Startups, please don’t hire a biz dev person

This blog post demonstrates the oft-discussed problem: when is a startup no longer a startup? Uber and Airbnb are frequently referred to (in tech media as well as mainstream media) as "startups". Obviously this post isn't aimed at them, despite the expansive title. In the body of the post, the phrase "early stage startup" is used, which is of course much more limited.

It would be helpful if a litmus test were provided so that readers can figure out if they're in the target audience. After all, the author suggests that early stage startups should never hire a BD person, but obviously later-stage startups need to hire BD people. The reader is left scratching his/her head, wondering which side of the line he/she is on.

I was particularly interested in reading this article (based on the title) because my startup has several partnerships, and this is our primary avenue of growth. I was hoping to learn about what makes David/Goliath partnerships work (and not work) so that we could better target good partners/strategies. Hopefully there will be some good comments/examples here!