Ecosystem Strategy
An ecosystem strategy doesn't add partners to your GTM. It builds a reason why partners have an interest in selling you before selling themselves.
“An ecosystem with 40 signed agreements and zero influenced revenue is not an ecosystem. It's a list of logos on a slide.”
Otto GTM ObservatoryWhat makes an ecosystem real, not just formal
An ecosystem works when the partner's economic incentive is clear and superior to the alternative of selling a competing or their own product: competitive resale margin, leads shared in both directions, co-marketing with real budget.
Without this alignment, partnership agreements stay on paper: the partner signs out of commercial courtesy but doesn't invest real selling time, because the incentive to do so doesn't exist or is too weak compared to other priorities in their portfolio.
Anti-patterns
Common mistake: measuring ecosystem strategy success by the number of signed partners instead of the revenue actually generated or influenced by each one, celebrating agreements that never produce a single opportunity.
Second mistake: not explicitly addressing channel conflict with the direct sales team, letting reps see partners as internal competitors instead of reach multipliers.
Practical Application
A company signs 32 partnership agreements in a year, but only 4 generate real opportunities, for a total of 3 closed deals. After redesigning the program with 25% resale margins and a bidirectional lead-sharing system tracked in the CRM, the number of active partners drops to 11 (the most motivated ones) but influenced revenue rises to €1,800,000 in 12 months.