We have officially reached the midpoint of the “Decade of the Ecosystem.”

In the $6.1 trillion global technology market, the old ways of doing business are dead. The linear, transactional world where a vendor made a product and a reseller sold it are being replaced quickly. We are now living in a world of 28 moments. That is the number of touchpoints a B2B buyer navigates before they ever sign a contract. They are listening to influencers, browsing marketplaces, and asking their peers in private communities. If you (or your partners) aren’t present in those 28 moments, you are invisible.

This is why Mark Brigman’s LAUNCH is the right book at exactly the right moment.

As I look across the landscape of hundreds of thousands of B2B technology companies and the millions of partners that surround them, we are seeing a massive divide. There are companies that “get it”—those moving toward platform-driven, co-innovation models—and there are those still stuck in a 1990s “resell-only” mindset. Leveraging strategic partners for growth is no longer an option; it’s an existential imperative for survival. In this era, partnerships are the only way to bolster and differentiate your solution offerings and achieve the specialized gravity required to win the “integration-first” buyer at every critical moment.

What Brigman has done with LAUNCH is take the “squishy” concept of ecosystems and turn it into a rigorous discipline. This book is an outstanding on-ramp for any company, in any industry, that wants to build or mature a scalable partnership program. Whether you are a startup founder looking for your first 10 partners or a Fortune 500 executive trying to modernize a legacy program, the path forward is the same: you need a methodology, not a miracle.

One of the biggest obstacles I see for Chief Partner Officers today is the “Trial and Error Tax.” Far too many companies spend two years fumbling through partner recruitment, misaligned incentives, and failed co-marketing motions before they figure out what works. By that time, the market has moved on. 

Companies starting from the LAUNCH framework will accelerate their program maturity by at least 12 months by not paying that very high “trial and error tax” that most companies pay. Why is the failure rate so high? Usually, it’s because the program was architected on a shaky foundation. LAUNCH clearly articulates the essential building blocks for architecting a scalable partnership program. Brigman breaks down the complexity into a 10-step blueprint that aligns vision, teams, and metrics. He moves past the “what” and “why” and gets deep into the “how.”

Finally, Brigman doesn’t shy away from the hard truth that 70% to 95% of B2B partnerships fail. LAUNCH explains the key reasons most partnerships fail and gives you a time-tested approach to avoid the trap and accelerate your success. He helps you identify the “red flags” before you sign the contract and provides the operational rigors needed to ensure the relationship actually yields a services multiplier and long-term customer retention.

The next five years will be defined by the “Super Winners”—the companies that don’t just participate in ecosystems but orchestrate and build platforms supporting them. If you want to be on the winning side of that divide, LAUNCH is your field guide. It’s time to stop experimenting and start executing.