A "big fish" wants to partner with you? Think twice

Big name = company or person who is already established and has authority on the market you are  just entering.

Back-story

First of all - who am I to debate this subject?

Several years ago I had my first (indirect) encounter with a ”big name” due to my dad's passion with
recumbent bikes and trikes - and they were a sensation on my country's roads. He used to travel a lot by trike - here is a link to the picture of one of the ”parades”. His latest (2nd or 3rd) acquisition was an orange trike and - because it magnetized people - a mobile phone service who had orange as its corporate color proposed him a partnership for promotion. The rules they imposed determined my dad to decline their request.

More recent stories occurred due to my involvement with Life Science Club (that started under the aegis of the lyceum I have recently graduated from, the Lyceum of Academy of Sciences of Moldova) and organizing  Kick @ss Party. Most collaborations ended because of the unreasonable or uncomfortable conditions imposed.


 Pros


  •  you will get instant credibility
    People tend to trust the ones who are working with a respected name. Alike the theorem of transitivity in mathematics, in real life it works for the respect and trust. Think about the latest hits: they may feature a duet of a new singer and an established one. The first benefits from the respect of the former - and the former views it as an opportunity to prove that (s)he is still in the game.
  •  you will be pressurized (both from the inside and the outside) to give your best and make the project remarkable
  • the promo will be priceless

Cons
  • you start to have very little power over your own project

    In short, you will have to play by their rules. This is the most important thing that make visionaries and freedom-lovers to withdraw from the idea of getting a big name to partner with them. When you have little power over your project, you cannot fully manage the outcome and make it resemble the image you have for it in your head or on paper.
  • you are accountable for each step you take - and that takes time and effort you could have focused on the results that matter.
  • you cannot experiment

    Most of the times, when you start something, you want to make it as flexible as you can. That way, if something doesn't work, you can change the course towards sunnier shores. But, if you have that big name by your side, you cannot change anything without permission. And that sucks, because you feel like a 3-year-old that should ask mommy and daddy for allowance.



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Pursuing your passion will not help you find a job

Cal Newport's advice on having a remarkable career is based mainly on the philosophy that passion will follow after you are really good in a field - and you should not try to find a career that you feel passion for in the first place - because longing and searching for a "dream job"  is meaningless - nothing will ever truly be a perfect fit - and it also can turn out to be not so rewarding as we might have thought.

He recommends instead:

1) deconstructing the field in which you are trying to achieve success:
*who are already the best out there?
*why did they succeed?
*how can you leverage your skills and knowledge to surpass them?

2) keeping a highly-focused approach to your work and ignoring the urge to have multiple projects at once.


There is one more question left - the most important one for me - which field to choose?

Unlike most high-performers, I didn't start early in life with something that could be the field I choose to specialize in for the rest of my life. Actually, I'm clueless about it - and strength finder tests are not helping much, and trying to figure it all by myself is painful as hell.



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Nicoleta Domnicu