This tool uses AI features hosted on Sofos's secure backend. Running AI actions (Strategic Insights, candidate research, segment scoring, etc.) incurs cost per call and is part of your Sofos engagement.
By entering your access code, you acknowledge AI actions will be billed under your engagement terms. Please be deliberate when triggering AI features.
If you don't have a code, contact JO at jose@sofos.com.au.
Identify Bundled, Complementary, and Compatible partners across your segments — map them to the customer lifecycle and prioritise recruitment.
This tool requires a Whole Product Model Design export to begin — it consumes the partner-tagged components and inherits the Customer / Market Segment, business context, and compelling reason. You can also import a previously-saved Sofos Channel Partners JSON to resume work.
The tool detects the framework type automatically and routes accordingly.
For each cluster of partner-tagged components, assign a partner type: Bundled (&), Complementary (+), or Compatible (©). The default mapping uses your WPM Design layer assignments — Expected → Bundled, Augmented → Complementary, Potential → Compatible — but override is the norm.
A channel partner is one that has direct access to the target customer segment. The partner IS the channel. Without customer access, a company is just a service provider, not a channel partner. For each cluster, AI generates partner types (categories like “Custodian with API integration” or “Specialist fund-formation legal counsel”) with 3 example companies per type — prioritised for their access to your specific segment. The examples are anchors; the full working partner list comes later. Run AI to generate, then edit / delete / add manually until you’ve got the right typology.
Channel partners = entities with direct access to the customer segment. After the MWP-derived partner types in Step 3, this step adds Complementary and Compatible partner types that don’t deliver MWP components but DO have established access to your customer segment — industry associations, channel marketplaces, capital placement agents, advocacy groups, aligned vendors selling to the same customer. The connecting criterion is segment-access, not service capability. Bundled partners are MWP-derived only and do not appear here.
The AI scores each candidate on four dimensions:
| Dimension | Points | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Segment-specialist match | 0–40 | How strongly this candidate specialises in your customer segment |
| Size-band fit | 0–15 | How well their company size matches your stage |
| Geography match | 0–10 | How much their geography overlaps with yours |
| Lifecycle coverage | 0–10 | How many parts of the customer journey they can serve |
Then the tool adds bonuses (no AI call):
| Bonus | +Points | Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Bundled type | +10 | Candidate is connected to a Bundled (must-have) partner type |
| Cross-segment x2 | +15 | Same entity appears in 2 of your segments |
| Cross-segment x3 | +25 | Same entity appears in 3 of your segments |
| Warm-intro | +20 | You marked the candidate "warm intro" via Annotate |
| Blocked | = 0 | You marked the candidate "blocked" via Annotate — floored to 0 |
Final score (out of 100) bands into tiers:
| Tier | Score | What it means | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 70+ | Top priority — strongest segment fit, often cross-segment leverage too | Recruit first. Direct outreach. Front of the queue. |
| Tier 2 | 40–69 | Solid secondary candidates | Pursue after Tier 1, or for diversification of the partner set |
| Tier 3 | < 40 | Long-tail / weak fit | Last resort or skip. Consider deprioritising. |
You can manually override any candidate's tier via the Annotate panel (☆ appears next to the tier label when manually overridden).
| Badge | Meaning | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|
| ✓ SEGMENT SPECIALIST pink | Has known specialisation in your customer segment | Lean in — these are the highest-quality matches |
| GENERALIST FALLBACK gray | No segment-specialist available; AI fell back to a generalist | Use only if no specialists exist. Add caveats to your pitch. |
| ☆ N SEGMENTS yellow | Same entity appears in N of your customer segments | Stronger recruitment value — one relationship serves multiple segments. Pursue first. |
| ☆ xN CARDS yellow | Linked to N partner-type cards within this segment | Versatile candidate — can play multiple roles in your channel |
| ⚠ N COMPETITORS | Candidate has one or more partnerships flagged as competitor signal (their partner competes with your offering) | Hover the badge to see which competitor partner(s) triggered it. Scroll the card to "Who they already work with" for full context. Caveat your pitch. |
| ⚠ ACTIVE-PARTNER CONFLICT | Candidate has a partnership matching one of your ★ Active partners with a competitor relationship type — channel-conflict warning | Discuss with the active partner first. Skip if recruiting this candidate would jeopardise the active partnership. |
| ★ VIA ACTIVE PARTNER | Candidate has a partnership matching one of your ★ Active partners (non-competitor relationship) | Strongest intro path. Ask the active partner to broker the introduction. |
| AI / Manual / Edited | How this candidate was added: AI research, manually added, or AI-generated then edited | Sanity check Manual + Edited entries before sending to outreach |
The ✨ Find step checks each company before it reaches you. These four badges are what it found. They do not lower the score — they tell you what you are looking at.
| Badge | Meaning | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|
| RUN BY <COMPANY> | This is a product, programme or service line of a bigger firm, not a company in its own right — e.g. Cainiao is run by Alibaba Group, Amazon Multichannel Fulfilment is run by Amazon. Hover it to see the evidence. | You cannot sign a partnership with a service line. Work out who the actual counterparty is, and whether the parent is a competitor before you approach. |
| <TYPE> — NOT AN OPERATOR | The candidate is a platform, marketplace, association, agency, advocacy body or community rather than a firm that operates the service itself. | May still be a useful partner — but it is not the kind of company this partner type asked for. Check it can actually deliver the component before shortlisting. |
| UNVERIFIED | Find could not tell whether this is an independent company. Hover for whatever evidence it did find. | Five minutes on their website before you spend a call on them. |
| NO SIGNAL SINCE <YEAR> | The most recent evidence found is three or more years old. It does not mean the company is gone — it means nothing recent showed up. | Check they still trade before adding them to an outreach list. |
On websites: a company name always opens a web search, never a stored address. Any address research suggested appears beside it as a small dashed grey chip labelled unverified — because the tool cannot open a page to check it resolves. Treat the chip as a lead, not a fact.
Click Annotate on any candidate card in Step 5 to set a personal-connection chip, free-text note, or manual tier override. Connection options:
| Connection | What it means | How you’d open the conversation | Score impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| ★ Active partner One-click via star icon ★ on the candidate card | Existing partner — active referral deal, formal agreement, co-selling, or already working together. Already recruited. | (no recruitment outreach — deepen the relationship instead) | +30 priority score (highest), pinned above warm-intro, pathway flips to ★ Active partner |
| Warm intro | You have a specific third party who can introduce you. The intro is available — you just need to ask. | "Hey [contact], can you intro me to [candidate]?" | +20 priority score, pinned to front of queue, pathway flips to Founder warm |
| Known | You know the candidate yourself — met them, worked together, mutual industry events — but no third-party intro path. | "Hi [candidate], we met at [X]. Following up because…" | No score boost. Pathway flips to Known to founder — follow up directly. |
| Cold | No prior relationship. You’d need to start from scratch. | Outbound cold email / LinkedIn outreach. | No change. Default state. |
| Blocked | Don’t pursue — legal conflict, prior bad blood, NDA issue, founder ruled them out. | (do not engage) | Score floors to 0, row demoted to bottom and struck through. |
Mark Warm intro only when the path is real and you’re ready to pull the trigger. Warm intro typically converts 3–10× better than cold but depends on the intro happening (days/weeks). Known is faster but trades on your own past context, not third-party trust.
Visual distinction: founder-input pills (these four — Active partner, Warm intro, Known, Blocked) render as solid filled, fully-rounded pills in Step 6 because they’re your judgement (locked-in). Data-derived pathway tags (Cross-card, Cross-segment, Via active partner, Warm intro from partnership, Specialist, Direct) render as soft chips because they’re inferred from the data. So if you see Warm intro as a soft pink chip, it’s the AI’s warm-intro-path inference (from a flagged partnership) — different from Founder warm (solid pink pill) which is your own annotation.
Manual tier override: the same Annotate panel lets you force a candidate into Tier 1, 2, or 3 (or back to Auto). The override beats the AI-scored band. A tier with a small * next to it indicates manual override.
Notes: any free-text you add appears in Step 6’s Recruitment Sequence under that candidate’s suggested action, prefixed with ✎. Use it for "GM is an ex-colleague — last spoke Q1" or "needs intro by mutual board director" type prompts.
When you mark candidates as ★ Active partner, the tool automatically scans the partnerships flagged on every other candidate and surfaces two cross-references:
| Auto flag | What it means | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|
| Via active partner | This candidate has a partnership with one of your active partners. Strongest intro path — stronger than warm-intro because the broker is already actively engaged with you. | Ask the active partner to broker the introduction. |
| ⚠ Conflict with active partner | This candidate is a competitor of one of your active partners. Recruiting may strain the existing relationship. | Discuss with the active partner first — channel conflict warning. Skip if it puts the active partnership at risk. |
Both flags appear automatically on the partnership chips inside Step 5 candidate cards (★ VIA ACTIVE PARTNER yellow / ⚠ ACTIVE-PARTNER CONFLICT red), and on the pathway column in Step 6’s Recruitment Sequence.
| Badge | Means | How to treat it |
|---|---|---|
| P | Public — formally announced (website, press release, partner directory) | Highest confidence. Trust as-is. |
| A | Active collaboration — not formal but evident through joint events, case studies, co-presentations | Strong signal. Verify via the source citation in the chip. |
| M | Media-inferred — from media coverage only | Lowest confidence. Verify before relying on. AI may be inferring from soft signals. |
| Rank | Flag | Meaning | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TARGET-SEGMENT FIT | Partner serves the same customer segment you're targeting | Highest priority. Mutual customer alignment — co-sell or mutual referral potential is immediate. |
| 2 | WARM-INTRO PATH | Partner is reachable via your existing network or value-prop overlap | Concrete next step — ask for the intro through that mutual contact. |
| 3 | ALSO ON YOUR LIST | Partner is another candidate on your own recruitment list | Cross-card warm-intro path. Pursue both as a pair — one intro can carry the other. |
| 4 | ECOSYSTEM LEVERAGE | Partner extends your ecosystem (referral / channel / capital / platform) | Possible multi-partner play. Worth a follow-up call to map the ecosystem. |
| 5 | COMPETITOR SIGNAL | Candidate is partnered with someone who competes with your offering | Lowest priority — this is a caveat, not an opportunity. Understand the competitive context before approaching. |
| Rank | Type | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joint-venture | Formal JV, equity-tied — closest commitment |
| 2 | Bundled-supplier | Candidate uses partner as an integrated supplier in their stack |
| 3 | Complementary | Sold separately; sales drive each other (referral / co-sell) |
| 4 | Co-marketing | Joint campaigns, content, events |
| 5 | Shared-customer | Both serve a known shared customer / portfolio company |
| 6 | Vendor | Candidate consumes partner as a paid vendor |
| 7 | Unknown | Relationship type unclear |
| 8 | Competitor | Compete for the same revenue (adversarial — not on the closeness spectrum, placed last by default) |
Hover or click any partnership chip to see the AI's rationale and source citation.
A channel partner is one that has direct access to the target customer segment. For each partner type, Sofos AI finds real companies that already reach your customers — specialists first, generalists only if there are none. Click ✨ Find companies to do every type at once, or use the button on a single card. Then score them, check who they already work with, and add what you know.
The payoff for everything in Steps 1–5. The Per-segment view shows the full picture for the active segment (insights + recruitment sequence + coverage gaps + risk signals). The Cross-segments view surfaces the connections that span segments — same entities, recurring partner-type categories, recurring partner-tagged components.
Configure how the tool calls Claude. Without this, the tool falls back to copy/paste prompts.