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Design partner vs customer pilot
Design partners and customer pilots are different motions with different clocks, prices, and outcomes.
Customer pilot
The buyer uses the prescribed product on a short clock (aim for one to two months) against written success criteria, with an explicit path to a commercial decision.
Design partner
A design partnership often runs three to six months (a session-attributed pattern). The partner gets a discount in exchange for logos, quotes, and product learning. That trade has value, and it belongs in a different playbook.
Mixing them fails
If you put open-ended co-build language inside a pilot agreement, you get endless scope and no PO.
Claims and patterns on this page are paraphrased from practitioner session notes and the Startup Bible (Pilots that convert). See Sources.