Prototyping Partnerships

<p><strong>How do you make a friend?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you become lovers with someone?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you become business partners?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In RomComs, there’s a “meet-cute”...the hilarious and unlikely way two people in this topsy-turvy mixed-up world collide and fall madly, rapidly in love. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the real world, taking time and gradually testing, trying and yes, prototyping a relationship is ideal. In love, we call it dating. There’s no good word for “friend-dating”, especially when you’re doing it with someone of the same sex. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And with founding a company…where does the conversation start?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In this conversation, I sit down with Jane Portman and Benedikt Deicke, co-founders of Userlist, on how they connected through shared communities, and learned how each other really worked through real-world, previous projects.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">They also share their insights on setting the stage for both a long-term vision for building a company AND for a possible exit from a partnership through thoughtful conversations.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Userlist is a tool for sending behavior-based messages to SaaS customers and recently completed a pre-seed round with 21 angel inventors.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Benedikt is a software engineer from Germany who loves to plan, build, and grow web applications. He co-hosts the Slow And Steady Podcast and organizes the Femto Conference, a tiny conference for self-funded tech companies. J</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">ane is a leading UI/UX consultant specializing in web application design, and has been the host and founder of the  UI Breakfast podcast since 2014 (</span><a href= "https://uibreakfast.com/232-designing-conversations-with-daniel-stillman/"><span style