In the development of a company, each partnership proposal represents both a promise and a risk. In theory, opening up to your ecosystem, multiplying collaborations and pooling efforts always seems relevant. But in operational reality, there are few companies that really test what an opening without filter would give. Some French structures have lent themselves to exercise: saying yes to all partnership solicitations for thirty days, without prior sorting. A month of total exposure, to measure the real value of collective intuition and the limits of porosity.
A massive influx … and immediate effects
At Skello, a company specializing in planning management software, the Business Development team decides not to refuse any partnership for a month. Whether collaborations with influencers, co-branding with HR startups, cross-webinars or partner publications, all proposals receive automatic validation. In a few days, the pace accelerates. The communication department is overwhelmed, the schedules are filled, and internal resources are redirected in an emergency to follow the cadence.
This temporary chaos becomes a revealer: the majority of requests, although attractive on paper, are not structured. Many partners have no clear objective, no action plan, sometimes not even a finalized product. This natural sorting is no longer upstream, but a posteriori, through the reality on the ground. Out of twenty-eight partnerships accepted, only three produce a real short-term impact. “We have gained visibility, but especially in lucidity on what an operationally viable partnership means”summarizes the marketing manager.
Reveal the blind spots of the model
The experience led by Legalstart in 2022, in a similar format, highlighted another aspect: the blind points in the development strategy. For a month, the team dedicated to partnerships accepts all incoming proposals, even those that seem far from their core business. This is how a partnership with a wealth management association, first deemed marginal, reveals an unexpected pool of potential customers. By integrating their tool into an SCI management platform, Legalstart opens a new acquisition channel.
Conversely, several collaborations initiated with structures very close to their legal sector do not succeed in anything concrete, for lack of real complementarity. The exercise pushes the company to redefine its criteria of relevance: no longer sectoral proximity, but alignment with the customer life cycle. This change in prism directly influences the sourcing strategy, now focused on upstream or downstream partners of the customer journey, rather than in a competitive or image logic.
Manage the asymmetry of expectations
For Alan, startup specializing in health and insurance, accepting all requests for a month highlighted a recurring point of tension: asymmetry between the expectations of partners and real means of coordination. Several small structures offer actions crossed with Alan, hoping to benefit from its image or its user base. But little anticipate the level of requirement or operational constraints. Result: multiple meetings, supports to adapt, and often an incomplete execution.
This overactivity reveals the central challenge of the partnership: the capacity of the two parties to carry the project with the same intensity. The test leads to internalizing a rapid evaluation grid, not based on the theoretical potential of a collaboration, but on the actual capacity of the partner to mobilize its teams. A criterion that has become decisive, including in deals with strategic high range.
Unexpected opportunities, excluding target
In several cases, this systematic opening has revealed improbable but fruitful alliances. The Startup Olvid, which develops secure messaging, accepts all the incoming proposals without four weeks. Among them, an independent video game editor, wishing to integrate an encrypted cat function for internal tournaments. The agreement seems marginal, but leads to a conclusive technical pilot, then to a framework contract. Following this experience, Olvid widens his partnership strategy in the entertainment sector, previously excluded from his priority target.
This type of outcome shows that a temporary opening can act as a lever for strategic diversification. It is still necessary to be able to draw the right signals. Olvid then sets up an internal transverse partnership watch channel, which makes it possible to detect, from the first weeks, the weak signals of an unexpected use or audience. This cross observation process becomes a full-fledged steering tool, beyond simple opportunistic sourcing.
Structure the post-experience
Once the test period has been completed, most companies that have attempted this general opening set up finer regulatory mechanisms. At Shine, the teams dedicated to the business development create a “forecast impact score”, based on the indicators observed during the experiment: mobilized time, logistical complexity, potential exposure, and compatibility with the product strategy. Each new partnership proposal is now evaluated according to this prism, with faster, better equipped arbitration.
But beyond the grid, it is the posture that changes. The company no longer seeks only to check boxes or to expand its ecosystem, but to choose alliances which strengthen a logic of shared value. The temporality also adjusts: some partnerships no longer aim for the immediate effect, but the construction of a long -term mutual trust. This return to a better targeted “patient” partnership stems directly from the excess of the open phase.
