How decacorn companies leverage the partner flywheel effect to win

There's been a lot of discussion around the "Flywheel" effect of ecosystems and partnerships, but I haven't actually seen a visual on this to illustrate what it would look like.

Here's a visual I put together for you:

 This is anchored around these key phases:

1. In the prospect phase, you want to start by giving value. This build trust and gives the partner confidence to move forward with you.

There are numerous company case studies that are public around this including:

-Salesforce ($297B valuation) leads in many cases with their consulting partners to drive successful customer implementations.  (I know this well as I was a SFDC PRM customer multiple times and they always recommended a partner!)

And yes, I know they did $600M in professional services revenue, but considering they also did $7.79 billion in quarterly subscription revenue, where do you think a lot of the other services opportunity went?

Yup, you guessed it.  Partners. 

-ServiceNow ($158B valuation), Atlassian ($50B) and Hubspot ($31B) are other great public case studies as they have a robust ecosystem of consulting and implementation partners that is well documented.

Here's one way you can do this at your company: identify key segments of the market and/or professional services capabilities you cannot or do not want to deliver on and instead route those opportunities to your partners.

By the way - you could also do this with resellers!  For example, Cisco ($200B) and VMware ($61B) were both reseller led for 80%+ of their business, and this lead to a massive GTM partner ecosystem that drove the business with them.  I know this well as I worked at both companies.

So again, give first and that'll lead you into phase two...

2. In the partner market fit phase, you want to validate as quickly as possible that the partnership will be successful, and this is driven by customer wins together.

3. In the strategic phase, you want to accelerate that partnership with focus and proper resource allocation. One of the best ways to ensure you get executive alignment and buy in to allocate resources is to leverage this Partner Strategy template I built for you as well.  I've personally used it for CxO and board meetings at unicorns+decacorns over the 17 years and it's been a game changer. 

Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you on partnerships:

1. The Partner Strategy Deck Template:

I've easily spent 80+ hours building partner strategy decks for a single company.  I don't want you to have to go through that pain. This 80 slide template is critical to saving you a lot of time, helping you get clarity on your partner strategy, getting executive alignment for resource allocation and will help you improve time to revenue.  It's the same template I've been refining over the last 17 years and has been absolutely critical to helping me go from zero to $150m+ ARR.  There's a reason this is the #1 best selling template!  As a bonus, it now includes a video walk through too! 🚀 Get it here.

2. $150M PartnerOS Program - Learn the exact system I used to go from zero to $150M+ with partnerships at B2B tech companies like Box, Miro, Airtable, Optimizely and Toptal through (5) 1:1 coaching sessions with me. 1 spot left for this month!  Learn more here.

3. The Partner Sales Training Template: 

Have a training coming up where you're showcasing a partner in front of the sales team?

This deck is perfect for that. Over the last 17 years I've run 1,826 partner trainings across companies like Box, Miro, Airtable, Optimizely, Toptal, VMware and Cisco that led to $150M+ in SaaS partner revenue.

Leverage my pre-built template of 35 slides and save yourself hours of prep work.  This deck will help you crush it with your sales teams and lead to co-selling opportunities when executed well.  Get it here.

4. Partner Recruitment Template:

Recruit strategic partners faster to drive revenue. Join 900+ users who have used this template to accelerate partnerships. Leverage this template that I've personally used to recruit 1,479 partners over the last 17 years at companies like Miro, Airtable, Box, Toptal, Optimizely, VMware and Cisco. This includes Global Consulting Firms, Regional SIs, ISVs, Resellers, Referral Partners, Affiliates, Agencies and Solution Partners. Get it here.

5. The Partner Program template: I've personally reviewed 65 partner programs including companies like Box, Zoom, Docusign, Microsoft, Dell, Klaviyo, Hubspot, Atlassian, Miro, Airtable, Optimizely, Toptal, VMware, Cisco and many more and have put together this template to save you hours of ideation and iteration on potential partner programs. Leverage my pre-built template and save yourself 20+ hours of work and build a best in class partner program. Get it here.

6. Partnerships Dream Job Course: This 1 hour, self paced online course is perfect if you're looking to land a new job in partnerships and need help standing out from the crowd of resumes. It covers how to write an effective resume, how to revamp your LinkedIn profile, cover letters, email templates, interview prep and salary negotiation. I've personally coached 340+ clients and have helped them land interviews or jobs at companies like Amazon, Cisco, Dropbox, Patreon, Amplitude, Google, Stripe, Salesforce, Apple and more. Get it here.