Partnership deals fall apart all the time. Companies sign agreements, shake hands, then wonder why nothing happens. Richard Achée has watched this pattern repeat itself countless times, but he’s also seen what works. After helping scale businesses and advising early-stage companies through successful exits to Google and other major players, he’s figured out what separates partnerships that last from ones that fizzle out.
Understanding What Partners Truly Need
Too many businesses approach partnerships as if they’re shopping at a store. They want to know what they can take rather than what they can build together. Achée runs Found42, where his team helps businesses figure out AI empowerment, working on automation, training, and baking AI into products for B2B SaaS companies. The partnerships that work follow a different playbook entirely. “It’s not about what you can get from them, but what you can build together,” Achée explains. Sounds simple, but most companies miss this completely. They pitch their features instead of understanding what the other side actually needs. The companies that get it right spend time figuring out what their potential partners are struggling with internally. Every company you want to partner with has different people pulling them in different directions. Sales teams care about hitting numbers, product managers need to fill gaps, executives want good stories to tell. Each group defines success differently, which means you need to give each one a reason to care about working with you.
Building Trust Across the Organization
The smartest partnership builders don’t just focus on whoever signs the contracts. They create allies throughout the organization who each have their own reasons to want the partnership to succeed. Take product managers, for example. They’re trying to build something complete, but they’ve got holes to fill. “You need to make sure that for product managers, you have APIs and the core features their products need—features that your solution addresses,” Achée notes. “You need to consider yourself sort of an extension of their product in many ways.” That’s what makes you essential instead of just convenient.
Sales teams think about partnerships totally differently. Every time they bring you into a customer conversation, they’re putting their reputation on the line. They’ve probably been burned before by partners who didn’t deliver or who made them look bad. “They need to be really confident that you’re going to deliver, show up reliably, and complement their overall narrative, not compete with them,” he explains.
Creating Distinction in Partnerships
Partner managers deal with dozens of companies trying to get their attention. Most of them sound exactly the same. Achée has been part of acquisitions that worked and others that didn’t, and the pattern is pretty clear. The companies that broke through had something nobody else could offer. “The two companies, Neverware and Cameo, that navigated their way through the process started by becoming a category of one,” he recalls from his direct experience with Google acquisitions. These weren’t necessarily the biggest or most funded companies. They just figured out how to be the only option for what they did. Creating that kind of distinction takes more than good marketing. “What are the one or two things that you fundamentally do differently that no one else does?” Achée asks. “Being able to articulate that very clearly is going to carve out your space in that partner ecosystem.” Most companies can’t answer this question clearly, which is why they get lost in the crowd.
Sharing Stories That Prove Value
C-level executives spend a lot of time on stages and in meetings talking about their company’s success. Generic case studies don’t cut it anymore. Everyone has happy customers and improved metrics. What gets executives excited are stories about integrated solutions that created something neither company could have built alone. “Those case studies can’t be a story just about their offering. It has to be about how their solution integrates with third-party partners,” Achée explains. When an executive can point to a specific customer who used both products together and got amazing results, that story sells itself. They’ll start pitching your solution for you without even thinking about it.
Achée gets asked about exit strategies a lot, but that’s not really what he’s discussing. “It may sound as if I’m describing a strategy to be acquired. And that’s not really what we’re discussing,” he clarifies. Building for an acquisition and building for long-term success often look similar, but the motivation matters. The better question is what would make you impossible to ignore as either a partner or an acquisition target. Companies that answer this question well end up in a good spot either way. “Even if that’s not your exit strategy, what you’ll do is you’ll end up building a much more robust, sustainable company, and you will become absolutely essential to the key companies that you need to work with to be successful and grow at scale.” The companies that master this approach don’t just survive market changes. They become the companies everyone else wants to work with.
Connect with Richard Achée on LinkedIn to learn more about creating partnerships that last.
