For me, partnerships aren't just a business strategy, they're a way of life. Over the past three decades, from racing BMX bikes as a teenager to overseeing strategic partnerships at Scaled Agile today, I've learned that success is rarely a solo endeavor. The most meaningful wins, whether on a race track or in a boardroom, happen when you're helping others succeed alongside you.
Emig's Bike Shop and a Teenager's Hustle
I was never fast enough to earn a BMX sponsorship the traditional way. But I needed a way to fund my racing habit, so I approached Emig's, a local bicycle shop in Meadville, PA, with a simple proposition: give me a jersey and a discount on parts, and I'll promote your shop far beyond the track.
That handshake deal with Pat taught me my first lesson about partnerships: it's not about what you can get, it's about what value you can create. Over the years, I brought Emig's referrals and visibility, and in return, they invested more in supporting my racing. It was a true partnership where both sides won.
BMXtreme and the Power of Collaboration
The success with Emig's opened my eyes to bigger possibilities. I started collaborating with Grant Hansen, who ran an e-zine called (what we called blogs back in the '90s) BMXtreme. Through writing and connecting with a larger audience, I could provide even more value to more people.
Grant saw something in my approach and eventually invested in my vision to duplicate the success of BMXtreme in motocross. Together, we launched MotoXtreme.com in late 1999 and ran it until 2001 when my main business, Carzz, demanded my full attention. This partnership taught me that the best collaborations happen when partners believe in your vision enough to invest in it.
The “Big Break”
In 1999, while still in high school, I landed partnerships with Bulldog Bikes and PLAY Clothes, two legendary BMX brands of the time. These weren't just transactional relationships; they were built on trust and mutual respect. Working with PLAY and Bulldog reinforced a crucial lesson that later saved my life in Iraq: partnerships are as much about relationships and trust as they are about dollars.
Scaling Success
As my focus shifted from hobbies to building a sustainable business, I applied everything I'd learned about partnerships to scale Carzz, my platform that helped car and motorcycle dealerships get their inventory online before Cars.com and others dominated the space.
To prove value to my first clients, I took a partnership approach: charge only a commission on vehicles sold through the platform, and if we proved successful after the first year, we'd shift to a subscription model. This wasn't a pricing strategy, but an approach built on the lessons I learned about relationships and trust that I now recognize as partnership philosophy. We succeeded together or not at all. I repeated this approach with dealerships across Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Minnesota, building trust one successful partnership at a time.
Life and Death Partnerships
After experiencing a liquidity event from Carzz, I thought I was done with partnerships when I joined the Army. For the first year, focused on training and learning, that seemed true. But in my second year, when my unit began working with the Iraqi Police, those partnership lessons came roaring back.
Partnership takes on an entirely different meaning in life-and-death scenarios. Trust wasn’t about business success, it was about survival. These experiences taught me that the strongest partnerships are forged when stakes are highest and mutual dependence is absolute.
Learning the Other Side
After being wounded in combat and retiring from the Army, I returned to technology and spent several years learning management, advanced engineering, and architecture. Crucially, I also learned how to be a customer of vendors. This flipped perspective taught me invaluable lessons about the other side of the partnership equation: what it's like when you're the one being partnered with, not just the one seeking partnership.
Impact Over Dollars
My role running the global military and law enforcement business at Under Armour expanded my partnership responsibilities beyond just business development. I managed partnerships with organizations like Wounded Warrior Project, Special Operations Warrior Foundation, Unit Scholarship Fund, and Tough Mudder.
This period taught me that the most powerful partnerships aren't always measured in revenue, they're measured in impact. Sometimes raising awareness matters more than dollars. The best partnerships serve a purpose bigger than profit.
Complex Ecosystems
During my time as an executive at Accenture, I oversaw complex partnerships between the firm, vendors, and clients. These weren't simple bilateral relationships but intricate ecosystems where multiple parties had to find mutual value. Here I learned about identifying mutual interests across complex stakeholder groups and balancing competing needs while maintaining profitability for everyone involved.
Full Circle: Building Success at Scaled Agile
Today at Scaled Agile, my responsibilities extend beyond partnerships, but I spend significant time helping consulting partners build and evolve their businesses. I oversee software and strategic partnerships while also leading our sales engineering team.
Building programs that help partners win has been the highlight of my career. There’s something profoundly satisfying about creating systems where partners, their teams, and their customers all succeed together. And in many ways, this is where I’ve learned to apply one of the most valuable lessons first taught to me by my friend Jenna in a Baltimore bar: the power of connection. Sometimes the greatest contribution isn’t what you build yourself, but recognizing when two partners will thrive together and making that introduction. It’s the ultimate expression of everything I learned starting with that handshake deal at Emig’s bike shop.
The Mattis Foundation
Even outside of work, partnerships continue to shape my impact. Jenelle and I started The Mattis Foundation to support our community with our time, talent, and treasure, while ensuring that the legacy of the man who died saving my life overseas will never be forgotten.
Even in the foundation's early days, we've leveraged partnerships to amplify our impact. Because that's what partnerships do: they multiply your ability to create positive change.
The Path Forward
I don't see a time when partnerships won't play an important part in my life. Sure, we can succeed and win on our own, but it's much easier—and more fun—to do it while helping others do the same.
Whether you're a teenager trying to fund your racing dreams or an executive building strategic alliances, the fundamentals remain the same: create genuine value for others, build relationships based on trust, and always remember that the best partnerships make everyone involved better than they could be alone.
This was a way of life for me long before it was a business philosophy. And it's served me well from BMX tracks to boardrooms, from combat zones to corporate strategy sessions. The context changes, but the truth remains: we're stronger together.