Drata's origin lies in the internal tools the founders built at their previous company, Portfolium. They created the software out of necessity to prove their security posture to university clients, later realizing this solution addressed a widespread, manual problem for all companies.

Drata's strategy was to provide value to AWS first by bringing thousands of new transactions and customers to the AWS Marketplace, many of whom had never used it before. This "give before you take" approach quickly elevated their partnership status.

Smartsheet's partner value proposition extends beyond resale margins. The company strategically positions partner-led professional services (implementation, integration) as essential for its own success. These services drive customer adoption, which in turn leads to higher retention rates for Smartsheet's core software.

The company provides public benchmarks for free to build trust. It monetizes by selling private benchmarking services and subscription-based enterprise reports, ensuring AI labs cannot pay for better public scores and thus maintaining objectivity.

WWT proactively invites vendors to share early code under NDA. Their teams, backed by real-world customer experience, test the products rigorously, providing invaluable feedback for improvement. This elevates their role from a simple reseller to a strategic development partner for vendors.

To prove its "partner-first" commitment, Akamai financially incentivizes its direct sales force to work with partners. Sales teams earn a higher commission on deals closed through a partner, even if Akamai initially sourced the opportunity, ensuring internal alignment and prioritizing the channel.

To maintain independence and trust, their public benchmarks are free and cannot be influenced by payments. The company generates revenue by selling detailed reports and insight subscriptions to enterprises, and by conducting private, custom benchmarking for AI companies, separating their public good from their commercial offerings.

Vendors and TSDs get lost in partner labels. The critical distinction is the partner's business model: Do they want a residual commission, to resell on their own paper, or a one-time payment? Offering this flexibility is key to recruiting and enabling modern partners.

While many legal AI tools use the same foundational models, they differentiate by offering features crucial for law firms: strict permissions, compliance controls, and integrations with proprietary legal databases like Westlaw. This 'packaging' of trust is the real product, for which discerning law firms willingly pay a premium.