Product & Startup Builder

Don't be distracted by great-sounding partnerships!

Added on by Chris Saad.

Distribution/go-to-market partners almost never work out the way you want. Incentives misalign, operationalization fails, days and months are spent figuring out the details.

Technology partnerships where you outsource large parts of your core experience to a 3rd party (particularly a b2c company!) introduce problems around roadmap, business model, IP ownership, and more

Instead, focus on...

a) Selling your own sh*t

b) Building your own sh*t

c) Customer/vendor relationships with proper b2b companies with discrete components

d) Affiliate partnerships with 3rd parties that can send you leads to your branded product and YOU own the customer

Everything else is likely to end up in a giant mess

For this reason, make sure your BizDev team is serving your product team's roadmap - not the other way around.