International Partnership Considerations

When a new product shows signs of taking off, inevitably companies and entrepreneurs in other countries will take note and reach out to form a distribution partnership. Having a distributor can really help startups generate revenue without significant capital outlays. Let’s look at a few considerations for international partnerships:

• Geographic Exclusivity – this is a big one, and needs to be taken very seriously. Ideally, it would be tied to performance metrics.
• Revenue Split – Variables like who supports the customer, who delivers sales demos, and kickers to accelerate the revenue share should be considered.
• Training – web-based training programs like GoToMeeting make this an easy consideration. Annual face-to-face training should be evaluated as well.
• Branding – considerations like usage of the brand and content vs a true independent distributor should be analyzed.

Partnerships generally fall under the 80/20 rule whereby 80% of the partnerships produce 20% of the results and 20% of the partnerships produce 80% of the results. Regardless, partnerships, and international ones, are great growth opportunities for startups and should be fully evaluated.