40 to 60 partner targets, scored, with the evidence linked

What is the exact prompt?

Define the profile once, then let the sources argue with your brainstorm:

• "I run partnerships for [product]. We sell [what] to [who]. Our ideal partner: serves the same buyer, does not compete with our core, and has evidence of actually working partnerships. Build a target list from these source types: (1) the partner/integration marketplaces of the three platforms our customers already use, [e.g. the app stores of your CRM, your billing tool, your data warehouse]; (2) agency and consultancy directories for [our category], including the partner pages of our top two competitors, since anyone they list will understand the pitch; (3) 'works with' and integrations pages of the five tools most often in our customers' stacks."
• "Sheet columns: company, what they do in one line, partner type (tech integration / reseller-agency / co-marketing), evidence of partnering (link to their marketplace listing or partner page), overlap with our buyer (which segment), competitive conflict (none / adjacent / direct; drop directs), size proxy from Apollo (headcount), and a 1–5 priority with one sentence of reasoning."
• "Rules: evidence of partnering is required. A company with no marketplace listings, no partner page and no co-marketing history scores at most 2 no matter how good the logo looks. Blank over guess on every cell. Target 40–60 rows; list near-misses separately with the reason. Read-only: contact nobody, fill no partner-application forms."

"Evidence of partnering" is the gate

A marketplace listing means they survived a platform review.

A maintained partner page means someone owns the function. A co-marketing history means legal and marketing have done the dance before. Boring, checkable signals that predict follow-through better than any strategic-fit narrative.

The competitor-partner-page source is the highest-yield of the three: every agency on a competitor's list has already been educated about the category at someone else's expense, and most agencies are deliberately non-exclusive.

What does the scoring conversation look like?

A row review instead of an opinion exchange.

The 1 to 5 priority with a reasoning sentence is crude on purpose: what you review is the argument, which you can accept or overrule in seconds.

The disagreements with the brainstorm doc are the deliverable: the famous logo scoring 2 for zero partnering evidence, the unglamorous integrator scoring 5 for being in all three marketplaces. Re-check the near-miss list quarterly, a re-run against the same schema, like any scraped list.

After the list: ten conversations, no sequences

The list buys concentration: your best ten conversations this quarter aimed at the ten rows with the strongest evidence, each opened by a person with specifics the sheet already holds ("you are in the [platform] marketplace and we share the [segment] buyer"), the same research-first opening as any pre-call homework.

Keep the evidence links live. Partner conversations take months and people change roles, and the row saying why this company made the list is what restarts the conversation without the archaeology.

Frequently asked questions