Sara Du: How I Built a Partner Program With No Experience | Supernode 2022
Sara Du, CEO & Co-Founder of Alloy Automation grew her partner program to 200 partners in less than two years and says that partner portals are the fastest way to attract new partners. As Du shared, “No one cares about your partner tiers. They care about money and clout,” and a partner portal can help establish that clout. Du suggests:
- Focusing on marketing and co-marketing that establishes your product as a key component of – your customer’s tech stacks.
- Including images of your partners’ faces in your public-facing materials.
- Making your place in your Supernode partners’ ecosystems public which creates a FOMO effect.
Highlights:
- 0:50 – Day zero: building social capital
- 2:29 – Borrow inspiration from partner programs in different industries to gain a new perspective.
- 2:45 – “The piggyback” tactic
- 3:36 – “The plug” tactic
- 4:30 – “The special edition” tactic
- 5:15 – “The unexpected combination” tactic
- 6:39 – “No one really cares about your partner tiers”
- 6:56 – People care about your money and your clout. That’s it.
- 7:23 – For the money appeal, build exposure channels
- 8:26 – For the clout factor, make them notice you first
- 9:14 – Capture social proof
- 9:50 – Create a FOMO machine
- 10:10 – Start a movement
About Sara Du:
Sara Du is CEO & co-founder of Alloy Automation, an eCommerce automation platform used by top brands like Burberry and Brooklinen to streamline operations and marketing workflows. The company is Series A and backed by a16z, Y Combinator, and founders of companies like Klaviyo, Webflow, Casper, & more. She previously spent time at Snap & Wish as both a designer and engineer, and dropped out of her undergrad at Harvard. Sara is originally from Atlanta and currently resides in NYC, where she spends her weekends doing film photography and designing streetwear. On the side, she angel invests in no code and developer tools startups.
About Crossbeam:
Crossbeam is the world’s first and most powerful partner ecosystem platform trusted by more than 8,500 technology companies. We act as a data escrow service that finds overlapping accounts with your partners while keeping the rest of your data private and secure.
