Growth engine - Are you ready for a Partner/Reseller model?

A checklist to guide you when you think about a partner/reseller model

One of the most underused strategies, when you build an enterprise SaaS or PaaS startup, is working with others to help your growth. These other folks are called Partners or Resellers. I prefer working with Partners (indirect channel partners) because the expectation of Resellers usually means that they just sell and not add value.

This post covers the following:

1. Are you ready to bring on a Partner? - A simple checklist

2. Is the Partner going to help you with growth?

Are you ready to share the goodies? Here is a checklist

Let’s start with this PPP (Product, Price, Promotion) checklist to see whether it’s a good time to find a partner.

1. Do you have a productionized product that has delivered repeated value in the past?

   1. If it’s not hosted, can it be easily deployed?

   2. Is it easily integrated with other tools the prospect has?

   3. Is it customizable?

   4. Are the APIs documented well?

   5. Are there templates that your partner can bootstrap their use case with?

2. Is price optimized?

   1. With an indirect channel partner, can they make recurring revenue?

   2. Are your gross margins still working out after involving partner integration?

   3. Is the pricing made easy enough such that your Partner can communicate that easily internally to their decision-makers?

3. Is it promotion ready?

   1. Can your indirect channels understand the value proposition?

   2. Do you have a way to introduce an indirect channel to customers?

   3. How are you planning to do joint promotions?

What does your Partner bring to the table?

I think about the other three P’s for Partner. Practice, People, and Penetration.

1. Does the Partner have a delivery practice (in that vertical)?

   1. Can they come in and set clear direction and context within a customer’s landscape?

   2. Other than budgeting, and planning have they repeatedly shown success with clear accountability and metrics?

   3. Do they communicate obstacles, and challenges with your product implementation and plan and make changes accordingly? (A good indicator is they know how to create workarounds to help the customer tactically)

2. Does the Partner have skilled people on their staff?

   1. As part of different phases of their project, can they bring in staff who have the right experience to solve different problems?

   2. Can they scale up skilled staff depending on the demands of customers?

   3. Does the staff have a maniacal focus on making the customer delighted?

3. Does the Partner have a track record of penetrating and farming key accounts?

   1. Do they have a strong account fact sheet?

   2. Do they understand the economic values and know how to create a strategic engagement plan?

   3. Do they share war rooms with their key accounts for solving pressing issues?

   4. Do they plan to share with you different possibilities in the target accounts so that they can be well prepared for creating opportunities?

If you feel there are other items to make this checklist better, please reach out to me on linkedin