When it comes to our Channel ecosystem, and in all honesty, pretty much everything else, we can take a lesson out of our chemistry course. My wife, who is a PhD in Biochemistry will roll her eyes if she reads this, but here I go:
Size matters. When recruiting partners or interconnecting them in your ecosystem, the relative scale of each organization matters. Too big doesn’t mix well with too small. So when mixing, select for similar size.
Not everybody will mix. There is this concept of being “polar” or not. Polar, will never blend very well with non-polar, no matter what you do. You can make an “emulsion”, but the things with emulsions is that they are not very stable, and most of the time you have to keep agitating to keep them nicely together. Identify this early, and either stay away, or make sure there are resources to do the agitating.
Catalysts exist. There may be events, or little nudges that can get things going, and they will not be needed afterwards. Introductions, training, funded heads. You must never mistake a needed ingredient for a catalyst, if you remove it, everything will go to waste.
When nothing happens, add heat. Adding competition, disruption, can work miracles. But as with heat, think it through and be ready to pull out. Things can go quite “explosive” with heat.
Have fun in the mixing.