⚡️ Discover how PARTNERSHIPS can postively impact your business growth - 

Download your copy now ⚡️
Sharkdom logo
Blog

How 14 SAAS companies get their first 20 partners

How 14 SAAS companies get their first 20 partners

Book-Demo
Victor Pecker

Victor Pecker

Feb 1, 2025

4 minutes

How 14 SAAS companies get their first 20 partners

Before you dive in any further on how to enable more partnerships in sharkdom, keep one thing clear, having more partnership is not the right metric to measure your brand's growth coming from your partnered brands, YES you may say that your chances of growth and sales are more if you have reliable channel partners but it all depends on quality of partnerships rather then mere numbers.

📌Use a Partner marketplace

Nityam from cloudyali shares how identifying the right partners early on helped shape their program. They first invited a small group of “testing partners”—existing customers, industry connections and close network members. This provided valuable feedback and allowed for improvements before a full-scale launch.

After refining the program, they expanded to a larger pool of satisfied customers and joined Sharkdom's Marketplace—a move that proved to be a game-changer.

“The marketplace brought in a steady flow of partners,” says Nityam. “In just one month, we surpassed 20 new partners—and the numbers keep growing!”

📌Keeping Partners Engaged: More Challenging Than onboarding Them

Securing 20 partners is a milestone, but keeping them engaged is just as tough, says Mrs. Garima. To maintain relationships, his team launched a Partner Listing page, offering visibility and backlinks to partners—an early yet effective engagement strategy.

Initially, one can focused on a reseller model. For agencies wanted service growth opportunities. developing a playbook that help agencies expand their revenue through retainer services built around their product is good way.
You can read more about 'proven strategies to engage your partners' here.

📌Do not get overboard with Automation

A report shows 79% of B2B companies use marketing automation, but successful partner programs rely on human connection as well no matter how much automation a platform does in case of partnership having minimal interaction is must.

Siddharth of CalenderFix attributes their success to hiring a dedicated partner relations manager early on. Similarly, John of Adaapt AI emphasizes the importance of personal relationships in reseller programs, distinguishing them from automated affiliate models.

While some automation is helpful, John believes manual vetting and direct outreach are essential for building strong, long-term partnerships. This hands-on approach fosters trust, quality partnerships and valuable word-of-mouth referrals.

📌Proactive Partner Recruitment: Go Beyond Inbound Strategies

Finding the right partners isn’t just about waiting for applications—it requires a strategic, multi-channel approach.

Most of the companies listed in sharkdom have achieved success from first identifying partner pain points and unique advantages (beyond financial incentives).
Using a mix of:
✅ Relevant blog content to attract agency partners
✅ Organic & paid social media to reach the right audience
✅ Events, LinkedIn outreach, and targeted cold calls to directly connect with potential partners

Radhika of labsity agrees that actively headhunting partners is key. Her team sent personalized mail to ideal companies, followed by multi-platform outreach (email, Facebook Messenger, and text) to maximize response rates.

Nityam took a dual-approach:
1️⃣ Referral Partners – Grew organically from existing customers who wanted to promote monday.com.
2️⃣ Resellers – Actively sought out industry leaders in different regions to build a strong reseller network.

Radhika emphasizes that simply adding a "Join Our Partner Program" form on their website brought in a flood of applications—even without promotion.

📌Nailing the Onboarding Process: Turning Interested Companies into Committed Partners

You’ve caught the attention of SaaS companies and they’re clicking “Enquire for Partnership”—now, don’t lose them at the finish line!

Think of having your first 20 partners to a fun, game-like onboarding process. You can add tiers and levels to reward referrals, making participation engaging and motivating.

structured onboarding is key.
Kickoff calls to establish goals
Co-marketing efforts like press releases
Joint Slack channels for seamless communication

A smooth onboarding experience sets the foundation for long-term, active partnerships—so make it count!

📌Give Partners a Clear Reason to Join Your Program

Why should someone join your partner program? The answer should be everywhere—on your sign-up form, info page, and onboarding emails—because people need a compelling incentive to take action.

Your general approach should be:
✅ No approval process – Making it easy to join
✅ Lifetime 30% commission – Ensuring consistent earnings
✅ Monthly & annual billing cycles – Maximizing revenue potential

📌 Lesson: Make your value proposition crystal clear—if partners see real earning potential, they’ll be eager to sign up! 🚀

📌Understanding your Partners Motivation

Knowing what the end goal of your partnered brand is for enabling the partnership should be prioritsed.

📌 Key Insights:
Resellers helped onboard larger customers.
Affiliates were better suited for smaller customers.
✅ They automated the entire process, making it easy for partners to sign up, manage customers, and receive commissions.

💡 Lesson from Most Sharkdomers: The key to attracting 20+ partners was understanding who they wanted and making the program seamless to join and use.

Cloudali followed a similar customer-first strategy. Instead of copying industry trends, Tara Robertson and her team spent months interviewing customers, conducting surveys, and gathering direct feedback before launching their program.

📌 The Result? They started with a small group of "founding members"—and have since scaled to over 1,000 partners, growing month over month! 🚀

🔹 Takeaway: Prioritize your partners' needs first. A thoughtfully structured program makes it easier to attract, onboard, and retain high-quality partners.

📌Convert your loyal customers to partners

Finding your first 20 partners doesn’t require a massive customer base—it just takes strategic outreach.

📌 But what if you don’t have many customers yet? Don’t worry—over 35% of companies started their partner programs with fewer than 20 customers.

Why SaaS Companies Need Partnerships

The SaaS industry thrives on scalability and partnerships provide a cost-effective way to expand reach, increase revenue, and build trust. With the right partners, companies can tap into new customer segments, improve customer retention, and unlock new revenue streams.

However, managing partnerships manually through spreadsheets is inefficient and often leads to missed opportunities. Sharkdom transforms this process by providing a streamlined, data-driven Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform that helps SaaS companies onboard, manage, and scale their partnerships with ease.

How Sharkdom Makes Partnerships Work for SaaS

How 14 SAAS companies get their first 20 partners

At Sharkdom, we believe in "Partnerships Done Right." Our platform is designed to help SaaS businesses create a structured and scalable partner program. Here’s how:

1. Seamless Partner Onboarding

Finding and vetting the right partners can be challenging. Sharkdom simplifies this by allowing SaaS companies to set up customizable onboarding processes, ensuring that only the most relevant partners join their network. Businesses can set restrictions by industry, blacklist certain sectors, and pre-validate partners before approvals.

2. Automated Partner Workflows (Like Zaps for Partnerships)

Managing partnerships shouldn’t be a manual hassle. With Sharkdom’s Zap-like automation flows, companies can:

  • Assign tasks automatically to partners based on milestones.
  • Trigger automated email campaigns for partner engagement.
  • Integrate with existing CRM systems to track performance seamlessly.

3. Smarter Affiliate & Referral Programs

Affiliate and referral marketing are powerful tools for SaaS growth. Sharkdom enables businesses to create and manage commission-based programs where partners get rewarded for bringing in new customers. Unlike generic affiliate networks, Sharkdom ensures businesses retain full control over their partnerships with built-in fraud prevention mechanisms.

4. API Listing: Helping Partners Make Faster Decisions

SaaS businesses often collaborate through integrations. Sharkdom’s API Listing feature allows companies to list APIs they’re open to sharing with partners post-collaboration. This means potential partners can evaluate integration opportunities upfront, speeding up partnership decisions.

5. Customer Persona Insights

Understanding customer overlap is crucial in choosing the right partners. Sharkdom lets SaaS businesses analyze customer data through CRM integrations, CSV uploads, or Google Sheets. By visualizing shared audiences via Venn diagrams, businesses can make data-backed decisions on partnerships.

6. Centralized Payment Handling & Fraud Prevention

One of the biggest concerns in partnership management is ensuring partners get paid fairly and on time. Sharkdom allows businesses to hold funds securely in a wallet, ensuring partners get paid only after successful approvals. To prevent fraudulent activities, companies can track all transactions and flag any suspicious partner activities.

7. Custom Partner Campaigns & Co-Marketing Opportunities

Why market alone when you can leverage your partners’ marketing channels? With Sharkdom, SaaS businesses can:

  • Run joint marketing campaigns with partners.
  • Share custom promo links to track conversions.
  • Gain visibility on partner-driven sign-ups without manual tracking.

Why Choose Sharkdom Over Traditional PRMs?

Unlike other PRMs that focus solely on tracking partnerships,

Sharkdom is built for growth-driven SaaS companies that want more than just a dashboard. Our platform is designed to:
✅ Reduce manual efforts with automation.
✅ Improve partner engagement through structured workflows.

✅ Offer real-time insights to maximize partnership revenue.

✅ Ensure secure & transparent transactions between partners.

SaaS companies need more than just great products; they need strategic partnerships to drive revenue and expansion. Sharkdom eliminates the complexities of partnership management, allowing businesses to focus on growth while we handle the logistics.

If you’re looking to scale partnerships the right way, Sharkdom is your ultimate solution. Join today and start building a revenue-driving partner network effortlessly!

Some more resources

How to Engage Partners for Faster Growth

How to Engage Partners for Faster Growth

Sep 8, 2024
Partnership Marketing Guide | Doing more with less

Partnership Marketing Guide | Doing more with less

Jan 30, 2025
Why Partner Onboarding Platforms are Essential for Modern Businesses?

Why Partner Onboarding Platforms are Essential for Modern Businesses?

Dec 15, 2024
Subscribe to updates

Learn how as a founder you can use the power of partnerships?

Get partnerships materials, case studies and our ongoing AI solution from CXPO's in driving revenue for your startups with partnerships.

Get Free Guide
power-partnerships