When you are just starting out, you have no email list, no social following, and no brand recognition. Building all of this from scratch takes years. But here is the thing: other companies already have audiences, and many of them are willing to share if you give them something valuable in return.
Partnerships are one of the most underused growth strategies for early-stage companies. While everyone else is grinding away on content marketing or burning money on ads, you can get in front of the right people by partnering with someone who already has their attention.
Finding the right partners
The best partners serve the same audience as you but sell something different. If you make a tool for managing design projects, a good partner might be a company that sells design assets or runs a community for designers. You are not competing with each other, but you have the same customers.
Look for companies that are roughly your size. Giant companies are hard to work with and have no incentive to help you. Tiny companies cannot offer much distribution. Someone at a similar stage has aligned incentives: you can both grow by helping each other.
Where do you find these companies? Start with tools your customers already use. Look at what is in their browser tabs, their tech stack, their bookmarks. These companies are already trusted by your target audience.
Check who is listed in the same directories and review sites as you. Look at who sponsors the same podcasts or events. Search for who is active in the same online communities. These are all signals that a company targets similar people.
What to actually propose
The key to successful partnership outreach is starting small. Nobody wants to commit to a big integration with a company they have never worked with. Start with something easy to say yes to.
Guest posts are a classic option. You write a useful article for their blog, they get free content, and you get exposure to their readers. This works best if you can offer genuinely helpful content, not just a thinly disguised pitch for your product.
Newsletter swaps are even simpler. You mention them to your subscribers, they mention you to theirs. This works if you both have email lists, even small ones.
Co-hosted webinars give you access to each other's audiences in a more personal way. Pick a topic relevant to both of your products and present it together. Each company promotes to their list, and you both get leads from the other's audience.
Shared case studies work when you have a mutual customer. Tell the story of how they use both products together. This creates content for both companies and shows potential customers that your products work well together.
How to reach out
When you contact a potential partner, make it about them, not you. Do not lead with what you want. Lead with what you can offer.
Research the company first. What content have they published recently? What are they promoting? How can you add value to what they are already doing?
A good outreach message might look like:
"Hey, I noticed you recently wrote about [topic]. We have some unique data on that from our customers that might make for a good follow-up post. Would you be interested in a guest post where I share those insights? No mention of our product unless it makes sense naturally."
This is offering value (unique data, free content) rather than asking for favors.
Building from small wins
Once you have done one small thing with a partner, the next thing is easier. A successful guest post can lead to a newsletter mention. That can lead to a joint webinar. That can eventually lead to a real integration where your products work together.
The mistake many people make is trying to skip to the big stuff immediately. They email a company and ask for an integration partnership when the other company has never heard of them. This almost never works.
Instead, think of partnerships as relationships that develop over time. Prove you are reliable with a small project. Show that working with you is easy and produces results. Then propose something bigger.
Why this beats other growth strategies
Partnerships have a few advantages over other ways to get customers.
The audience is pre-qualified. People on a partner's email list already trust them. When they recommend you, that trust transfers somewhat. This is very different from cold traffic that has never heard of either of you.
It costs time, not money. Running ads costs money every single day. Partnerships mainly cost time upfront, and a good relationship can keep producing results for months or years.
It builds your network. The more partners you have, the more introductions you get to other potential partners. Success compounds.
The downside is that partnerships take effort to maintain and require actual relationship building. If you are looking for something purely transactional, this is not it. But if you are willing to invest in relationships, the returns can be significant.