Build High-Value Partnerships
UNSW Founders & The Partnership Lab™
Learn how to identify, approach, and build high-quality partnerships, using practical frameworks and an AI-powered assistant.
17 June, 2026
Recently, I completed The Partnership Lab Kickstart Playbook delivered by the Partnership Lab. This is a quick online course, delivered in under 30 minutes, designed to help founders get started with the practical skills needed to build better partnerships.
The course is built around a clear framework that provides a step-by-step approach to identifying, approaching and building confidence with potential partners. It can also be accessed as often as needed, making it a useful resource to return to throughout the partnership-building process.
As I worked through the program, one thing became very clear: many early-stage founders know partnerships matter, but very few feel confident pursuing them. Partnerships can be a key driver of startup growth, yet knowing where to begin, who to approach and how to frame the opportunity can often feel unclear.
This realisation was reinforced through a conversation with one of my founder friends, who had experienced consistent friction when trying to cultivate the right relationships with the right people. Their challenge was not a lack of ambition, but uncertainty around where to establish the first point of contact with potential stakeholders.
The program introduces the Intent Deck, a practical tool that outlines how partners can work together by establishing guiding principles and clarifying the purpose of the relationship. This document helps facilitate collaboration and can serve as a roadmap for onboarding and partnership execution. I found the template particularly useful, as it helped structure a clear five-slide deck that could be used to communicate meeting intentions efficiently and effectively.
Alongside this, the course focuses on clear value communication. It encourages founders to use specific, compelling and easily repeatable value points to demonstrate seriousness and make the opportunity easier for partners to understand. The provided FAST Framework is designed to help accelerate trust-building in early partner meetings. FAST stands for Focus, Align, Simplify, and Trust.
The Partnership Playbook also encourages participants to record a short meeting walkthrough using Loom, a screen capture tool that records voice and video. This includes a 60-second walkthrough of the five-slide presentation, helping founders communicate intention, personality and context in a way that slides alone cannot always achieve.
Throughout the course, I developed several practical skills that support stronger relationship building across companies and organisations. In particular, the course helped me understand how to communicate value more clearly, approach partnerships with structure, and build trust more intentionally.
Additionally, participants who complete the course can access an exclusive GPT built specifically for the program, which allows them to explore the frameworks in more depth and apply them to their own partnership opportunities.
I encourage founders to take part in this quick and practical course, especially if you are looking to build stronger partnerships but are unsure where to start.
You can access the free version of the course, available exclusively for the UNSW Founders community here.