Investment Firm Turns to Partnerships with Competitors to Grow Business

In 2009, business development expert Dan Page and a partner saw that many small businesses they encountered in the course of their work were not landing the vital funding they needed to take on more customers, add new employees, or pursue new opportunities.

Many were unbankable, meaning they had no assets to leverage, didn't have an adequate credit score, or didn't fit the requirements needed to pursue traditional funding.

The small business financing packages created by the U.S. federal government weren't helping because they were for larger "small" businesses—those with tens of millions of dollars in annual revenues, according to Page.

Page and his partner, who have financial backgrounds, started talking about how they might be able to help such businesses. Soon they came up with an idea and founded Funding Strategy Partners.

The challenge, then, was to get customers. Through partnerships with competitors the company landed 12 customers in just nine months.

Read the complete case study to learn how they did it.