1. Partners
Teaching Notes

2. Teaching Objectives
• Don’t let them slow down the pace of discovery and
customer calls
• Make sure teams continue to:
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Annotate the business model canvas
Update their Discovery Narratives on LaunchPad Central
Include diagrams of each part of the hypothesis
Acknowledge you’ve been reading their posts (and
comment whenever you can)
• Focus your main critique on their understanding of
revenue models and pricing and the importance of
partnerships to their business

3. How?
• Ask (recap on Revenue Model): “What is your revenue
model? Why did you select it? How do customers buy
today? What do they pay today? What do competitors
charge? Does it results in a large company with
sufficient profit”
• Ask (on Partners):How many partners have you spoken
to? What alignment does this partner have with your
customers? What need do ou solve for this partner and
how important is it to the partner? What economic
benefit does this partner provide your business? How
many partners are there like this?

4. Common Student Errors
• Pricing
– Students confuse pricing tactics with a revenue model
strategy
– Students price on cost vs. value
– No appreciation of competitive pricing or offerings;
revenue adds up to a small business
• Partners
– Student think their business has to do everything and
don’t realize the value of a partner in their value delivery
– Students assume getting a partner is relatively easy
– Students confuse partnership interest w/closing a deal
– Students confuse closing a deal w/successful execution

5. Take Away from Udacity Lecture
• Students (and their mentors) should
understand:
– What is a partner?
– Types of partners
– Risks associated with having a partner and how to
manage them

6. Mentors should emphasize:
• Who are partners?
• The difference between strategic alliances,
competition, joint ventures, buyers, suppliers and
licensees
• While partners are critical for large companies,
strategic alliances and joint partnerships are not
needed to servce Earlyvangelists. They are
needed for mainstream customers
• For startups, partners can monopolize your time
• Partners must have aligned goals and customers