Before you hire a Head of Partnerships, find out if you actually need one.
Advisory for B2B SaaS companies ready to explore, validate, or scale partnerships, without the 12-month hiring process.
Let's talk
Most companies hire a Head of Partnerships when what they really need is a Partnerships Manager and a clear strategy.
They hire someone senior, give them 6 months, and wait. If it works, great. If not, you've spent €150K and learned something you could have known in 8 weeks.
Partnerships either compound your growth or quietly drain your sales team's attention. The difference is knowing which one you're looking at before you commit.
This is for you if
- You're a Series A or B SaaS company between €1M and €50M ARR
- Partnerships keep coming up in leadership conversations but no one owns it
- You're hiring, or considering hiring, a Partnerships leader or first Partner Manager
- You have a few partners but no structure, no enablement, and pipeline you can't attribute
- You want to know if there's a real channel play here before making headcount decisions
This is not for you if
- You already have a functioning partner program with dedicated leadership and just need execution support.
Partnership Readiness Assessment
For companies who don't know yet- An honest view of whether partnerships will accelerate or distract from your GTM
- Partner profile definition: who the right partners actually are
- Competitive landscape of how others in your space run channel
- A go/no-go recommendation with a clear rationale
4 to 8 week engagement, scoped to your situation
This is not a slide deck that tells you what you want to hear. If partnerships isn't the right move right now, I'll say so.
Program Build & Scale
For companies who've started but lack structure- Partner tiers and incentive structure
- Enablement and onboarding playbook
- Co-sell motion and attribution model
- Operational layer that lets a small team manage a growing ecosystem
3 to 6 month engagement, scoped to your situation
You have partners. Maybe a partner manager. But no playbook, inconsistent onboarding, and pipeline you can't forecast. This fixes that.
Hiring a senior partnerships leader in Europe takes 4 to 9 months. When you find them, they spend the first 3 months learning your business.
No ramp time
Work starts in week one. No onboarding lag, no learning curve on your market.
Already built this
At companies at your stage, in your market. The pattern recognition is already there.
Validate before you commit
Know if partnerships is the right bet before making a full-time headcount decision.
Clean handoff
When you hire, there's a foundation, a playbook, and a program worth handing over.
I'm Dao Tran. I've spent 10+ years building partner programs across Europe and North America, from being the first partner manager on the ground in a new market to leading and scaling teams of 10+ direct reports.
I've built across every major partnership motion: channel sales, technology partnerships and integrations, managed service providers, and consultancy partners. Whether the model is resell, co-sell, or embed, I've built it, run it, and handed it off to a team.
I've worked with partners like Accenture, Bechtle, SoftwareOne, and Deutsche Telekom, and scaled partner programs to deliver lower CAC, higher conversion rates, and shorter deal cycles.
Most companies explore partnerships before they understand what they expect from partners and what they're willing to give in return. That's where the wasted headcount, the stalled programs, and the "we tried partnerships but it didn't work" stories come from.
I work with a small number of companies at a time. Engagements are scoped, structured, and built around your situation, not a templated methodology.
No long sales process.
30-minute intro call
I'll listen to where you are and tell you honestly whether I think I can help.
Proposal or pass
If there's a fit, I'll send a scoped proposal within a week. If there isn't, I'll tell you that too.
Work begins
Most engagements start within 2 to 3 weeks of agreement.
Partnerships either compound your growth, or quietly drain it.
No pitch deck. No long discovery. Just an honest conversation.
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