?  Just because an opportunity is in front of you, doesn’t mean it’s a good one.  Understanding the fundamental drivers of your business, and the business of your customers, partners, and competitors is critical to being able to make wise decisions in the pursuit of long-term value.  Being able to assess an opportunity for its potential to create long-term value, determine the paths available to you to pursue it, and understand the trade-offs and risks of one path vs. another, are core Biz Dev functions.
  • Sales: Whether you're selling a product or the idea of a partnership, almost every business development role has some element of sales.  The process of navigating through an organization, identifying decision-makers and uncovering their unmet needs, and concisely demonstrating the value of what you can offer are core sales skills needed whether you're selling a product, service, or partnership.
  • Relationship Management: From How to Win Friends and Influence People to Never Eat Alone, much ink has been spilled on the importance and value of strong, respect-based relationships.  Business development requires not only having an expansive network to help you facilitate a deal, but also a deep understanding of how to build and maintain new relationships to leverage them when needed.  Relationships with partners, customers, colleagues, and even the media, can all be crucial factors in not only getting in the door to a biz dev opportunity but keeping it open.

“Wait a second,” you’re asking.  ”You forgot about partnerships?  Isn’t business development all about partnerships?”  In short, no, it's not. Partnerships are a common course to pursue a given business development opportunity, but they are but one option amongst many when evaluating the path to creating long-term value.  And though scouting, signing, and developing partnerships is an everyday task in many business development roles, the skills required for partnerships are really an amalgam of all other Biz Dev skills – a mix of sales, relationship management, and strategy.  As frequently as they arise in the day job of business development, partnerships are only one potential outcome of Biz Dev done right.

How Biz Dev Roles Change by Company Size

Do the role of business development change as a company matures from a startup to enterprise?  Yes and no.  In the early stages of any company, the role of business development is often left to the founder, CEO, or an early hire.  The role of forging partnership deals does take on an increased priority, as the decision of which potential path to pursue an opportunity often favors the sharing of resources that's incumbent in partnerships.  But the day-to-day activities of business development remains the same: at a startup or a large company alike, whoever plays the role of "biz dev guy/gal" must be constantly evaluating the best path to create long-term value, whether it an option built in-house or pursued in partnership with others.

At larger companies, the role of business development may be divided across a broader array of individuals.  Sure, teams of people with "Business Development" on their business cards may focus on the full spectrum of activities, from sourcing business development opportunities to evaluating the opportunity's potential to create long-term value and following through on the execution.  But just as often, the individual functions of the business development role may be split across an organization: a member of the sales team may source feedback from customers, who passes along an opportunity to create a new product to the Product Management team, who works with Finance to size and evaluate an opportunity and Operations to assess the resources needed to pursue it.  Perhaps none of those individuals consider themselves to be serving a "Business Development" function, but in total they are a collective BD team that seeks to create long-term value for their organization in very much the same way as an individual who plays every part.

Pure Biz Dev

In my view, a “pure” Biz Dev job will have some combination of all of the above skillsets – identifying and strategically assessing an opportunity to create long-term value and then executing on a path to pursue that value.  But whether you're playing Biz Dev as a team sport or an individual contributor, the interplay between Strategy, Sales, and Relationship Management informs the potential for a company's growth path.   Business Development is a function that is varied, complex, and exciting – although the nature of Biz Dev may be ambiguous to some,  the importance of the role should be clear to all.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Cryptocurrency BitConnect Breaks Records in Value and Market Cap

Cryptocurrency BitConnect Breaks Records in Value and Market Cap

CryptoCurrency's Record Growth

ASHFORD, United Kingdom, March 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — BitConnect Coin (BCC) has announced a new record high, in terms of value and market capitalization. The cryptocurrency's record growth, in a matter of few months, come as the development takes off with the introduction of a range of new apps and a bright outlook towards the future innovations in 2017.

BitConnect Coin (BCC) is an open source, peer-to-peer, community driven decentralized cryptocurrency that allows people to store, invest their wealth and even earn a substantial interest on the balance stored in the wallets. BitConnect Coin has only been a market currency since the 11th of January, 2017, but has already gained a significant global following. Starting from its conceptualization in the fourth quarter of 2016, BCC has just this week set a new record for value per coin and market capitalization.

According to the leading cryptocurrency market website CoinMarketCap, BCC breached the top 20 chart for alternative coins in total capitalization value. BCC's total market capitalization has surpassed the $10 million (USD) mark, to make it the fastest growing altcoin. This sharp increase in market cap has resulted in a matching growth in the coin's value, which passed the $2.00 mark at around the same time. BCC developers see the impressive growth rate as a very positive early sign. By comparison, even the most dominant and valuable cryptocurrency Bitcoin, took over two years to reach the same price.

BitConnect's Head of Development, Satao Nakamoto while describing the cryptocurrency's mission said, "BitConnect's mission is to provide crypto-education and multiple investment opportunities to empower people financially. There are many features and functions to come in 2017. BitConnect's mission is to become the leading crypto-community in the world when it comes to functionality and user base by the year 2020."

The official beta launch of BitConnect's application for Android and iOS mobile platforms will have a positive effect on BitConnect Coin, leading to a further increase in demand and price of the cryptocurrency. In the coming months, BCC will see more innovation, along with the addition of convenience features. The awaited developments in BCC ecosystem includes the launch of BCC Mining and Staking Pool that provides a way for the community to earn; BCC mining and minting rewards; brand new mobile and paper wallets; and BCC Smart Card to allow people use the cryptocurrency for daily use.

BitConnect Coin is designed to offer financial freedom to the masses by reducing if not eliminating the dependency on centralized banking and financial institutions. In addition, the cryptocurrency is also more secure than conventional financial instruments, eliminating the chances of identity theft and other issues that currently plague fiat based electronic payments infrastructure. BitConnect Coin offers a new level of empowerment to its community members. Members can connect socially and financially to a secure, protected community of investors and lenders. By connecting with the community, BCC users can increase the value of their coins in the wallets as the cryptocurrency's price increases.

In less than one year, the BitConnect online community has gained over 50,000 members around the world. It has also added a news department, engaged with online leaders like Kim Dotcom, successfully launched its own digital currency, added a proprietary Bitcoin wallet, launched an innovative global Bitcoin lending program, and surged from zero traffic to a top 100k Alexa ranking. BitConnect has become simply the world's fastest growing online Bitcoin community.

Coin Tech Specifications/Details

BitConnect Coin is a Script (PoW/PoS) consensus algorithm based cryptocurrency with a finite number of tokens. The total number of BCCs are limited to 28 million. The limited number tokens ensure constant appreciation of value in the light of ever increasing demand. The algorithms used on BCC protects the decentralized nature of the platform. BitConnect Coin facilitates quick transactions between wallets allowing people to make instant transactions between each other or to pay for goods or services. Unlike Bitcoin, the block generation time on BCC platform is 2 minutes. These features prevent transaction backlogs and at the same time also proves to be more rewarding during the PoW phase, where miners stand to receive a block reward of 10 BCCs.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

COSS.IO – Introducing Simplicity to Cryptocurrencies

COSS.IO: Introducing Simplicity to Cryptocurrencies

 

Simplicity to CryptoCurrencies

A crypto-one-stop-solution platform, COSS for short, is officially deployed in beta today. The platform merges the most popular cryptocurrency services, e.g. a wallet service, an exchange, a merchants’ platform, into a shared virtual space, in which cryptocurrency customers and merchants can meet and interact. Developed by an international team headquartered in Singapore under C.O.S.S. PTE LTD license, the COSS platform was first introduced as a final examination project that the CEO of the company, Rune Evensen presented to the committee of the MIT Fintech course in 2016. That was the first draft of a gigantic project that would hardly see the light of day, if it hadn’t received the support of the participants and the experts of the course.

A very thorough plan for COSS was designed shortly after the course finished, with the project kickoff scheduled for December 2016 followed by the testing phase in the beginning of the year 2017. Since then, layer by layer, the platform came to live. The developers’ team nicknamed COSS the “living” project, as it has no end-destination point and can last forever like the internet itself, with more and more startups being added with the time.

In February 2017 the white paper was published on coss.io homepage outlining the technical specifics of the platform. Having learned from the mistakes of the cryptocurrency pioneers such as bitcoin, the developers of COSS focused on the security of the platform and implemented the platform on top of the Ethereum blockchain. The main idea behind COSS is the creation of a single user-friendly ecosystem suitable for mass adoption and non-technical users, which would combine crypto and fiat currency services, available for customers with a single registered account all in one place.

"Redefining simplicity has been on our mind since day one, and we truly believe that COSS can make it a lot simpler for any average Joe out there to enter the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related products and services,". Upon its soft launch in beta, the COSS platform has an exchange with payment gateway/POS system running. In the nearest future, the following features will be setup: a crowdfunding tool, an ICO platform, 3rd party provider plugins, market cap and coin overviews, a blockchain forum, a remittance and a payment gateway.

The native currency of the COSS platform VEROS, is implemented as an Ethereum smart contract, which governs the validation, the distribution, the value and the ownership of the tokens. Apart from VEROS, the platform will support the most widely-used cryptocurrencies that customers will be able to convert to fiat via the COSS exchange service. A lot more features will be added to the platform during the next phase of development. "I would like to personally thank all the involved parties that have contributed endless hours to this project. Although we are just getting started, it is a huge MILESTONE for us to finally go live,"

About

COSS stands for Crypto-One-Stop-Solution and represents a platform which encompasses all features of a digital economic system based on cryptocurrency. The COSS system consists of website payments, seller tools, a marketplace, financial module, e-wallets, coin facilities and a mobile platform. The platform unifies the most popular crypto and fiat currency services, e.g. exchanges, payrolls, wallets, acquisitions, and transactions. VEROS is a secure and transparent cryptocurrency, launched in October 2016, and implemented on the Ethereum blockchain as a smart contract. VEROS is designed specifically for massive adoption and everyday use.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Ledger grabs $7 million for its cryptocurrency hardware wallets

Ledger grabs $7 million for its cryptocurrency hardware wallets

If your following CryptoCurrencies

Things are going incredibly well for Ledger these days. People find bitcoins, ethers, and other cryptocurrencies exciting again. And the French startup just raised a $7 million Series A round to make hardware security devices ubiquitous. MAIF Avenir, XAnge, Wicklow Capital, GDTRE, Libertus Capital, Digital Currency Group, The Whittemore Collection, Kima Ventures, BHB Network and Nicolas Pinto participated in today’s funding round.

If you’ve been following cryptocurrencies for a while, you know that you shouldn’t trust bitcoin and ethereum startups that centralize everything. There have been many hacks, there will be more hacks. And you don’t want to trust some startup’s security team when you can do it yourself. Sure, you can run your own bitcoin wallet on your computer. But hackers could still access your computer and your bitcoin wallet, so it’s still a point of failure.

Ledger makes hardware wallets for multiple currencies. These tiny devices have a secure element. You might not even realize it, but your smartphone also has a secure element to handle fingerprint readers or NFC payments, such as Apple Pay or Android Pay.

Ledger runs some tasks directly on the secure element, making it much more secure than running an app on your phone or your computer exclusively. This way, you can easily protect your bitcoins without a lot of security knowledge. Nobody can access the private keys on the device. And the device constantly checks the integrity of the firmware.

The company also makes sure that nobody can compromise the device during the manufacturing process. “When we manufacture the devices, all chips receive a Ledger certificate,” co-founder and CEO Eric Larchevêque told me. “When the device boots up, the computer sends a security challenge and the device answers.”

The Ledger Nano S is the company’s most popular device. It’s the size of a USB key and has a tiny display. After initiating a transaction from your computer, you’ll have to confirm the transaction on the device itself and enter your PIN code. This way, even if your computer has been compromised, the transaction order won’t go through on the device and you won’t be able to confirm the transaction.

The company also makes a high-end device with a built-in touch screen called the Ledger Blue. The Ledger Nano S costs around €70 while the Blue costs €275. Ledger has sold more than 50,000 wallets so far, and the last few months have beat the company’s expectations by a wide margin. But cryptocurrency wallets are just the first step.

By running a secure operating system on a secure element, there are other potential applications. For instance, Ledger could sell chips so that companies working in sensitive industries can make sure their servers weren’t compromised. You can imagine hedge funds and financial institutions using Ledger products. Energy suppliers could also use Ledger’s technology to make sure that the consumption level is legit. That’s why the company is raising money to go beyond hardware wallets and find those industrial clients.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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