You need to make an early, vision-level decision about how partnerships and partner ecosystems will play into your business model. Ask yourself which of these applies to you:
- A partnerships-first company where the value proposition of what you’re building is dependent upon connectivity with a large number of tech partners (Stitch was one of these, and Zapier is another good example).
- A company where partnerships are a force multiplier, but your core product offering has its own standalone value proposition. Most B2B SaaS companies fall into this category, with rare exceptions like the ones mentioned above.
If you fall into the second bucket, I would be cautious about over-indexing your energy on partnerships before you have truly found product-market fit for your core offering. Partnerships are great, but they are not a replacement for a standalone value proposition. Once the engine is running, however, you can layer them on as a way to amplify your scale and make things more sticky.
(Note: This answer assumes you are talking about tech partnerships, although you could probably use similar logic for channel partners as well.)