Partnerships: Borrow a Bigger Audience

Two announcements from the same small bookkeeping-software startup, six months apart.

March: "We're thrilled to announce our strategic partnership with a leading business media brand!" Logos on each other's websites, a joint blog post, a webinar nobody attends. New customers traced to it: 4.

September: a quiet deal with an accounting franchise — the franchise's 90 advisors set up the software for their small-business clients during onboarding and keep 20% of year-one revenue. New customers in the first quarter: 340.