This is really about enhancing Leadership team capabilities and creating the right organization culture to make it happen.

Let me begin by saying: The center of Leadership is about "influence"... and the center of influence is about "relationship".

It goes back to the relationship of Leadership team with employees at all levels in the organization which will motivate and inspire employees to "always do their best for the organization, even when no one is watching". To do that, you need to give them a BIG WHY that is really relevant to them.

The pace will be much better once, they feel motivated and empowered.

I enjoyed reading comments from other experts here which has provided good insights and perspectives. if I may add a little bit.. creating a high performance culture is a journey that I recommend you to work on for your business. the people in the organization needs to acknowledge that there is this problem. It can't be only you feeling the heat, but, others must also understand and acknowledge the situation. your ability to create a good dialogue with your stakeholders - to negotiate on your way forward is KEY. start with seperating people from problem. if you think people is the problem.. it is very hard to get a dialogue..

I also think you need a good break too.. and come back when you are ready. good luck!

Get partners and leverage on their network to grow your business - they could be an active member CIO network. When it comes to hiring people, embrace diversity of strength. try not to hire the same "type" of people to work in your business. this can be done by asking the right set of questions during interview.

1. You can try to work with mobile companies (Huawei, Samsung etc) which can preload your content to their smartphones.

2. You can work with telcos to push your contents and negotiate your revenue split with them.

I would recommend to have a growth head for large corporations to seriously looking into innovation to identify next sources of growth. The head of growth in large corporations required a different dynamic compared to startups in terms of scaling, the ability to execute change, maturity, systems. the key is to identify, type of growth required by the company if whether to grow aggressive, organic or just a specific new areas that you need to focus. Different type of growth required different skillset and dynamic to make it happen and ensure it is align with overall plan of a company. Specifically in financial sector, the head of growth is to do "industrial espionage" work or we called it as stalking. Stalking has been always been underrated strategy but it has proven it can be a great tool to succeed.

In terms of validation, there is no right or wrong.. phone or email is just a tool. i would prefer face to face interaction during targeted networking session.

preparation before you proceed with validation is important. start with potential client that you're comfortable with.

The easy part to ask questions.

The real work is
1. to define the right question to ask
2. establish a connection with potential client before you ask question.

I've seen many entrepreneur ask questions for validation.. end up not getting the real answer, because their respondents somehow not ready to answer it.

I hope this tip would be useful for you. Good luck.

Generally you can look for someone:

1) Who have the ability to motivate and inspire people to "want" to get things done.

2) Able to think strategically to crystallize on how to move your company from where you are to where you want to be.

After you've validated market demand. Another very important thing is to raise the "right amount' for your business.

Both yourself and partner may need to come up with the agreed calculation method to calculate the weightage of Contributions from both of you. The basic idea is to :

1. quantify both contributions
2. convert it to percentage

so you can determine the profit sharing.

Don't confuse yourself or the customer.
It goes back to your objective of the meeting. Different objectives may set different way and intonation of discussion. If your objective is to sell the solution, you may need to prepare the relevant sales kit. If you set the right expectation, it will be much easier for you to navigate the discussion.

For meeting senior executives, it is always good to know the company information, his profile, who is he in the company, what he have done or future projects.. but as our friend Jacob said.. Don't be intimidated by him or his position.

Cheers