Business Development (BizDev)

“Biz Dev” is all about partnerships.

While the tech sales team are busy selling the product to customers, business development can often be found working with other companies to explore new ways they can potentially partner together. Once a partnership is proposed, the biz dev team will move on to negotiate and finalize any deals or contracts required, and then work through the implementation of the partnership.

So what does this look like in practice?

Building partnerships

I’m sure you’ve heard of the music streaming service Spotify, and many of you may also have heard of Shopify, an ecommerce platform with a name that is close enough to Spotify that the two are easily confused.

Recently the two companies announced a partnership that allows musicians to connect their Shopify stores to their Spotify profiles so they can sell merchandise to customers directly on Spotify.

This kind of partnership is exactly what business development teams are looking for: an arrangement with clear benefits to all parties involved. Musicians can sell more merchandise, Shopify can increase the sales that come through their ecommerce platform (along with the cut of revenue they take for the sales), and Spotify can provide musicians with a new way to make money via their platform.

Another example of the kind of partnership organized by a business development team would be two companies hosting an event or webinar together. While no money may exchange hands, if each company brings their respective audience to the joint-event then they will gain access to a new pool of potential customers, resulting in a mutually beneficial partnership.

Is BizDev right gor you?

Business development roles are very relationship focused, so it goes without saying that you’ll need to have excellent communication and networking skills to thrive in this role. In terms of education, employers tend to look for people with a bachelor’s degree, preferably in a subject like business and management.

Due to the nature of the work, you are likely to find business development roles in more established tech companies. They are often a great entry point into tech for people who come from more traditional professional business backgrounds, or have experience in roles that are heavy on relationships building and negotiation, like consulting or law.

Business development salaries

One thing to note is that while business development is a seperate role from sales, some sales positions will be advertised with business development titles. This can also make it difficult to find accurate salary statistics as the roles are often merged together, but the “partnership building” forms of BizDev that we have been discussing usually pay well, with salaries over $100k per year not uncommon to find within established tech companies.