At Companyon Ventures, we know partnerships can make or break a B2B startup’s growth trajectory. For our September Lunch & Learn, we asked John Stetic, CPO at Ziflow and Companyon Venture Partner, to bring together a panel of seasoned product and partnership leaders to share what it really takes to accelerate growth through partner strategies.

Moderated by John Stetic (CPO at Ziflow, former Oracle Marketing Cloud exec, and Companyon Venture Partner), the panel included:

• Brian Collins — Former VP Product at Salesforce; led Demandware through a $2.8B acquisition; now CPO at AcuityMD

• Olga Lykova — Head of Partnerships, North America at monday.com; ex-Salesforce ecosystem and hyperscalers (Google, AWS, Azure)

• Brent Nixon — Ex-Workfront alliances leader; later Chief Ecosystem Officer at Reputation; SVP at JumpSeat

Here are the biggest takeaways from the session:

What Makes a Good Partner?

Olga was blunt: a good partner closes a gap. It might be a missing feature, a service capability, or credibility with buyers. She used the  monday.com + Ziflow partnership as a great example of a good partnership.  It works because creative operations teams need both project management and proofing. Together, the partnership offers a whole solution to their joint customers,  solving a critical and easily identifiable problem.

👉 Her advice: keep it simple. Don’t lead with features. Lead with the one business problem you solve better together.

Should You Go After Global SIs?

Brent warned founders not to get starry-eyed about Accenture or Deloitte too early. GSIs only move when there’s big services revenue on the table and large enterprises are already demanding solutions in your category.

For startups, the smarter play is usually smaller, regional SIs who know your space. At Workfront, Brent’s team found success by attaching to Adobe’s ecosystem and becoming a differentiator. Over time, GSIs adopted Workfront not because of Workfront itself, but because it made Adobe’s pitch more compelling.

Embedding Into Another ISV’s Product

Brian shared a reality check. Embedding your product into another ISV’s platform sounds exciting, but it’s often a distraction. 

👉 The risks: lock-in to their roadmap and high dev costs if their platform isn’t designed for extensibility.

The only time it makes sense is when the ISV has already built a strong embedding framework and there’s real strategic value for both sides. Otherwise, approach with caution in the early days, and in all cases ensure there is a clear path to guaranteed revenue .

How to Get a Partner’s Sales Team Engaged

Everyone wants their partner’s sales team to promote their product. 

👉 Brent broke it down: you may or may not be able to pay commissions, depending on the partner’s rules. But the real unlock is joint customer value.

At Workfront, deals with partner influence had nearly double the average selling price and close rate. With those numbers, it was easy to justify comp models internally and get sales leaders on board.

John added that sometimes you simply can’t comp partners. In those cases, your product has to make their deals more winnable. Solve a joint customer pain so well that sellers can’t ignore you.

Co-Marketing Hacks for Early Wins

Olga’s playbook: don’t wait for a Fortune 500 logo. Take the first win you can get, regardless of customer size, and amplify it.

In a prior role, when she partnered with Google, the first joint customer was a small real estate company in Amsterdam. It wasn’t a household name, but it proved the value of the partnership and became the wedge for expansion.

👉 Olga emphasized internal marketing: share every partner-influenced win within your organization in simple bullet points. That internal repetition creates awareness and momentum just as powerful as external marketing.

What Larger ISVs Really Want

👉 Olga cut through the noise: larger ISVs want to solve a buyer’s business challenge more completely. If your product fills a gap that makes their core offering stickier, you’re in.

Building for Partnership in Product

👉 John highlighted a few critical product considerations:

• Integrations: Decide between deep native builds or broad coverage with iPaaS.

• Instrumentation: Don’t lose visibility into user behavior in embedded scenarios.

• Unified UX: Work to towards support, docs, and onboarding that feel seamless across both products.

• Enablement: Post-signature, your real work begins—train the partner’s sales, marketing, and support teams continuously.

Deal Terms and Margins

👉 Brent reminded founders that SIs care about services revenue. If your product alone can’t generate millions in services, position it as a differentiator in a bigger platform’s offering.

On margins, be flexible early. Double compensation models—where both your team and the partner get paid—can seem expensive, but the overall cost of sale is often lower with partner-influenced deals.

Founder Takeaways

1. Start small. Nail a few partnerships that close obvious customer gaps before chasing GSIs.

2. Be prescriptive. Don’t ask partners how they want to work—come with a plan they can edit.

3. Market internally. Celebrate and circulate partner wins inside your org and theirs.

4. Build for extensibility. Invest early in APIs, then build from there easy embeddable components.

5. Measure ROI. Use ASP, close rate, and retention data to prove value and guide investment.

6. Don’t assume a partner cares about your success. Align with the partner’s economic model, not just your vision.

👉 Partnerships aren’t shortcuts. They’re multipliers. Founders who succeed in partner-led growth are the ones who align incentives, close customer gaps, and build the infrastructure to scale with partners. 

If you’re building a partner strategy, this is a must-watch: Watch the Full Video Session