Ecosystems are the single most powerful driver of exponential growth. Software companies with a deeply integrated, diverse ecosystem of partners scale faster, develop more substantial market positions, and thus achieve superior enterprise valuations.
Our manifesto is for those who refuse to build incrementally and who refuse to waste time with a mere relationship-focused partnering approach. If you see an opportunity to create exponential, compounding value through building a partner ecosystem that defines market leadership - this newsletter is for you!
Hyperscale buzz
Partner-led growth, Ecosystem-led growth—buzzwords are the rage. (… and I do notice the self-irony here.) Whatever you want to name it, networks of partners drive scalable, defensible, and sustaining growth. Revenue leaders know this, in theory. However, building partnerships is hard.
Crane kicks in a street fight
Buying is time-consuming. Most buyers increasingly rely on peer reviews and vendor audits performed by partners. You confidently respond with multi-thread and MQAs. No one pitches like you, closing with your signature Karate Kid crane kick at the end, but your competitors’ Cobra Kai might leg-sweep you out of the room. Unless your company already has a thriving partner ecosystem, you’re probably just playing in your competitors’ backyard, which is to say, in their partner network.
Trust
We are asymptoting towards a world where AI augments, if not replaces, sales functions one by one. This includes pipeline gen, early customer touchpoints, CRM hygiene, and other back-office tasks. Chances are we won't recognise our sales motion in 5 years. AI will do a lot of great things. However, it cannot do trust, credibility, and a deep ecosystem of partnerships.
It's a forest, not a channel
Treating partnerships like a linear distribution ‘channel’ is as old as Windows 95 on twelve floppy disks; that is ‘Day of the Tentacle’ stuff. Your partner ecosystem isn’t just another sales motion. It’s a living, breathing forest—diverse, resilient, self-sustaining, and nearly impossible for competitors to uproot. A diverse partner ecosystem is a platform customers can’t afford to leave. Forests are resilient; channels dry up.
Monoculture is bananas
Monocultures are fragile; a single disease can wipe them out. The Gros Michel banana was the world’s dominant banana until the 1950s when a fungus wiped it out. We replaced it with the Cavendish banana, but guess what? A new strain of fungus is coming for that one, too. Forests thrive on diversity—different species, interconnected networks, and an ecosystem where every piece strengthens the whole. The strongest partner ecosystems include product partnerships, VARs, consulting partners, you name it. Not all partners will be sales-focused, but they can add value in other ways.
Substance over infotainment
It’s not how many partners, but how productive they are. Partner managers love activities, e.g., meetings, breakfasts, lunches, QBRs, and discovery calls. Some will talk about grandiose plans for the future. We all love grandiose plans on a slide; it's so comforting; it’s partner-business ASMR. This is infotainment; it’s the partner business equivalent of sitting at home watching a documentary where a gazelle escapes the fangs of a lion, after all. You are happy for the gazelle, of course, but it makes little to no difference in your life.
Momentum
In direct sales, the feedback loop is clear: You have to eventually close an opportunity, win or lose. If left unchecked, partnerships can fizzle along on your dashboard with little to no outcome for months. Newly minted partnerships must deliver their first opportunity within 30 days or risk irrelevance. Signed agreements are not pipeline, nor is a new partner logo added to a slide.
Spelunking for diamonds
The fact that 20% of your partners generate 80% of your partner revenue is a deadbeat horse. Don’t look for the 20% - find the 2%. Design and tailor your IPP to identify the best. Diligence throughout, are they ready to co-sell and motivated? Does this product partner cover an immense customer opportunity, or is it just a favour to a vocal SE with 2-3 deals in the pipeline needing a widget?
Persistence & commitment = compound interest
Partner Lifetime Value comes with persistence and commitment. Persistence builds trust. If partners can source $100k this year, they can potentially source $1m next year. Often, this is down to attitude rather than some technical skill. Follow-through delivery and resilience in the face of setbacks are hard traits to find. If you have them, you’re probably at the top of the crop.
Anti-fragility: no crisis goes to waste
Every partner team has war stories—it’s part of the game. Weak partner relationships collapse under pressure, while good ones use moments of truth to strengthen trust and alignment. Bad partners might threaten to pull out of a relationship, write emails to your CRO/CEO, or pressure your sales teams. Great partners worth strengthening do not finger-point. They facilitate problem-solving sessions and are proactive about committing to solutions. For them, it’s all about the long haul.
Flywheels & network effects
Partnerships are sometimes seen as a cost centre or a CRO side hustle. Some revenue leaders use Microsoft and SFDC daily, not realising that these empires are built on ecosystems in their own right. Strong partnerships are compounding revenue engines—they bring in new customers, create stickiness, and enhance competitive differentiation over time. Well-designed partnerships create recurring revenue and exponential market reach. Investments such as a co-marketing budget and co-sell incentives are needed to spin this flywheel.
FOMO
Wedging yourself into an existing ecosystem is more challenging than building one from scratch. Depending on the market structure, the best partners may already be overloaded with partnership requests: “This is great, but not for us at this moment.” or “I have 10 partner contracts in my inbox right now; why should I go with you?”
Think, how can I FOMO this? Create scarcity and urgency, e.g., showcase partner wins, design invite-only early incentives, or cap cohorts based on territory or segment?
Backoffice telenovela
Everyone loves drama, just not in partnerships. Partner managers must focus on revenue, not endless debates over attribution, credit, and compensation. Drama says more about the maturity of the partner programme than the individuals involved. Get friction out of the way early, e.g., eliminate grey areas in attribution, automate partner payments, auto-tag partner-sourced deals, remove bureaucratic partner approval processes, connect systems, and more. The RevOps team should be your ally.
We can all win
Channel conflict strikes again when keen partner managers notice missing deals at the Monday morning dashboard stage. What ensues are lengthy attribution discussions which don’t serve the customer or the business. Meanwhile, the deal goes closed lost. Granted, they may not be avoided entirely; attribution battles are lame. Don’t pit channels against each other; you will get more growth by aligning incentives between partner sellers and direct sales teams.
Solving the data problem first
The data point is obvious, and in our world of increased AI and automation, there is more data than most people can handle. Data is your friend, as it can solve the most typical partnership challenges: ROI and relevance of the partner business, partner-influence attribution, partner performance, partner commissions, CAC reduction, partner win rate, and joint customer engagement. In my client engagements, I tend to solve the data problem first, revealing plenty of low-hanging fruit that can be addressed immediately.
Challenge & iterate
Partner models constantly evolve into living organisms shaped by market forces, relationships, business advice, pain points unique to your business, and other factors. This is to say there is no perfect standardised answer. No one really ‘knows’ partnerships. This manifesto is a living document; any of the above points can and will evolve.
Join the movement
If you’re not tracking partner-driven revenue, start today. If your partnerships take forever to activate, build momentum. If your company doesn’t prioritise partnerships, demonstrate relevance now. The next billion-dollar SaaS companies will be ecosystem-first.