What works, from our top partners

Partner playbook

This is the playbook our top partners use to consistently drive bookings. It is not theory, it is what is working right now in newsletters, communities, advisory practices, and creator audiences. Skim it once, pick the two plays that fit you, and run them.

The economics in one paragraph

You earn 10% of every founder's weekly invoice and 5% of every engineer's weekly billing, recurring, for as long as they stay on Cadence. A Senior tier booking ($1,500 / week) pays you $150 every week the founder is active. Five active founders is $750 / week, recurring. Twenty is $3,000 / week. The compounding is the point.

Five plays that work

1. The newsletter mention

One paragraph in a Friday issue, with your link, pointing readers to the right Cadence landing page (founders, engineers, or partners). Top partners in this format earn $200 to $1,200 per issue depending on audience size. The trick is specificity: mention a tier, a stack, and a price. “Need a senior React engineer for two weeks? $1,500 / week, free 48-hour trial” converts roughly 4x better than a generic mention.

2. The pinned community post

For founder Slacks, Discords, and YC office hours: pin a one-paragraph explainer with your link. Refresh quarterly. We see 20 to 40 bookings per year from a single well-placed pinned post in a 500-member founder community.

3. The advisory bundle

For GTM advisors, fractional CTOs, and product coaches: bundle a Cadence booking into your engagement. “I will help you scope, you book the engineer through my Cadence link, I get the 10% recurring instead of charging you a separate fee for that hour.” Founders love this because it removes a procurement step. You earn long after the engagement ends.

4. The teardown video

For tech YouTubers and Twitter builders: 60-second video walking through the booking flow, your link in the description and pinned comment. Three of our top partners are doing this once a month. Average video pulls 4 to 8 founder signups within 30 days of posting, with a long tail of trickle bookings for the next 6 months.

5. The recruiter handoff

For external recruiters who get briefs that do not fit a 90-day full-time loop: send them to Cadence. You earn the same recurring 10% on bookings, with zero hiring loop work. We have ex-Triplebyte and ex-Hired recruiters earning $4,000 to $8,000 / month from this play alone.

What does not work

  • Cold spam. Sending your link to a list of founders you do not know. Conversion under 0.1%, and it burns your name.
  • Generic mentions. “Hiring engineers? Try Cadence.” with no tier, no stack, no price. Founders glaze over without specificity.
  • Hiding the link. If your audience cannot tell you are paid for the recommendation, you erode trust. Always disclose.
  • One-shot launches. Cadence is recurring. Promote once, you get one booking. Promote quarterly, you get compound bookings.

Anatomy of a good post

Top partners who consistently earn over $2,000 / month all share a pattern in their posts:

  1. Open with a specific founder pain (cannot wait 60 days, lost a hire, runway pressure).
  2. Mention the price and the trial in one sentence ($500 to $2,000 / week, 48-hour free trial).
  3. One specific stack or tier that is relevant to the audience (“senior React + Postgres” works better than “all stacks”).
  4. Drop your cadence.work/r/your-handle link.
  5. Close with disclosure: “I earn 10% recurring if you book. I only recommend things I would use myself.”

What we will help with

  • Swipe copy. We have one-line, 50-word, 200-word versions for newsletter, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Slack. Email partners@cadence.work after you join.
  • Co-marketing. If you reach 5+ founder signups in a quarter, we will co-author a piece, host a joint event, or run a co-branded campaign. We split distribution and you get top billing.
  • Founder intros. Top partners get warm intros to the founders we already work with. Useful for advisors and recruiters scaling their book.

Tracking and disclosure

Every booking attributed to your link shows up in your partner dashboard in real time. Cookie window is 30 days; once they sign up, attribution is permanent. We require disclosure of paid promotion to your audience, in line with FTC guidelines and the platform terms.

Read more

Anything not covered here, email partners@cadence.work. We answer same business day.