Most early-stage startups should not have a partnerships function

It’s tempting to launch “partnerships” early, especially when other companies in your space have done so. There's a lot of positive energy around early stage startups who want to collaborate with one enough to be force multiples. In practice, I find partnerships to be more of a distraction than a value add for early stage startups (pre ~Series C).

The issue is that partnerships means something different to everyone. Marketing thinks it’s co-branded content. Product thinks it’s integrations. Sales thinks it’s referral channels. And leadership might think its a magic silver bullet.

Instead, it usually ends up being:

• Loosely defined collaborations with unclear goals
• Unstructured "biz dev" conversations
• Co-branded articles or one pagers
• Relationship management that is completely detached from pipeline or revenue

What is often branded as "partnerships" would be more valuable if each aspect of it lived with the appropriate team and was measured against those teams KPIs. For instead:

• Sales owns channel partnerships and is measured by revenue generated
• Marketing owns co-marketing and is measured by MQLs generated
• Product owns technical integrations and is measured by implementation time

One practical takeaway: Before building out a partnerships function, ask: Where should this work actually live? If it maps to pipeline or qualified leads, give it to sales. If it’s about brand or reach, give it to marketing. If it’s about creating an integration, given it to product. Then, set real metrics and revisit them every quarter.