6 Ways to Build Strong Partnerships Finding trustworthy vendors and partners is key to growing your business -- but it's a challenging relationship to perfect. We asked six entrepreneurs to share their best methods.

1. Start small.

"We first ask any potential vendor about their sustainability practices to make sure our values are aligned. If they are, we experiment with small-batch orders to ensure that any wrinkles can get ironed out early on without affecting the supply chain and customer experience too much. Clear communication of our expectations from those earliest days is an important part of creating lasting relationships." — Justina Blakeney, founder, Jungalow

2. Build foundations.