
The first 90 days of a partner program: what to build before you recruit anyone
Signing partners before the program exists is how you end up with logos and no revenue. What to have ready first.
Insights
Practical notes on building and scaling ISV partner channels in the mid-market ERP world.

Signing partners before the program exists is how you end up with logos and no revenue. What to have ready first.

Most stalled partner programs are a model problem. The partner was never going to sell the way the program assumed they would.

Same ISV playbook, three different partner cultures. What changes about recruiting and selling through each ecosystem.

Direct reps and VARs chasing the same accounts kills trust fast. Here's how to draw the line before it costs you a partner.

Partners can't sell around a bad deal structure. Before you blame recruitment or enablement, check whether the math works for the VAR.

When an ISV should hire channel leadership, when fractional wins, and the expensive middle path most founders take instead.

Partners don't sell for percentages, they sell for predictable money. How to design registration and margin so VARs fight for your deals instead of around them.

Publisher channel teams can fill an ISV's pipeline or ignore it entirely. What actually earns their attention, from someone who sat on that side.

Partners walk away from good products over 40-page agreements and certification gauntlets. What being easy to work with actually looks like.

Most ISV enablement is a portal nobody logs into. What VAR sales teams actually retain, and the one asset worth building first.

Signed partners who never source a deal aren't a channel. How ISVs actually get on a VAR's sell list, and why cold outreach keeps failing.

Most ISV partner programs don't fail because they picked the wrong partners. They fail because nobody treats the channel like real infrastructure. Here's the pattern I keep seeing, and what to check before you blame your partner list.