It was a celebration. A pre-funded venture with almost 50 high-quality partners in only 6 months. Seems unlikely, but I have all the marks and bruises from what seemed like an endless list of No’s that eventually lead to successfully scaling a partnership initiative to almost 50 partners. I’m very excited to be able to share the strategy and process I used to achieve this level of traction in such a short amount of time.

One of the critical aspects of blockchain projects that is often overstated is the best tech. will eventually trump everything else. This belief can be a fatal mistake that not only will impact funding prospects but the ability to generate substantial platform adoption. At the end of the day, like it or not the majority of the blockchain space is open source, so there is nothing stopping others from using your technology and calling it their own. Your project has to offer something unique and clever from the business side in order to distinguish yourself in the market.

Some of the things that are often overlooked by projects, but are just as critical as their technology, is their go-to-market and partnership strategy that help make it easier for users to interact with a network and that can increase the utility of a token. There are dozens of projects trying to solve things like scalability, interoperability, privacy, cross border payments, etc. and only a small segment of them offering a novel approach to each specific problem. What will differentiate each project from one another are business applications like marketing, market positioning, treasury management, and partnership traction.

At the end of the day, the most successful projects in the blockchain space will be the ones who are enhancing or augmenting existing systems in collaboration with traditional enterprises. (Stellar and Ripple do a good job of this.) With this approach, you can craft a partnership strategy that you help scale network traction quickly and establish relationships with large enterprises.

Know Where your Partners Live

Developing a business can be a very daunting task, especially for young projects without any type of market recognition. It can feel difficult even knowing where to begin, but what if you knew where your potential partners spend most of their time. Wouldn’t that make your job significantly easier?

One of the biggest distinguishing traits of the blockchain space is that everyone uses messaging applications like Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Kakao as the primary way to communicate and learn about projects. Want an update on a project? Check their telegram group. Want to speak with someone directly on the team? Shoot them a message on WeChat.

These messaging applications will be the most effective way of interacting with core members of a potential partnership.

Start Small

Of course, everyone in the blockchain space would kill to partner with any one of the FANGS, but this will take some time.

Instead, start small and look for projects that aren’t even listed on CMC yet. Focus on finding pre-funded projects that have solid teams with previous experience in the crypto space. These types of projects will be significantly easier to partner with at the beginning of their project life cycle and have a higher probability of getting funded if their teams are ex-Coinbase or ex-Consensys.

Pursuing these early-stage projects may not help you immediately achieve your roadmap goals but it will start to legitimize your project. Also, the shorter sales cycle will allow your team to start generating social media buzz around your project.

Reduce Friction Points and Increase Token Utility

Once you’ve successfully signed a group of ten or so promising partners, your attention should begin to shift towards making it as easy as possible for people to interact with your platform or network.

Partnering with projects that already have a solid user base will make it significantly more likely that people will be aware that your project actually exists. Eventually, you’ll want to execute some kind of integration which will act as an additional access point into your network. Focusing on bringing down as many access friction points for your network will act as a major catalyst towards increasing future network transaction volume.

Additionally, seek out partners that provide a new type of utility for your token. The more ways your token can be used, the more interesting and valuable it becomes for potential users.

Provide your Partners with Something Free

Once you are able to land some meetings with potential partners, the real preparation beings. Start brainstorming ways that your project can help them achieve their roadmap goals or enhance what they are doing. This will demonstrate a level of seriousness right away during the meeting. Also, briefly communicating this during the outreach process will significantly increase your chances of landing a meeting.

Once you have them on the hook with an idea, offer something up to sweeten the deal for them. Think of something that your potential partner would see as substantial value, this can be free tokens to test your network, a place in a strategic initiative that you are building out, or using your technology to provide them with free interesting market insights for their project.

Remember, every great partnership has a give and a take. Be the partner that provides the “give” that can eventually “take” what’s really important.

Turn your Partners into Advocates

I would say around the two-month mark you should aim to have 15–20 different partners. This group of partners will now indirectly act as advocates and marketers for your projects, which will make your job significantly easier.

I would recommend building a community around your network of partners. Start a telegram group for them to network and get to know each other, they’ll love expanding their network of contacts. You can even leverage this group to help you generate a buzz about an upcoming meet-up or event you are hosting.

Also, be sure to get your partners under a MOU that will allow you to share each other logos and provide access to your technology. This will help with the fundraising process as investors will ask you how your technology is being used.

Leverage your Network Outside of Crypto

Using your existing network of traditional technology contacts is a critical element of establishing a relationship with larger enterprises. It is an absolute necessity to get warm introductions to enterprises as opposed to cold reach outs. I insist that you do not spend any time reaching out to large enterprises without a proper introduction from a mutual contact, this will be a complete waste of time and will ultimately disappoint you.

With the 2017 crypto mania acting as the Watershed moment for the space, every company in Silicon Valley now has a “blockchain initiative”. Find technology companies that have expressed interest in something like this and find a mutual contact between you and the potential partner. They’ll love to get your insights especially from someone who is an active builder in the space.

The sales process will obviously be longer here, but the payoff will be much more substantial.

Conclusion

As the blockchain space continues to mature, so will the business side of these blockchain based projects. One of the most effective ways to position your project for success as the space continues to grow is to establish credibility, bootstrap platform and community engagement, and establish a solid user base. The partnership strategy that I outlined above will serve as a solid foundation for achieving just that.

Remember, once you know where your potential partners live, start small and build out a network of partners that will help reduce friction points of interacting with your network and increase the utility of your token. Once those elements are in place, your network of partners will act as a community of advocates that will eventually provide warm introductions to larger enterprises. That’s when the real fun begins!

Lastly, feel free to reach out with any questions or additional insights into my experience scaling partnership initiatives. I’m always happy to chat with individuals and projects, as well as helping any way that I can.

For more insights into blockchain and machine learning be sure to check out my website:

www.MasiDigitalVentures.com