You must have a clear vision and goals to find the best partners. This includes knowing what you need to achieve from a partnership.
What are the needs?
To find the best partners, it’s essential to have a clear vision and set specific goals. This means understanding exactly what you aim to achieve from the partnership. Here are some key considerations:
- Who is the target customer? Schools (B2B) or Consumers/Parents (B2C) or both; ELT market or Local Language or both
- Is the product/service ready to market in the target market(s)? If not, whose responsibility will it be to update the product?
- What is the market potential?
- How should the product/service be perceived in the market?
Answering these questions should help clarify your vision, which should be your guiding source of inspiration for developing goals for a strategic partnership.
What is the value proposition for both parties?
Strategic partnerships are formed because both parties can benefit from each other’s work, positioning, and/or products/services. What does your company bring to the table, and what can it gain from a partnership?
- Are there competitors to the product/service? If so, are they in the target market?
- Will the product/service enable a partner to compete against competitors? If so, how is the product/service different from the competition?
- What strengths do you need in a partner?
- Does the partner need to have a strong sales staff? provide help desk support? or need the expertise to run demos and assist in school implementation?
- Where could a partner have a need that your product/service can fill?
- Does the partner have a strong reputation selling core curriculum print materials and textbooks but has yet to create a successful digital product?
- Would the partner be able to sell more of their content if it were digitized?
These are some of the questions to formulate a value proposition. Knowing what makes the product/service unique and what an ideal strategic partner will look for is imperative. Articulate the value being offered and address how it fills the potential needs of partners in one’s outreach.
Criteria for Selecting Partners
With the vision, goals, and value proposition in place, it is time to research strategic partners. This thorough preparation will equip you with the knowledge and confidence needed to find the ideal strategic partner for your company.
An example of an ideal partner for a primary school math digital product might be: “a PK-6 textbook publisher selling core curriculum to public and private schools who does not have a math EdTech product in their catalog”.
How to Find Potential Partners
Google is a great place to start. Some things you can look up:
- Relevant educational conferences in the target market
- Check out the exhibitor lists, go to their websites
- Keywords to match the ideal partner
- Competitive products in the target market, they could be old and looking for a new solution
- National curriculum documents in the target market sometimes list which textbooks/solutions they use
- Telecoms in the market, this is especially useful for B2C audiences and if areas that have limited internet coverage
Reaching out to Potential Partners
Once you’ve narrowed down some companies, it’s time to contact them. You can attend a conference, travel to the region, call, and/or approach via email or LinkedIn.
Pro Tip: Always consider language barriers. I use DeepL to translate emails with non-English speakers, translators to translate presentations, and professional interpreters for meetings/calls.
It is a best practice to have a few video calls and schedule some meetings before traveling to a new market for meetings and/or conferences. However, it is possible to get meetings on the spot at a conference if you know who you want to target and walk up to their booth early in the conference requesting a meeting so they have time to accommodate you during the conference.
- Pro Tip: You can tell a lot about a company based on their conference stand.
- Does the branding align with your brand?
- Are they speaking to the target audience?
- Are they engaged with people who walk up to their stand?
- These are all good signs. I have found companies that were not on my radar by “walking the stands” at trade shows.
This stage of partnership development might take several months or longer. Given the cyclical nature of educational sales, an ideal partner might not be ready to engage with you immediately if they have other projects in their pipeline or there is no pressing need for your product/service. I do not take this as a “NO” because I have been doing this for long enough to see these same potential partners return to me months or even years later looking to partner. However, you should have found enough potential partners in your research to begin conversations with others who are ready.
Once the potential partners understand the product and is interested in partnering, a great way to determine whether they are a good partnership fit is to ask them to present their company and how they would position and market my product/service.
Establishing Commercial Terms
Once the potential partner has confirmed interest and shown their ability to offer what you need from a partner, it is time to start discussing commercial terms.
- What changes, if any, need to be made to the product/service?
- Who will handle the changes?
- Will there be any white labeling or co-branding?
- Will you add any of the partner’s content to the platform?
- Which market segments will the contract include?
- Who will provide demos to customers?
- Who will add users/accounts to a platform?
- Who will train or provide implementation to schools/teachers?
- What should the price per user (PPU) be?
- How many users can you expect in years 1, 2, and 3?
- How will you handle renewals?
- Will you split the revenue from sales or set a minimum price the partner needs to pay?
- What support does the partner need to be successful?
The most common financial terms I have seen are revenue sharing (anywhere from 35%- 80% in favor of the Product Owner) and a set minimum purchase price (whereby the partner purchases licenses at a set price and can charge as much as they want above this). It would be best to strike a balance that considers your margins while keeping the partner motivated.
Pro Tip: You might want to sell to multiple segments in the future. If you are targeting public schools and adapting your platform into a local language with a partner now, it might be wise to include a clause in the agreement that you could partner with another company for B2C sales or an English “international” version for private schools in the future.
Once you’ve established terms, it is time to move to an Agreement. I am not a lawyer, so I suggest you work with a lawyer or legal service to get enforceable standard Agreements you can use with partners.
Check here our previous blog where I talk about How to Grow Your EdTech Business with Strategic Partners.
