Channel 07 / 13 · Borrow trust
Partnerships & integrations
Show up inside a stack your buyer already trusts.
Use it when
Your product becomes more useful when connected to another tool or service.
Don't confuse it with
Logo-swapping partnerships with no integration, co-sell owner or shared audience.
01 / What companies actually did
Grafana built a large plugin ecosystem
Grafana explained its enterprise data-source approach in a practical guide. Its catalog includes community, partner and company-built integrations; it launched a marketplace in 2026 for commercial plugin distribution.
[G3] Grafana — Enterprise data source plugins ↗[G4] Grafana — Marketplace announcement ↗Rippling pursued trusted intermediaries
Rippling’s early GTM interview calls out accountants and brokers as additional distribution paths, alongside outbound.
[R1] Rippling VP Sales Matt Plank — SaaStr interview ↗Supabase checks third-party launch dependencies early
Its launch guide specifically calls out integrations and cross-company coordination as tasks that should begin before launch week.
[S1] Supabase — How we launch ↗02 / How to do it
- 01Map the 10 tools your best customers already use and the value of each possible integration.
- 02Pick one integration with overlapping users and an identifiable partner owner.
- 03Build or validate the workflow; make it genuinely useful in under an hour.
- 04Publish docs, a joint example, a small event or newsletter collaboration.
- 05Define who follows up, how leads are shared with consent and what partner-sourced success means.
Things you can publish or run
03 / What good looks like
Watch this
Activated integration users; qualified referrals; partner-sourced opportunities; partner-assisted wins.
Common trap
An integration directory listing is useful only if it leads to working adoption.
04 / Copy the worksheet
COPYABLE WORKSHEET / 07
Partnerships & integrations template
Replace the brackets. Use this as a starting point, not a rigid formula.
ONE-PARTNER PILOT Partner + overlap: [tool] / [shared users] Joint job to be done: [specific end-to-end workflow] Integration readiness: [working? docs? demo? support owner?] Partner benefit: [why their users care] Shared assets: docs, repo, tutorial, short live walkthrough Distribution: both newsletters / docs / community (with approval) Commercial path: [referral / co-sell / self-serve] Ownership: one technical + one GTM person on each side Measure: integration activation → shared qualified pipeline Decision after 45 days: repeat / improve / stop
05 / Original sources