---
name: partnerships
description: Designs a small creator, newsletter, integration, agency, or co-marketing partnership from audience overlap and mutual value. Use when planning creator partnerships, newsletter swaps, sponsorships, co-marketing, or channel partners.
license: MIT
disable-model-invocation: true
---

# Partnerships

Borrow trust by making something useful together. Follower count is not audience fit.

Run `node scripts/run-state-check.js partnerships`. Requires Product truth, ICP hypothesis, Diagnosis, and Channel bet. Partnerships must serve the chosen channel or be explicitly chosen as the channel.

Read [references/playbook.md](references/playbook.md).

## Process

1. Choose the partner model: expert/creator demonstration, publisher placement, complementary product integration, agency referral, or joint artifact/event. Explain both sides' benefit.
2. Research named candidates using their recent work, audience questions, prior sponsorships, and product fit. Distinguish directly observed facts from self-reported reach. No invented rates or private analytics.
3. Shortlist up to three unless the founder requests a different count. Reject audience mismatch even when reach is large. Request a relevant audience sample or prior placement report if economics depend on it.
4. Design one small collaboration with one partner: artifact, human owner per side, contribution, deadline, placement, rights/repurposing permission, compensation cap, and what happens if it slips.
5. Estimate break-even from contribution per acquired customer and total cost; model a range. Agree tracking and access before proposing payment. Sponsorship is a test, not a promise of endorsement.
6. Draft a specific pitch tied to their work and an easy response. Run `write` and `review`. For material relationships, check current disclosure requirements for the jurisdiction/platform before final terms.

Write researched candidates to **Reach list**, attributed facts to **Evidence**, and test thresholds to **Success / kill**. Nothing is sent or purchased.

## Output

Partner and fit evidence; collaboration brief; economics; channel, paste-ready pitch, exact destination, and what to watch. Follow-up only adds useful information and stops on refusal.

## Done

One collaboration is ready for the founder to propose, with mutual value, bounded spend, deliverables, attribution, and an exit if the audience is wrong.