The Founder to Fortune Podcast Why 99% of Partnerships Go Nowhere (and How to Build the 1% That Win)
Nov 11, 2025
Pankaj Dugar, an accomplished leader in enterprise software who shaped the Databricks partner ecosystem, shares his insights on partnership strategies. He reveals why most partnerships fail right after the press release and the need for clear incentives to engage sellers. Pankaj emphasizes the importance of pre-building technical integrations to minimize friction and enhance customer value. He also discusses the necessity of founder-led sales before achieving product-market fit and the crucial focus on solving less glamorous yet impactful integration challenges.
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Treat PRs As A Starting Gate
- Treat a partnership press release as the starting gate, not the finish line.
- Immediately map how the partnership helps partner sellers hit their quotas and act to enable that.
Remove Integration Friction First
- Do the technical integration work ahead of customer meetings to remove friction.
- Make the joint solution one-click simple so customers don't need extra engineering time.
Founders Should Lead Early Sales
- Use founder-led sales for the first set of enterprise customers and stay in those deals.
- Treat initial land deals as starting gates and focus intensely on customer success to enable upsell.