This guest post was written by Mitch Rosich, a partner at Athenian Venture Partners.

I’ve worked with many IT companies over the course of my career. Between two decades of experience in product and engineering development and a decade in venture capital, I’ve experienced working with a variety of leaders, some more effective than others.

IT startups need a lot of positive ingredients to get off the ground, including a sustainable vision, focused and realistic goals and, perhaps most important, a deep management bench. Since it is just starting to build towards the future, the IT startup needs a leader with a set of attributes that can contribute to leading the company to success. In the startup stage, the company is constantly evolving and lessons are being learned, and the CEO must be able to show the way during this change, sink with the ship, or be cut loose so that the right leadership can steer clear of the perils being faced.

Based on working with dozens on C-level executives, here are some characteristics that I have identified that contribute to producing an effective IT startup CEO:

• Experience growing a small, preferably venture-backed, company
  The reality is that the skills needed in a large company don’t always translate into success at a small start-up. We have found situations where CEOs who operated effectively within the infrastructure of a large organization cannot manage within the fluidity of a more bare-boned organization. Conversely, CEOs with start-up experience tend to be more adaptable without an established framework already in place to ground them and guide them.
• Demonstrated execution ability
  A start-up is all about execution and getting to the end goal as quickly as possible. Some CEOs are strategic, and some are tactical.  A more strategic CEO may be able to look at the big picture, yet not be able to get from where they are at present to the end goal. This ability to execute plans is absolutely critical in a small company environment.
• Ability to attract and retain top talent, and experience leading such talent
  The saying “A managers attract A talent, and B managers attract C talent” is absolutely true. This takes knowledge and experience on the CEOs part, but also respect. Management teams want to work for CEOs whom they respect and admire. Certain CEOs have this reputation, and they draw others in. This is absolutely critical. In a small company, a CEO also has to be willing to pare down the poor performers. No one can ever be 100 percent perfect with hiring. While leadership respect is earned through good hires, others in the organization gain as much or more respect when ineffective employee situations are dealt with quickly and professionally.
• Vision and ability to adapt and change if the vision is off-target or market conditions change
  Plans are very rarely perfect the first time around. With a start-up, effective CEOs must have a unique vision, and see things that others don’t. They must be able to solve problems in unique ways. However, even visionaries are rarely 100 percent correct in what they perceive the market conditions to be, and what will drive customers to their product. A good CEO must listen to what his or her customers are saying, and accept that their vision may have to change and adapt to such customer-driven market conditions. In other words, the CEO must recognize the need to change, and be willing to change.
• Ethics, integrity, confidence and ability to earn trust and respect
  Small companies are inherently transparent – everyone sees what everyone else is doing, from top to bottom. Similar to ineffective job performance, questionable ethics and integrity also can’t be hidden from the rest of the team.  Because the expectation amongst most start-up employees is that everyone is working hard and fully committed to the company’s success, if integrity is compromised in any way – particularly by the top leader – the effect is more profound. Too often, the people with true integrity leave, and the ones without it stay – resulting in a corrupted culture often heading down the path of disaster. Sometimes VCs find out about this in diligence – for example, during document review in which ethical breaches by the prospective portfolio company are uncovered – which will most likely result in the VCs walking away from the deal.

Mitch Rosich began consulting for Athenian Venture Partners in 2000, joining the firm as a partner in the IT investment practice in 2002. In addition to a decade of technology venture capital experience, Rosich has over two decades of industry experience in product and engineering development, and in the management of 3 start-up technology companies, including Omnia, which Rosich and his team sold to CIENA for $498M. Rosich has been awarded 11 computer technology patents for software and hardware, 8 of which have been used in commercial applications. Currently, he represents Athenian as a director on the boards of Manta Media and Comet Solutions, and as an observer on the board of Sendio.

This is Part 4 of a four-part series about what you need to know about the entire value chain of doing business development and partnerships at a startup company. The posts are skewed for product integrations on third-party websites. Check out Part 3 to learn what you need to close a deal. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Boom! Deal closed. They signed the contract or began integration of your offering. Don’t take out the champagne just yet. You are not out of the woods (and probably will never be if you have a worthwhile business to steal).

Launching the partnership and managing the relationship may not be the most talked about part of the cycle but it is probably the most important.

Launching A Partnership

There are a few ways you can go about launching partnerships. If you are releasing new features, and have a few third-party integrations for the launch then it is worthwhile embargoing the announcement to a few outlets. Sometimes bigger outlets lead (WSJ, NYT, BW, Forbes, Fortune, CNN, Fast Company, Wired, etc) and get the post out a few minutes before. Other times you don’t have a major outlet leading but you have all the awesome people at Venturebeat, TC, Business Insider, Mashable, The Next Web, Pandodaily, Betabeat, The Verge, GigaOM, RRW, etc., release it at the same time.

I recommend going the embargoed route if you have multiple launch partners, this way you can give different stories to each outlet. Readers don’t like reading and press doesn’t like writing the same thing over and over. When I was at Aviary, we would write up stories on a whiteboard and then match up the appropriate outlets based on readership. I learned this from press-extraordinaire and Aviary co-founder, Michael Galpert.

If you don’t have a major feature announcement and only have one big partner coming on board, then it is worthwhile giving it as an exclusive to one major outlet. If you don’t have a major feature announcement and the partner isn’t a big one (which isn’t a bad thing, just a fact), then you should write a blog post, include them in the next blast out to your users, and share it on FB and Twitter. You should always promote integrations of your product, by helping expose partners to your user-base.

We’ve Launched, Now What?

Hopefully you’ve had a successful launch and the partner is very happy with the outcome. Now it’s time to make sure they continue to stay happy. Make sure your partner support is astounding! Listen to their feedback. If you have something worthwhile there will probably be a competitor vying for the same deal.

If your partner is talking to you and giving you feedback, listen! Take their feedback, comments, etc., and turn it into an improved solution for them. This will help you keep their business for the long run. Why would they switch to your competitor when they know you will listen and help them with any problem? They wouldn’t.

Don’t be afraid to give your partner some feedback on the integration. However, tread carefully. If their integration looks a bit off (i.e. they added an edit button with your photo editor but hid it under a drop-down), then try to show them the light as to how the integration can be improved.

Wrap Up

In these past four posts, I’ve written about identifying and connecting with companies, pitching and closing, and now launching and managing. These tips will definitely come in handy if you are getting started in the partnerships world. There is a lot more to learn and as I learn I will try my best to share any additional insights with you. Now go out there and close some deals.

Alex Taub leads business development and partnerships at Dwolla. He blogs at AlexsTechThoughts.com.

Photo via OneAustin/Flickr