Director of Partnerships

Overview

You build partnerships that become revenue engines for Owner.com—a platform that gives independent restaurants websites, online ordering, delivery, and marketing tools. You're negotiating deals with POS companies, payment processors, distribution partners, and restaurant associations, then operationalizing those partnerships so they actually drive restaurant customer acquisition at scale.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series B-C (293 employees, established product)

Size: ~300 employees

Growth: Actively hiring, focused on scaling channel motion

Market Position: Challenger in crowded restaurant tech space—competing against Toast, Square, ChowNow, BentoBox, plus third-party delivery platforms

GTM Reality

Partnership Focus:

• Tech integrations (POS systems like Square, Clover, Toast competitors)
• Financial services (payment processors, restaurant lending)
• Distribution partners (food suppliers, equipment vendors)
• Association partnerships (state restaurant associations, franchise groups)

Current State: This is a 0→1 build for a formal partnerships function with revenue accountability. They've been growing through direct sales and want to add scalable channels.

Success Metric: Partnerships that generate qualified restaurant signups and revenue—not just logos for a slide deck.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Toast (dominant in POS + ecosystem), Square (SMB payment + restaurant tools), ChowNow (online ordering), Slice (pizza-specific), BentoBox (higher-end restaurants)

How They Differentiate: Zero-commission delivery (vs DoorDash/Uber taking 30%), letting restaurants "own" their customer relationships and data, all-in-one platform for independents

Common Objections:

• "We're already using [incumbent platform]"
• "We can't afford to switch systems"
• "How is this different from what we have?"
• Migration/switching costs and operational disruption

Win Themes: Cost savings on delivery commissions, customer data ownership, integrated marketing tools that chains use but independents typically can't access

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Partner Sourcing & Deals (40%) | Enablement & Activation (35%) | Internal Alignment (25%)

Key Activities

• Building Your Pipeline: You're identifying high-potential partners—POS companies with restaurant customer bases, payment processors looking for value-adds, supplier networks that touch thousands of restaurants. You're doing cold outreach to partnership heads, getting warm intros through your network, attending restaurant industry conferences.

• Negotiating Strategic Deals: You're on calls with VP/Director-level partnership contacts, figuring out deal structures (rev share, co-marketing, referral fees, tech integration scope). You're navigating their legal/product/revenue teams. Deals take months and involve a lot of "can you send this to your legal team" back-and-forth.

• Turning Deals Into Revenue: After the contract is signed, the real work starts. You're building enablement materials for partner sales teams, training their reps on how to position Owner.com, creating co-marketing campaigns, tracking which partners are actually driving signups vs which partnerships are dormant.

• Field Time With Partners: You're traveling to partner offices or restaurant trade shows, doing joint sales calls with partner account managers, visiting restaurants with partners to close deals together. This isn't a desk job—you're expected to be in the field regularly.

• Reporting & Optimization: You're in weekly syncs with leadership showing partner-sourced pipeline and closed revenue. You're analyzing which partner channels are working and which aren't, then reallocating your time accordingly. You're building dashboards to track partner performance.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Long Sales Cycles on Both Ends: First you spend 6 months closing the partnership deal. Then you spend another 6 months getting the partner's team to actually drive referrals. Most partnerships take 12+ months to generate meaningful revenue.

• Partner Prioritization: Your partners have 10 other partnership initiatives competing for attention. Getting their sales team to pitch Owner.com vs their other priorities is constant work. Many partnerships will sign but never activate.

• Revenue Attribution Battles: You'll spend time arguing internally about which deals came from partnerships vs direct sales. Attribution gets messy. Marketing wants credit, sales wants credit, you want credit.

• Restaurant Economics Are Tight: Independent restaurants operate on thin margins. Convincing them to pay for your platform—even if it saves them money long-term—is hard when they're barely profitable.

• Integration Complexity: Tech partnerships require API integrations, documentation, support. You're coordinating between your product/eng team and the partner's tech team. Things break. Timelines slip.

What Success Looks Like

• You close 3-5 strategic partnerships in year one that generate qualified restaurant leads
• Partner channel contributes 15-25% of new customer acquisition by end of year two
• You build a repeatable playbook for partner onboarding, enablement, and tracking
• At least 2 partners become "always on" referral sources that consistently hit quotas

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers (Partners):

• VP/Director of Partnerships at POS companies, payment processors, fintech
• Head of Business Development at supplier networks or distribution companies
• Executive Directors at state/regional restaurant associations

What They Care About:

• Revenue upside for their business (referral fees, upsell opportunities)
• Value-add for their existing customer base
• Ease of integration and low burden on their team
• Brand alignment and no competitive conflicts
• Proof that the partnership will actually drive outcomes, not just be a logo

Secondary Buyers (Restaurant Owners via Partners):

• Independent restaurant owners/operators
• Small chains (2-5 locations)
• Franchisees looking for alternatives to corporate-mandated systems

Requirements

• 7+ years in B2B partnerships, channel sales, or business development with direct revenue accountability
• Proven track record building partnership programs from scratch that generated measurable revenue (they want to see specific numbers)
• Experience in restaurant tech, fintech, payments, or adjacent industries where you understand the buyer
• Willingness to travel 30-40% for partner meetings, trade shows, and field time
• Comfort with ambiguity—this is a build-it-yourself role with minimal infrastructure
• Strong deal negotiation skills and experience with contract structures (rev share, co-marketing, integration agreements)
• Ability to enable partner teams and build scalable processes, not just sign deals