Misconception on partnerships 'It's meant for big brands and not for startups'

To make the above headline resonate with you take these examples

1. Spotify and Discord have announced a partnership that will allow users to connect their Spotify accounts to Discord.

2. Flipkart and Myntra have announced a partnership that will see the two brands launch a new fashion label

Whether you have a big brand or a bootstrapping startup, partnerships/collaborations plays same role for all and I would even go to extent with my experience that it plays even bigger role for startups.

The following stats would make the above argument more sounding

Partnerships exceed the paid search by atleast 3x thereby saving marketing cost which is important for a startup.

82% of Indian Consumers in 2024 believe that they knew about a particular early stage brand/startup from one of their partner website.

These stats depicts that for a startups partnerships plays even more role.

With less capital to spend on marketing, the best strategy a startup come up with is to come under strategic partnership with another startup in the area where both gets mutually benefits.

Now the question arises if partnerships are so important why does a startups on anaverage tends to partner 7 time less frequent then an established company/brand.

Well the reason is very simple

Managing partners are major challenge

since the one with more gain is going to try to sugarcoat/butterup the one with lesser gain, In the end false promises, unrealistic expectation comes to play.

Not communicating directly

To your partner audience and vice-versa is something that limits the mutual benefits, sharing one's userdata is never a good strategy in any kind of partnership so sharing is the most valid and reasonable thing to do by both parties.

Rescheduling and Delaying of meeting

For discussing potencial partnerships.

Waiting for the right time

To make their startup to more bigger phase.

Almost 2/3 rd startups goes under by the time they get ready without any of the above hesitation.

So to all the readers even if your startup cannot provide much to the other party do not hesitate to ask as loyal customers are uncomparable with more customers.