Partner Ecosystem Expansion

Plan which categories of partner to add next and in what order, as a staged roadmap with gates.

Be honest about the evidence before anything else:

• No peer-reviewed optimal partner-category sequence exists.
• Most published "frameworks" for this decision are borrowed strategy grids force-fit onto channels.
• Nearly every quoted benchmark comes from a vendor or consultant that profits when the number looks good.

What the evidence genuinely supports:

• Adner's minimum viable ecosystem (MVE) + staged expansion + value blueprint (The Wide Lens; Winning the Right Game) - the one framework designed for exactly this problem: prove the smallest partner configuration that evidences joint value, then add categories in a deliberate order, gated on evidence.
• The alliance-portfolio-diversity inverted-U (Jiang, Tao & Santoro 2010, SMJ; Lee et al. 2017 meta-analysis) - the field's only independent evidence: partner-type diversity helps firm performance up to a point, then coordination and governance costs dominate. It argues for restraint and sequencing; it prescribes no order.
• Operational coverage/capacity math and stage-gate pilots - unbranded, but the actual working method: gate every category on capacity, not enthusiasm.

McBain/Canalys' channel trifurcation supplies the category taxonomy (never a sequence), and Moore's whole product / bowling alley partially transfers. Name and reject the force-fits when a user brings one: Ansoff applied to channels, McKinsey three horizons, BCG growth-share, Iansiti & Levien for category selection. See references/sequencing-frameworks.md.

This skill sequences categories, never named companies. Related decisions live in sibling skills: