Dennis Yao Yu is a go-to-market (GTM) strategist and partnerships expert who has helped transform how commerce companies build strategic business development over his two-decade career. As Co-Founder and CEO of The Other Group — with previous leadership roles at Shopify, Art.com, and Society6 — Yu has helped companies leverage partnerships as a growth engine. He joined us for an Expert Session where he shared concrete GTM strategies for startup founders, including identifying the right partnership types, building effective partner ecosystems, and avoiding common pitfalls that derail partnership success.
It can be popular to say that relationships are the most valuable currency when building your career. An implication, though, is that they help you throughout your career journey across companies and projects. To Dennis Yao Yu, trust-based relationships — the very foundation of strategic partnerships — are key to growing your current business. And they take time to cultivate.
“Partnership is very much like dating,” Yu explains with the quiet confidence of someone who has seen the pattern play out countless times. “You want to just grab a coffee before you talk about anything else and go on a second date.”
As Co-Founder and CEO of The Other Group, a management consulting firm specializing in go-to-market strategy and revenue acceleration for ecommerce brands and technologies, Yu brings two decades of experience transforming how commerce companies build strategic business development. His tenure as VP of Partnerships at Firework and leading customer success at Shopify has given him a unique vantage point on what makes partnerships succeed — and what can cause them to fall short of expectations.
A non-linear path to growth
While Sales and Marketing teams can follow playbooks or other well-worn paths — measured by conversions from outbound calls to demos to closed deals— partnerships play out in a fundamentally different fashion.
“Partnerships are very different than sales at a high level in that they’re just not linear,” Yu says. “The goal for sales and marketing is spotting direct customer acquisition. Strategic partnerships will get there, but your initial signal of success is joint value creation with your partners.”
Yu has found this difference matters more than ever as founders navigate today's challenging market headwinds. As outbound selling becomes increasingly difficult with lower conversion rates, partnerships offer an alternative route to market that leverages existing relationships and credibility.
“In the past 12 to 18 months, outbound is really hard. Selling’s really hard. The conversion is just not there,” Yu observes. “The strategies I‘ve seen convert the most from a closed deal perspective and helping deal velocity are partnerships.”
Four partnership models for startup success
For founders looking to build their partnership strategy, Yu identifies four critical types to consider:
Tech integrations create seamless customer experiences between platforms, from Shopify-TikTok integrations to Slack-Google Drive connections. “Those types of technology integrations are best for SaaS companies looking to increase product stickiness and expand value they don‘t want to build themselves,” Yu explains.
Channel partnerships or reseller relationships — think AWS Marketplaces or agency partners — allow companies to scale without hiring large sales teams. When Yu was at Firework, they partnered with Shopify Plus agencies that were already providing digital marketing and development services, creating a natural product-service combination.
Co-marketing partnerships bring two brands together for joint promotion, webinars, or events. “It‘s really great for building credibility and getting exposure to your partner‘s audience,” Yu says, describing the “one plus one equals three” effect of combined audiences.
Referral and affiliate partnerships involve incentivizing individuals or companies to refer business. Though sometimes more transactional, they offer lower-lift customer acquisition when the incentive structure is clearly defined.
What makes these partnership models so powerful, Yu explains, is their adaptability to different business needs and market conditions. “Each type solves a specific business challenge,” he notes. “If you're struggling with product stickiness, a tech integration might be the answer. If your sales team is maxed out but you need to scale, channel partnerships provide leverage.”
According to Yu, the trick is matching the right partnership model to your specific goals rather than chasing partnerships that seem exciting but don't address your core business needs. “Don't chase deals just because they seem like a good idea,” he cautions. “Really understand what your eventual goal is — to sell more products, to retain customers, or to improve product features.”
Building partnership strategy from zero to one
When Yu consults with early-stage founders, he often notices a gleam of excitement in their eyes — followed quickly by questions on how exactly to build a partnership strategy from scratch. During one particularly memorable consulting session with a seed-stage commerce startup, the founder leaned forward and asked, “But where do I even begin?”
Yu recalled his own journey building partnerships at Firework where they started with just a few agency relationships before scaling to 50+. Drawing from his experience, he sketched out a roadmap on the whiteboard — the same step-by-step approach he now shares with every founder facing that initial partnership hurdle. While partnerships do differ from sales and marketing in their paths once in market, Yu believes that there is a playbook to building the foundation itself.
“Most founders try to run before they can walk,” Yu observes. “They chase big-name partnerships without laying the groundwork.” Instead, he offers a systematic approach that's helped startups across industries build sustainable partnership programs:
- Define your north star: Is your goal distribution, customer retention, or product value enhancement?
- Create your ideal partner profile: Who has your customers used before? What complementary solutions are they already using?
- Develop a clear value proposition: “Why should this partner care about you? Why would this partner present your solutions to their customers?
- Start small and provide value: Take a crawl-walk-run approach rather than immediately demanding referrals.
- Set up scalable programs: Create templates, co-selling strategies, incentives, and tiered programs once you‘ve achieved initial success.
- Measure and optimize: Track deal value, retention impact, and sales velocity influenced by partnerships.
Avoiding partnership pitfalls
The biggest mistake Yu sees companies make? “Not having a clear goal with your partner.” Without defined objectives, companies chase partnerships that seem exciting but deliver minimal value.
Another common error is expecting partners to sell your product automatically without proper enablement. ”Your partners have multiple partners at the same time,” Yu notes. Creating simple, shareable collateral like one-pagers proves more effective than complex slide decks.
Yu also emphasizes the importance of executive buy-in. “Partnership really requires that buy-in from the top. If you don‘t have the buy-in from the executives or the CEOs or the founders, it gets really hard to move the needle.”
As automation and AI reshape the business landscape, Yu remains confident in the human-centric nature of partnerships. “Partnership is anything but linear. It‘s very ecosystem-driven, with different types of categories and partners that like to work in different ways.”
While tools like Crossbeam help identify customer overlap between companies, Yu emphasizes that success hinges on specific partnership practices: creating compelling joint narratives, developing clear partner enablement playbooks, and establishing well-defined incentive structures that align both organizations‘ goals. He points to Klaviyo‘s tiered partner program as an exemplary model, with clearly defined benefits and requirements that scale as partnership value grows.
For founders struggling with diminishing returns from outbound sales, Yu offers this parting advice: “Partnerships aren't just another channel — they're relationships that require patience and cultivation. But if you invest in them strategically, they'll deliver returns long after your ads stop performing and your cold calls go unanswered.”
Phoebe Thompson