One of the fastest ways to grow your presence in crypto and attract new users/investors is through strategic partnerships. But how do you find the right ones? You might have seen all of these other brands, maybe even your competitors, announcing these impressive collaborations, but you aren’t really sure how you can make that happen for your own project.
If that’s the case, you’re definitely not alone. Despite the blockchain being decentralized and trustless, the old mantra of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” still very much applies to this space.
However, to build these relationships and position yourself for partnerships, adopting a spray and pray approach and engaging in cold outreach is unlikely to yield the best results. Send enough emails, pitch enough projects, and eventually something will stick, right? Not exactly.
Start With Your Users, Not Your Assumptions
Looking at other brands and thinking “wouldn’t it be great to partner with them” without any real strategy behind it is backwards thinking. That’s how you end up with partnerships that may look good for your crypto public relations, but it doesn’t actually move the needle for your business.
Instead, zoom out and start by focusing on your users. Think about the other products and solutions they are already using. What sites and platforms do they interact with directly after yours? What problems do they have that you can’t solve but someone else can?
To give you an example, users of a DeFi lending protocol might also be using yield farming protocols, portfolio tracking tools, or tax software. These aren’t competitors of the DeFi company, they are actually complementary services. In other words, they are potential partners who are already serving the exact audience you’re trying to reach.
You want to find partnerships that create genuine value for users (and even new use cases), not just marketing opportunities for the founders to flaunt about.
Go To Crypto Events and Start Networking
Now here’s where crypto events become incredibly valuable. Not for generic networking, but as opportunities for you to do some research and identify potential partners and understand what they actually care about.
Many crypto companies attend blockchain conferences to pitch their products to everyone they meet. Not only is that exhausting, but it’s ineffective.
Instead, use events as intelligence-gathering operations. Your goal isn’t to close deals on the conference floor. The goal is to understand the market, identify potential partners, and build relationships that could turn into something meaningful later on.
But don’t just go to any conference you see. You need to be calculated and deliberate with your approach. Review a crypto events calendar to identify conferences and gatherings that align with both your target partners and business goals.
If you’re building DeFi infrastructure, you naturally want to be at events where DeFi builders actually hang out, not consumer-focused Web3 conferences where everyone’s talking about NFT marketplaces.
When you find the right event, don’t just go into pitch mode when you get there. Be ready to listen, and more importantly, be prepared to learn. Ask people about their biggest challenges, what partnerships have worked for them in the past, and what they’re focused on for the next six months. You’re planting the seeds here that could turn into partnerships later down the line. Don’t force it too hard, too soon.
Build Your Brand So Partners Come to You
Oftentimes, the best partnerships happen when other projects seek you out, not when you’re chasing them down. And the way you make that happen is by building a brand that other projects actually want to be associated with.
This means taking the time to work on your thought leadership and actually contributing value to your space. This gives you a chance of becoming known for something specific that makes partnering with you attractive. It could be a research piece you publish about AI.
Or you’re known for having the most engaged community in DeFi, or the most reliable infrastructure in gaming, or the most precise technical documentation in the space. You get the point.
Strategic blockchain PR plays a huge role here, but it has to be authentic. You can’t just blast press releases about every minor update and expect other projects to take notice. You need to build a reputation for actually moving the industry forward and for adding something that others can’t easily replicate.
Look Where Others Aren’t Looking
Sometimes, you need to be creative and think outside the box to find partnerships that bring real value. While everyone else is chasing the obvious collaborations with the biggest names in their sector, there’s often more opportunity in partnerships that others are overlooking. It may involve working with a traditional fintech company that’s just starting to explore crypto, or partnering with a gaming studio that hasn’t fully embraced Web3 yet but serves your exact user base.
These unconventional partnerships can be goldmines because there’s less competition for their attention, and they’re often more willing to experiment with new approaches. Plus, when you’re one of the first crypto projects they work with, you have a chance to shape that relationship from the ground up.
Final Word
Partnerships are one of the most powerful tools for expanding your business and getting an immediate injection of new users and investors, but finding the right ones can be tricky. A slight mindset shift can help you find more success, and that’s realizing that partnerships are more about people than they are more about people than they are about projects.
When you focus on building genuine relationships with the people who are actively solving problems for your users, the partnerships follow naturally. Remember, most connections don’t happen in boardrooms or through LinkedIn messages. They occur in the spaces where people are actually doing the work together. Whether that’s debugging code together, sharing resources, or simply being useful to each other without expecting anything in return.
