Dear SaaStr: How Should I Get Our First Partner Program Going?

Dear SaaStr: How Should I Get Our First Partner Program Going?

Building a partner program is a long-term play.  Too many expect a material amount of revenue too quickly. It’s critical to approach it with the right expectations and structure.  But it really can play out.  40% of HubSpot’s and Shopify’s revenue comes from partners.  In the enterprise, most of ServiceNow’s revenue does.

Sell only direct and you’ll often fall way behind your competitors that do both.  Direct and indirect through partners.

Here’s how I’d break it down:

1. Start Small with a Pilot Program
   Begin with a handful of partners—ideally 5-10—that operate in adjacent ecosystems. These should be companies that complement your product and share a similar customer base. For example, at Adobe Sign, we started by integrating with Salesforce and Google Apps, which were natural fits for our target customers.

2. Hire a dedicated partnership manager from day one. This is not a part-time job, or something the founders can do here and there, at least not after the very early days.  This person’s sole focus should be on nurturing these relationships, facilitating co-marketing efforts, and tracking results. Treat this like a sales pipeline—track leads, co-selling efforts, and revenue generated from these partnership.

3. Define the Types of Partnerships You Need
   Enterprise partner programs typically fall into three categories:

   • Product Partners: These are integrations that make your product better. Think Slack’s bots or Salesforce’s AppExchange.
   • Distribution Partners: These partners help you sell, such as resellers or channel partners.
   • Ecosystem Partners: These are broader collaborations that help you build a presence in a larger ecosystem, like Stripe’s partnerships with financial institutions.

   Decide which of these is most critical to your business and focus there first.

4. Be API-First and Interoperable
   Enterprise customers expect seamless integrations. Make sure your product is API-friendly and AI-friendly and designed to work well with others. This is table stakes for building a partner ecosystem. If your product isn’t easy to integrate, you’ll struggle to attract partners.

5. Give First, Then Measure Everything
   Early on, focus on providing value to your partners. This could mean co-marketing efforts, training their teams, or even helping them close deals. But don’t forget to measure everything—track how much value you’re providing and how much you’re getting in return. This data will be critical when scaling your program.  Zendesk deferred monetizing its partner program for almost a decade.

6. Set Realistic Expectations
   Partnerships take time to deliver material revenue. It’s not a quick win. For example, Salesforce’s partner ecosystem didn’t become a major revenue driver until a decade after the company was founded. Shopify’s partner revenue grew from 8% in 2018 to 20% by 2020, but it took years of investment to get there ‌.

7. Expect your sales cycle to double when working with partners. It takes time to build trust, align incentives, and close deals together.

8. Build a Platform for Scale
   Once you’ve validated your partner program with a pilot, you’ll want to scale it. This means creating a formal partner portal, an app directory, and clear partner tiers. Treat your partner acquisition like a sales funnel—define stages, track progress in your CRM, and invest in partner enablement ‌3‌‌7‌.

9. Focus on High-Impact Partners
   Not all partners are created equal. Identify the 1-2 partners that are critical to your sales process—those that fill a major gap in your product or help close deals. These are your “high-affinity” partners, and they’ll likely drive the majority of your partner revenue.  They may even be relatively small in revenue, but with a very high overlap with your customer base.  But be cautious—over time, these partners may build the functionality themselves, so keep an eye on the relationship.

10. Make It Personal
    Show up.  Enterprise partnerships are built on trust and relationships. Spend time with your partners, communicate openly, and hold yourself accountable. When things go wrong—and they will—own it and work through it together. This level of transparency and commitment is what separates successful enterprise partnerships from the rest.  Events in particular work really well here.  Do lots of them.

Partnerships are a long game. They’re often critical for scaling to $100M+ ARR, but they rarely move the needle in the very early days. Be patient, invest in the right relationships, and build a program that’s designed to scale over time.

More here:

And how Gorgias got to 10,000+ SMB customers with partners here: