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I’m taking over the email today to share some special news.
Today we’re launching Nearbound and the Rise of the Who Economy. It’s a personal achievement for me since it’s a compilation of years of experience in B2B sales, revenue, and partnerships.
Before the launch, I wanted to share a bit of the backstory behind this book.
My curiosity about nearbound began with an unremarkable Zoom call.
On the other side sat my mentor, Pete Caputa, with the Boston Commons stretching out behind him—a view from Drift’s boardroom. We were in the midst of our monthly advisory meeting, and I was prodding for insights on replicating HubSpot’s dynamic partner ecosystem and alignment. Essentially, I was seeking Pete’s secrets to forging a world-class partnerships department.
As my gaze wandered over the virtual Boston backdrop, Pete’s words cut through my distraction.
Jared, this isn’t just about the channel or partnerships department,” he clarified. “It’s about an overlay model.
An overlay model? What the heck was Pete talking about?
That moment marked a turning point. It dawned on me that partnerships should not be confined to a single department, but integrated as a strategy across every department. The concept of an overlay model ignited my curiosity, setting me on a path of discovery that has spanned six years and counting.
Driven by this newfound obsession, I decided to seek out leaders who had successfully dismantled the traditional barriers—not only aligning their leadership with partnerships but also weaving these partnerships into the very fabric of their departments. My quest for knowledge led me to launch PartnerUp: The Partnerships Podcast (now The Nearbound Podcast). Initially, my motivation was pure curiosity, without any anticipation of it becoming the leading podcast in the field.
Soon, my curiosity paved the way for the creation of PartnerHacker with Isaac Morehouse, a longtime friend turned co-founder. Together, we initiated PartnerHacker Daily—the first daily newsletter dedicated to partnerships—and assembled the best-selling PartnerHacker Handbook. Our efforts culminated in hosting the PL[X] Summit, the largest event in B2B tech partnerships history, attracting over 5,000 attendees, eventually leading to our acquisition by Reveal—led by CEO Simon Bouchez, the creator of the word nearbound and a true pioneer in the partnerships space—where PartnerHacker was rebranded to nearbound.com.
And now, we reach another milestone: the launch of my first (and the biggest partnerships) book in history.
Within it are the stories, plays, rhythms, and tactics I’ve amassed over the last decade with the help of my community and, most importantly, my partners.
This book provides a path forward for GTM teams. It gives a roadmap for leaders ready to imagine their organizations around collaborative communities and network effects.
Because if you want to win, nearbound is the only way forward. Trust is the most precious commodity in today’s market, and the future will favor those who evolve from chasing deals to nurturing relationships in its pursuit.
And trust me when I say that this pursuit is not reserved for partner pros. It is mission-critical for every GTM team, which is why NEARBOUND covers them all:
Part 1: Nearbound Foundations
Part 2: Nearbound Marketing
Part 3: Nearbound Sales
Part 4: Nearbound Community
Part 5: Nearbound Customer Success
Part 6: The Nearbound Overlay
15 chapters, 225 pages, 105 people highlighted, 110 companies mentioned, hundreds of stories told, and even more plays documented, all with a singular goal:
To give you the keys to unlock success with nearbound.
If you are reading this, I have one wish: that this book is not merely helpful to your business, but helps transform your life. There are ample stories, tactics, strategies, data-backed details, and analyses that will benefit you as a leader in the new world of B2B. But most of all, I share with every ounce of passion I can muster, a first-principle-driven approach that applies well beyond GTM or partnerships.
I will measure NEARBOUND and the Rise of the Who Economy’s ultimate success not by the number of copies distributed or Amazon ranking, but instead by the number of times you pick it back up and wrestle with the ideas and practices.
I’ll leave you with this quote by Jerzy Gregorek, perhaps my favorite quote of all time:
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”
Nearbound is simple, but not easy. The changes are simple enough if you start at the fundamentals: the behavior, mindset, and principles a company must adopt to succeed with partnerships. But easy? If it were, everyone would already be doing it.
The ideas in this book will force hard conversations internally and externally. It will force hard choices in your business and in your life. I challenge all who are reading this to “choose hard.”
Adapting to this way of thinking requires curiosity, courage, and conviction. And as some of you will come to learn, when you make the hard choices and feel the conviction in your bones, life gets easier after the choices you make get harder.
So, a special thanks to each of you who embarks on this journey with an open mind and the world at your feet.
The business world needs a change: it needs a resistance, it needs a revolution, it needs a movement And you are that movement.
So get moving.
Stay curious.
Be courageous.
Find your conviction.
— Jared Fuller
Let’s make a movement
Share this with a friend to make the nearbound movement bigger.
