After building 3 partner programs Zero to One, and driving over $30M in partner-sourced ARR, these are the 9 non-negotiable steps I would take to launch and grow a partner program today:
1. Set expectations early
Timeline, budget, outcomes, all of it. Align on these in the interview process if you can. 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 their buy-in, early.
3. Create process and structure
It doesn't have to be deep or perfect. Start with something basic, document it, and add to it over time. This lets you experiment and iterate quickly.
4. Track and measure everything
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 spreadsheet to fill the gaps). I cannot overstate the importance of good data.
5. Know your customers
Learn who they are, what they need, and where you fit in their ecosystem. This will help you identify who to partner with and why.
6. Find your Ideal Partner Profile
Your bandwidth is limited. Spending it on the right partners is critical. Understand your business’ strengths, weaknesses, customers, and ecosystem. Iterate often as new data comes in.
7. Don't sleep on Partner Experience
PX is every single interaction a partner has with your business. A good one can quickly set you apart. It's a lot of small things that add up to a big difference in outcomes.
8. Always ask what's in it for them
Know all the ways you can bring value to a partner, find out what each one actually values, and align to that. In the early days you won't have much to offer so be prepared to go the extra mile and get creative.
9. Hit your numbers
Partnerships is a GTM strategy for revenue growth. Roll up your sleeves and do whatever it takes to hit the numbers you committed to.
Leadership is already skeptical.
You don't get to ease in.
You have to default to action while building the foundation for 6 to 12 months down the line.
Have a plan and hit the ground running.
This week on Partnerships Unlocked
Brad Smith on building a partnership channel from zero, and why he never shows up to an investor conversation empty-handed.
Brad Smith spent 15 years in the Atlanta startup world running RevOps at three companies, then founded and raised over $25M for his own business across three rounds. Today he leads Startup and Investor partnerships at Zapier, where he is building a brand-new channel from scratch inside a bootstrapped, 800-person company.
Brad joined me this week to break down what it actually takes to stand up a new channel. Here are the key takeaways:
Show up with data, not a discount. Investors do not care about your perks page on the first call. They care about their portfolio. Brad walks in with a readout of how much of the portfolio already uses Zapier, which companies get the most value, and who is adopting AI the fastest. That earns the second conversation.
Be a student, and ask directly. Brad opens every conversation admitting he is still learning the game, then asks the investor how they actually want to partner. Expect brutal honesty. You would rather hear “just give me a discount to distribute through my network” than get sugarcoated and guess.
Keep your peripheral vision on. Brad set out to build one channel and found a fourth. Executive communities like Pavilion and Operators Guild became core ICP he never planned for. Do not disqualify an inbound partner because they do not fit the mold. Every conversation is valuable.
Check your data before you check your ego. Brad once told an investor they had the highest product adoption he had ever seen. Then he realized his AI skill had not filtered out personal Gmail accounts and had counted a portfolio company’s free users. Rule one of AI: proofread your work before you present it.
Frequent, Annoying, Repeatable means automate it. Brad’s internal acronym is FAR. If a task is frequent, annoying, and repeatable, turn it into a skill. And when AI produces something good, save it and categorize it, or you will rebuild the same report next month. Keep your room clean in the AI era.
Partnerships is a business inside a business. Brad took this channel from zero to one the same way he fundraised for his startup. Founder’s mindset, but you still work cross-departmentally. His three favorite words now: “I don’t know.” Followed closely by “but I know someone who can help.”
Watch the full episode for the complete playbook from Brad.
You can’t lead with data you can’t trust.
Brad’s entire edge is walking into a conversation with a clean readout of what is really happening in a portfolio. That only works when the data underneath it holds up.
Most partner teams cannot do that on demand. Partner numbers live across two CRMs that do not talk, a pile of spreadsheets, and reports nobody saved. Even a former Salesforce admin like Brad got burned by a false positive because the underlying data was not clean.
So when a partner, an investor, or your own leadership asks what is actually happening in the program, the honest answer becomes “give me a few days to pull it together.” That is how deals stall, and how partner teams get treated as a cost center instead of a revenue engine.
POPS AI is the source of truth partner teams never had. Partner-sourced and partner-influenced revenue, pipeline, deal visibility, and program performance in one place, always current, ready to read out. DealFlow AI captures and attributes every lead automatically, whether it comes through Slack, email, or the portal, so the number you report today still holds up when someone asks about it next month.
Less spreadsheet. More conversations you walk into with the data already in hand.
Takeaway of the week
Your network gets you the meeting. The data you bring to it decides whether there is a second one.