New This Week
A quick recap of the PhD from this week:
- Partner Sourced Revenue
- Keeping up with Community
- You're Broke Without Trust
- MIT's Ecosystem Advice
- Growth Playbooks Are Changing
Recently published on PartnerHacker:
- Jessie Shipman on Finding Ecosystem Equilibrium
- OpenView Calls for an Ecosystem Approach
- Partner Attach and the Buying Cycle
Your company's DNA
I remember reading in Moz founder Rand Fishkin's book, Lost and Founder something to the effect of (paraphrasing):
Your founder's DNA is your company DNA and you can't do much to change it.
If the founding DNA is very product and tech focused, the company will always be that way. If the founding DNA is very sales, or content, or brand, or customer success focused, the company will be that way.
This is a positive and a negative.
Once you identify the founding DNA, you can lean hard into it. That's what your company will do better than anyone else in the world. Embrace it. Amplify it. Encourage it. Advertise it. That's the positive.
The negative is that trying to change it doesn't work. You'll break the very things that allow the company to create value. You'll lose your comparative advantage. Your identity will lose coherence.
Trying to be what you're not is a losing game. Instead, double-down on who you are.
But what if something that's not part of your DNA is really important in your market?
Partner.
Do what you do best and find partners who naturally do well the things you don't.
That's how you leverage your special sauce. By mixing it with the complimentary spices of others to solve much bigger problems for much larger markets.
You've got to be there for the big event!
