Scale, fund & exit

How do I find a brand to partner with that isn't a direct competitor?

The short answer

Look at your own customer's purchase basket and Instagram following - the brands they already buy from or follow that solve an adjacent problem are your natural partners, not brands in your exact category. Indian D2C brands increasingly favour collaboration over price wars precisely because it's cheaper growth than discounting, so approach with a specific, scoped idea (a bundle, a joint drop, a swap of email placements) rather than a vague 'let's partner' DM - founders get dozens of those and only respond to concrete asks.

A quick summary to orient you. The real value is below: the resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it, not us.

Here are the resources

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time. India-specific ones carry a badge.

3 resources 1 India-specific 3 link-checked

Read

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it Makes the business case for why partnerships deserve a line item in your growth plan rather than being an occasional favour to a founder friend - useful to justify the time investment to a co-founder or investor.

Brand Partnerships: Why They Matter for D2C Brands

From adroll.com by AdRoll

  • Partnerships boost brand perception and strength when core audiences and values align.
  • Cross-promotion between similarly-sized brands is often more cost-effective than paid ads.
  • Choosing partners with matched sales goals prevents lopsided effort.
Open adroll.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Argues, from an Indian retail-trade perspective, why collaboration is displacing discounting as the preferred growth lever for Indian D2C brands - directly relevant as ad costs and price wars squeeze margins here.

Why D2C Brands Prefer Collaboration over Competitive Prices

From indianretailer.com by Indian Retailer

  • Collaboration is increasingly favoured over price-cutting as a customer acquisition strategy in India.
  • Price wars erode margin permanently; collaborations build brand equity that compounds.
  • Frames partnership as a defensive move against a race-to-the-bottom on discounting.
Open indianretailer.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it A marketer's practitioner breakdown of concrete partnership activities you can actually run this quarter, not just abstract theory - good for turning 'we should partner with someone' into an actual first campaign.

Brand Partnership Strategy: Types and Activities

From rachelandreago.com by Rachel Andreago

  • Breaks partnership strategy into concrete, executable activities rather than just definitions.
  • Covers how to identify partner-fit based on audience and values alignment.
  • Useful as a working checklist for planning your first collaboration.
Open rachelandreago.com →

People also ask

What's the actual playbook for a D2C brand-to-brand collaboration? Pick a partner with the same core customer but a non-competing product, agree on what each side brings (audience, product, content, discount code),... Intermediate 4 resources → Co-marketing vs co-branding vs sponsorship - what's the difference and which should I do? Co-marketing is two brands promoting each other to their separate audiences (a joint email or Instagram takeover), co-branding puts both brand name... Beginner 3 resources → What do good D2C co-branding campaigns actually look like? The best ones pair a functional brand with a design or cultural brand so the product gets both utility and desirability - boAt's collabs with Marve... Intermediate 3 resources → Are Indian D2C brands actually doing meaningful collabs, or is it mostly a Western D2C thing? It's very real in India too - boAt has run repeated pop-culture and designer collabs (Marvel, Masaba Gupta) specifically to keep its gadgets feelin... Intermediate 3 resources → What's the risk in a brand partnership, and how do I protect my brand if it goes wrong? The biggest risks are a partner brand's controversy or quality issue rubbing off on you, and a lopsided deal where one brand does all the audience-... Advanced 3 resources →

Related in Starting Up

Not D2C-specific, so it lives in our founder hub. Same engine, different corner.

Co-founder dynamics, equity splits and conflict
Finding a co-founder → Co-founder agreements & equity →
eChai Partner Brands