Tying the Knot Partnering is an art, so make sure everyone sees eye to eye with these 8 tips.

The fallacy of partnerships is rooted in the dotcom boom. In those days, most startups didn't have a business model, so they blew smoke about "partnering" with big firms. (Surely, if a company partnered with IBM or Microsoft, it would be successful.)

To this day, whenever an entrepreneur uses partner as a verb, all I hear is "bull-shiitake relationship that isn't going to increase revenue." In the spirit of improving what has become a flawed process, here are my tips for the art of partnering.

Partner for spreadsheet reasons
The right reason to form a partnership is to increase sales or decrease costs. Here's a quick test: Will you recalculate the spreadsheet model of your financial projections if the partnership happens? If not, the partnership is doomed. You can wave your hands all you like about "visibility" and "credibility," but if you can't quantify the partnership, you don't have one.