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June 2025 Welcome back to First Chair 🚠: Your rundown on Vermont’s startup scene brought to you by your friends at VCET. Today’s gems:
💎 Relationships not transactions 💎 6th Hardware meetup 💎 Rylan Blowers on Start Here 💎 Jobs, jobs, & jobs |
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Relationships Not Transactions
“Wanna partner up on this?” Many of us hear this pitch in our professional lives frequently. Given resource constraints, finding great allies to share the efforts and objectives is really attractive. Heck, who doesn’t want to increase reach, spread the risk and share the costs around business objectives. But, while it almost always sounds good on the surface, it is often so uncertain to know up front whether a proposed “partnering” or “partnership” offer is a good deal for all involved. Over time, I have learned the hard way when a partner does not meet our expectations, and also where I have failed to meet my business partner’s expectations too. There is always room for reflection and improvement.
One enduring VCET strength is our choice to maintain a few strategic long term partners for a blend of strategy, program delivery, financial support, and targeted outcomes. Here are few ideas and rules that we try to follow:
Is this a transaction or a relationship being proposed? For example, being asked to partner as one of dozens of financial sponsors on an event or program is a transaction, not a strategic relationship. So, be candid and kind with the proposer and simply ask, “Do you primarily just want our money or mailing list? Or, is there something more being proposed that I am missing?”
True partners are not short term. No relationship is perfect from the start, so it takes time (even years) to align, execute and hit the marks desired. For us, we look at three year minimums for any new partnership. The first year you survive it, the second year you tune it and the third year you scale it.
Beware the takers. Conduct some due diligence prior to initiating a new partnership with that organization or its leaders. Do they typically “give” or “just take”? Ask yourself if these are folks you trust and could share rowing a boat with? Takers seldom change over time, and the promised benefits to you are not often realized. No one likes a one way street partner, and so we all need to be reminded to walk the walk ourselves too.
Select a few and commit. If you partner with everyone, everywhere and all at once then your organization is truly special to none of them. You risk dilution of your company’s brand and team’s time. Your unique value added to your partner is just too thinly spread as well. If a new partnership is not special and strategic, then pass. You’re better off being an annual event or initiative sponsor (i.e. $ transaction) versus pretending it is something more.
Hopefully, some of these insights and learnings are helpful. Lastly, to our kickass VCET partners, a heartfelt thank you for your enduring support, challenge and guidance. Truly, 1 +1 = 5.
-Dave |
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Special thanks to our incredible sponsors: |
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Burlington Hardware Meetup |
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Come hangout with us at DR Power! Pizza, Zero Gravity bevs, and hardware chats. Event Info Here |
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| Mastering Term Sheets
An investor, lawyer, and CEO talk about term sheets…together. You don’t want to miss this conversation. June 10th, 4:30-6pm @ VCET RSVP here. |
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LaunchVT Demo Night
Celebrate the 2025 LaunchVT cohort and their startups at their annual pitch competition! RSVP here. |
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| RISE Summit
“Research as a Public Good” ~ Join people from all sectors for vibrant discussions on this topic. Register for free here.
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NEW PERK: Fidelity Fidelity Private Shares is giving your company the opportunity to get exclusive access to offerings to support your company growth and fundraising.
➡️ 20% off any cap table plan ➡️ FREE private shares account ➡️ $500 fee waived for Fidelity Advantage 401(k)
Want to know more? |
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Business is blooming in WaterburyOn this episode of Vermont Edition, we’re talking about what’s going on in Waterbury. Jay Bellows of KORE Power, Mark Yardley of Cabot Hosiery Mills, Roger Clapp of Revitalizing Waterbury, Chad Miller of Verde Technologies, and David Bradbury of the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. |
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We have 5 rooms available for a small fee to support our mission. Capacity ranges from 4-12 people.
All rooms equipped with TV screen, adapters/cords, and white boards.
Perks: unlimited Brio coffee, tea, high speed internet, located in the heart of Downtown Burlington.
We require 7 days advance notice. |
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👏 OhMD launches Nia, a human-in-the-loop AI assistant.
🚁 Duke Energy Corporation received their first Airbus Helicopters equipped with GPMS Foresight MX HUMS.
🤖 Fluency helps Union Street Media’s ad team of two feel like a team of five. |
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Land Care Cooperative / Company Spotlight
Abe Collins, founder of Land Care Cooperative (LCC) and LandWEB, is on a mission to support farmers working to heal Vermont’s watersheds, soils, and biodiversity. LCC’s ultimate vision is to leave future generations with deep, healthy topsoil and resilient watersheds – not just in Vermont, but beyond. |
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Stories by VCET Marketing Associate, Blaise Siefer |
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Prefer to listen to stories? Check out our latest Start Here episodes  and don’t forget to follow, rate, review, and subscribe! |
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Growing high-paying jobs in the state of Vermont is central to VCET’s purpose. Check out these sweet gigs with some of our portfolio companies. |
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| Resonant Link Medical (Burlington) |
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Are you enjoying First Chair? Do you have a (kindly worded) suggestion for how to make it better? I’m all ears! 👉 nicole@vcet.co |
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Today’s newsletter was brought to you by Nicole. |
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