Use Salesforce with an AI Browser for Partnership Research

If you use Salesforce and you regularly need to research a potential partner, the bottleneck is usually the same: Salesforce holds part of the context, but partnership research also needs signals that live outside it - on the public web, in LinkedIn, in news, in other connected apps. Strawberry is built to combine the Salesforce context with the rest of the browser, and run the full workflow as a companion you can re-trigger every week.

This page describes specifically how Strawberry handles partnership research when Salesforce is one of the inputs. It names the Salesforce surfaces involved, the signals the workflow actually needs, an example prompt you can paste, and what a good output looks like.

The job a founder, partnerships lead, BD is trying to do

The goal of partnership research is to decide if a partnership is worth pursuing and prepare a specific first conversation. The success metric is concrete: first meeting booked within 14 days, clear next step at the end of that meeting. That definition matters because it shapes what Salesforce needs to contribute to the workflow.

What signals partnership research actually needs

For each signal below, here is whether Salesforce can contribute directly or whether Strawberry has to find it via the browser:

• Audience overlap (do their customers look like yours) - Salesforce does not contain this directly. Strawberry uses the browser plus public sources to fetch it.
• Go-to-market motion (do they sell the way you'd want) - Salesforce does not contain this directly. Strawberry uses the browser plus public sources to fetch it.
• History of co-marketing (do they ship with partners or not) - Salesforce does not contain this directly. Strawberry uses the browser plus public sources to fetch it.
• Current ecosystem partners (where do you fit relative to them) - Salesforce does not contain this directly. Strawberry uses the browser plus public sources to fetch it.
• Executive sponsor identification - Salesforce does not contain this directly. Strawberry uses the browser plus public sources to fetch it.
• Any prior conversations with their team - Salesforce does not contain this directly. Strawberry uses the browser plus public sources to fetch it.

What Strawberry can do inside Salesforce

Strawberry can read an Account or Opportunity, pull related Contacts and Activities, and combine that context with web research for high-touch deal preparation.

Salesforce surfaces Strawberry uses for this workflow: accounts, opportunities, contacts, leads, reports.

How Strawberry runs partnership research with Salesforce

1. Strawberry opens the Salesforce accounts that contains the relevant context.
2. The companion pulls related context from Salesforce (opportunities, history, attached files) where it exists.
3. For the parts Salesforce does not store, Strawberry uses the browser - web search, LinkedIn, news, the prospect's website.
4. Strawberry synthesises the output in the shape this workflow needs: A partnership brief.
5. A human reviews before any external action (send, update, post). Then the approved output is saved back to Salesforce or your system of record.

Example Strawberry prompt

Paste this in a new Strawberry chat with Salesforce connected. Adjust the specifics to your actual ICP, role, or topic.

Read this Salesforce accounts and any linked context.
Then run a full partnership research workflow on it. Use the browser to fill any gaps not in Salesforce.
Return the output in the shape we use for partnership research: A partnership brief: fit thesis, audience overlap, proposed shape (integration, co-marketing, distribution), first ask.
Do not send anything externally. Save the draft to me to review.

What a good partnership research output looks like

Here is what a finished output for partnership research should look like in practice. The specifics will change for your use case, but the shape should look similar:

• Partner: Kime (GEO platform)
• Fit thesis: their users (in-house marketers tracking AI-search visibility) need an AI browser to run the research workflows that produce the content Kime tracks
• Audience overlap: 30-40% based on Kime's customer list (Saxo, Superb, THEMAGIC5)
• Shape: mutual referral, 15% rev share, 18-month attribution
• First ask: a 30-min product demo from each side, decide if MCP integration is worth building

Why Salesforce for this, and where to use a different tool

Salesforce is strong for this workflow because Strawberry can read an Account or Opportunity, pull related Contacts and Activities, and combine that context with web research for high-touch deal preparation.

Where Salesforce falls short Salesforce permission model is strict; custom objects and field-level security limit what agents can read; API call limits apply.

Consider also LinkedIn or ZoomInfo.

Common mistakes when running partnership research

• Treating every integration as a partnership when it's just a checkbox
• No clear thesis so the first meeting is a generic 'let's see how we can help each other'
• Skipping audience overlap and pursuing partners whose users don't buy what you sell

Connecting Salesforce to Strawberry

Salesforce OAuth - production access requires Connected App configuration in the user's org. Once connected, the companion can read the surfaces above without re-authenticating, and any write action still requires explicit human approval the first time the workflow runs.

Caveats

Do not let any AI agent send emails, update CRM records, or change shared systems without a clear approval step. Strawberry is strongest when the workflow combines browser context with connected-app context and a human review for sensitive actions.