Event Recap: Crafting Creative Partnerships

Mike Gubman, head of business development at TikTok, shared key strategies and frameworks for facilitating and maintaining win-win partnerships at the May keynote event.

Crafting successful partnerships means taking two parts and making something better together. In doing so, you can express creativity AND accomplish your business goals.

So what makes a good partnership? A good partnership achieves goals for both parties with a clear call to action and apparent value. Additionally great partnerships enable something unique and press-worthy that couldn’t have been possible by either party individually.

Pre-Partnership Considerations
Before jumping into a partnership, it’s important to do the following:

Step 1: Determine your goals

Step 2: Identify what your company can’t do alone

• Reach certain demos, develop new technology?
• Content or business model restrictions?
• Or, what can you do that your partners can’t?

Step 3: Find the right partner

Getting Started
Starting small is often overlooked and underrated. Don’t be afraid to pursue the minimum viable partnership. In addition, limiting technology and investment during the initial stages of partnership development will be beneficial. Once you’re aligned, don’t miss a few critical best practices.

1. Assemble your team. Assign a designated quarterback or air traffic controller who is always in charge of the project tasks. Doing so ensures the partnership remains a priority for both teams.
2. Don’t forget process. You must not overlook discussing the process with your partner and ensuring there is a shared understanding of your goals and the steps you’ll take to get there.

Launch!
Remember that a launch is not a single moment in time. Expect that things will break and require fixing. This is what makes testing and iteration so essential in ensuring positive outcomes. This is also why the best partnerships are ones that continue over time.

A successful partnership isn’t a one-and-done kind of thing.