How to Build Partner Ecosystems

Over the last 10 years, I’ve built 2 startup partnerships programs to over $25M ARR. Here’s my 9 step process to successfully launch and grow your partnership program (with a limited budget): 1. Set Early Expectations This is non-negotiable. You must set expectations on timeline, budget, outcomes, everything. You should ideally do this in the interview process, but just do it as early as possible. 2. Build Internal Partnerships You’re going to need marketing, sales, product, and CS support to hit escape velocity. Start building those relationships and getting buy-in early (again, ideally in the interview process). 3. Create Process and Structure Early It doesn’t have to be deep or perfect. Start with something basic, document, and add to it over time. This will allow you to experiment and iterate quickly. 4. Track and Measure Everything (or as much as possible) Data is your biggest friend and will give you the ability to optimize for outcomes early and often. It starts with a good CRM setup and google sheets. This is the only way you scale lean. 5. Know Your Customers Learn who they are, what they need, and where you fit in their value ecosystem. This will help you identify who to partner with and why. 6. Find your Ideal Partner Profile Spending your limited bandwidth on the right partners is a critical prioritization. To do this you must understand your business’ strengths, weaknesses, customers, and ecosystem. Don’t be afraid to iterate on this as new data comes in. 7. Don’t Sleep on Partner Experience (PX) PX is every single interaction a partner has with your business. And a good one can quickly set you apart from competitors. It’s a lot of small things that can add up to a big difference in outcomes. 8. Always Think About “What’s in it for them?” Know all of the ways you could bring value to a partner, find out what each partner values, and align these for success. In the early days you won’t be able to offer much so be prepared to think outside the box and go the extra mile for partners. 9. Hit Your Numbers At the end of the day, Partnerships is a GTM strategy for revenue growth. You have to be ready to roll up your sleeves and do whatever needs to be done to hit the numbers you committed to. TAKEAWAY: Yes, this is a lot to do early on. But with Partnerships you don’t get to ease in and ramp. In fact, your leadership is probably already skeptical of partnerships’ ability to produce. You have to set a tone of action and build the foundation you’ll need 6-12 months down the line. So hit the ground running.

Partnership led growth is a theme I'm seeing in a lot of 2024 marketing strategies. And for good reason - it's an incredible growth lever for B2B businesses, but only IF they are willing to put in the time. Partnership led growth is like organic growth's hip fun cousin - it's a long game, not an overnight game. We launched our Certified Partner Program last quarter from the ground up. Here are a handful of recommendations I'd provide to anyone doing the same this year: 1) Know your business objective. What's the goal with this program? Are you looking to expand your product into a new market? Looking to drive bundling opportunities by attaching your product to another product? Know this, because without this you can't do the next requirement which is - 2) Know your ICP. Who is most likely to help you achieve number 1. 3) Know why your prospects should care. This is incredibly important when you're talking to prospective partners. Yes, some care about revenue share, but not all. Be mindful of who your audience is and what's most valuable to them. Better yet, build the program with them. 4) Be accessible and be consistent. Partner managers are sales people. You need to show up the same way a sales rep would. Be consistent, be accessible, and be valuable. 5) Set expectations. This is the basic of any partnership. Define what eligibility looks like, and have an up front conversation about how the partnership should be run. Do it FIRST during an exploration call, NOT after they've signed. 6) Invest in robust onboarding. Just do this. #partnershipmarketing #partnermarketing #marketing #b2bmarketing #b2b #b2bsaas

The right partnership can 10x your business growth. The wrong one can set you back years. My firm has had dozens of successful partners over the years. It's one of the reasons we've been in business for 20 years. We actually built our business early on through partnerships.  This got me thinking about how these partnerships are formed and why they succeed or fail. As a result, I've come up with five critical elements.  I'm sure more can be added, but if you can get these right, you're chances for a successful partnership go way up. 1. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 Don't chase brand names or surface-level synergies. Look for partners whose long-term vision matches yours. The best partnerships amplify both companies' strengths while filling critical gaps. 2. 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Excitement about the potential isn't enough. You need to define: • Specific goals and metrics • Resource commitments • Decision-making process • Exit scenarios 3. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁 Begin with a pilot project. Test the working relationship before going all-in. The most successful partnerships I've seen started with a 90-day trial period that proved the concept. 4. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 Share both wins and challenges openly. Regular check-ins aren't just about progress reports, they're about building relationships that survive tough times. 5. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 The best partnerships aren't 50-50. Both parties should feel they're getting more value than they're giving. That's when magic happens. A partnership is like a marriage. The courtship is easy. The long-term success depends on how well you handle the daily challenges. What's been your experience with business partnerships? Anything I'm missing?

Hear me out...what if we started treating our partner programs less like siloed one-way biz-dev functions and more like a community? I've had a few conversations this week about how to keep momentum, how to build differently, and how to engage at scale. My response: build your program like it's a community. Bring the ALL together. Think about it. Your "ecosystem" technically is a community, it's just not CONNECTED like a community. But what would happen if it was? A lot of things will happen (I've seen it work). When you bring ALL of your partners together like a community, whether it's in one general Slack community, a community portal like Circles, or something as simple as a monthly gathering (Nick Salvatoriello ran a great monthly meeting for all partners at Drift). You start to see something of a network effect within your ecosystem. When you pull them all together, like a community, here's what happens: 🔸 They start to learn from each other, what's working, what's not. How to do more within the partnership. We would highlight one partner a month and the work they were doing to show the other partners what great looked like. 🔸 They start to get to know each other and work with each other. Agency partners start talking to your tech partners and begin providing services to those tech partners and now thinking about how those integrations work more holistically to service the customer and drive more usage with the customer versus you just thinking singularly about your product. 🔸 Value rises in what you are building in your program. You're no longer standing there with your hand out, you're standing there inviting them into a community that has the potential to become a serious revenue driver for their business, as you would ideally be teaching them how to do more for the collective customer base. Chances are you're already doing some of the same things a community offers, you're just doing them in random acts of delivery or one-offs. A community offers: 🗳 Tactical training 🗳 A resource hub 🗳 Events 🗳 An opportunity to network and work with others. At a minimum, your program should already be delivering on these things. Go treat your partner program/ecosystem as a community and watch amazing things happen. Be Great. Be Arcadia 🐻