Vendor journey & onboarding guide

1. How the platform works

Buyers move through a four-step guided journey. Each stage creates context-rich opportunities for matched vendors.

SMB journey stages

1. Assess: About a 5-minute assessment. Produces a security gap snapshot, applicable compliance frameworks (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR, SOX), budget range, and urgency. Buyer need is explicit before introduction.
2. Guide: Guided recommendations and advisor support. Translates controls into business risk, surfaces a small set of best-fit vendors per category, and supports ongoing posture awareness. Recommendations stay need-aligned; future enhancements may add more automated orchestration.
3. Match: Curated bundles and structured comparisons, transparent pricing at the level shown to SMBs, and trust signals such as compliance verification. Introductions are warm: buyers are pre-educated on why the category and fit matter.
4. Procure: The platform facilitates the transaction: contracting and billing paths, implementation support, adoption monitoring, and ongoing compliance tracking. Faster procurement and clearer expansion signals where those services apply.

Marketplace filtering

On the buyer marketplace, filtering is organized around product, service, and vendor so SMBs can narrow results without extra clutter at the top of the page. Exact layout is subject to the live client app.

2. Walkthroughs for partners

Lead generation, expectations, and how onboarding fits together.

3. What “done” looks like for you

By the end of first-time onboarding in the vendor app, you should be:

• Legally started: Mutual NDA and the short MOU completed in the app (see section 4).
• Profile complete: Vendor profile saved (logo, name, coverage, and other required company fields).
• First listing started or live: First product or service captured per the onboarding steps (listing steps stay gated until your profile setup is complete).
• Dashboard access: You can use the vendor dashboard to monitor performance and add more products and services over time.
• Lead-ready when activated: Matched opportunities flow only after Value Aligners activates you for lead routing and your listing meets policy (timing depends on ICP fit and demand).
• Support-aligned: Your team follows platform communication rules and published SLAs for marketplace-introduced clients.

4. Legal steps: NDA and short MOU

Onboarding in production centers on a mutual NDA and a short MOU (memorandum of understanding). These are presented inside the vendor application, early in the flow.

Mutual NDA

Protects confidential information shared in both directions while you evaluate the partnership. The full text is available in the app. You can usually download a copy for your records. Completing the step records your agreement to the terms.

Short MOU

The short MOU captures the high-level commercial and operating intent for participating in the marketplace. It is the primary relationship document at this onboarding stage. Deeper or longer-form agreements may follow as the program matures; your MOU or your Value Aligners contact will spell out what comes next.

Signing. Submitting the steps confirms agreement. Where the product supports it, typed name and e-signature style capture is preferred for legal clarity; if the current screen uses acknowledgment checkboxes only, your team may enhance that in a later release. Keep downloads of executed PDFs if offered.

Marketplace platform fee

As part of the MOU step, you choose the marketplace platform fee percentage that Value Aligners collects on each marketplace transaction routed to you. The floor is 10%; you may set it higher (up to 100%) if you want to absorb a larger share as a referral or channel investment. You can revisit the number later from the vendor app, and the current value is always visible on your dashboard.

5. Vendor app journey

The path every new vendor follows in the live application, from account creation through first leads.

1. Sign up

   Create your vendor account using the registration link from Value Aligners.

2. Complete legal onboarding

   Open the Onboarding area and complete the NDA, then the short MOU, and confirm your marketplace platform fee (minimum 10%). The remaining onboarding work stays locked until all three are done.

3. Build your vendor profile

   Fill in your brand details, coverage areas, and any other required fields. This unlocks the listing step.

4. Create your first listing

   Add your first product or service. The app requires a complete profile before listing steps become available.

5. Access your dashboard

   Monitor performance, add more products and services, and iterate listings as your account matures.

6. Review & activation

   Value Aligners reviews submissions for clarity and policy - typically within 3-5 business days. First leads depend on ICP fit and demand, with a rough planning range of 2-3 weeks after activation.

5a. Marketplace payments, Stripe Connect, and your dashboard

Marketplace checkout uses Stripe Connect. During onboarding, the vendor app collects payment setup so buyers can pay securely and the platform can route settlement. Prefer Stripe Connect onboarding (hosted by Stripe) so you do not paste long-lived secrets into chat or email. When your Connect account is active, the platform stores your connected account id (acct_...) and uses it only for payouts and reconciliation.

Commission and calculations use your listing and vendor profile data (for example marketplace fee rules). When those inputs change, the platform updates how fees are calculated on new transactions. Exact percentages follow your executed agreements and in-app settings.

Payout timing can be configured per environment: either per-order settlement to your Connect account, or monthly batch payouts that aggregate eligible marketplace transactions and pay out on a schedule. In both cases, your vendor dashboard in the app is the place for order-level detail, payout history, and downloadable reports. If something looks wrong, open a support thread from the dashboard.

6. Follow-on commercial and operating terms

Figures such as renewal participation, premium placement, and channel exclusivity for marketplace-introduced clients may appear in your short MOU or in follow-on definitive agreements that reference the MOU. The marketplace platform fee itself is the percentage you confirmed during onboarding (minimum 10%, up to 100%) and is applied at checkout on marketplace transactions routed to you. Older collateral sometimes quoted a fixed 15% base or a 30% full-platform model; treat those as reference only until they appear in your executed documents. Other structures (lead fees, subscriptions, bidding) apply only if explicitly written into your deal.

Designated channels. Expect requirements that business development, support, and operational conversations with marketplace-introduced clients stay inside Value Aligners tools (messaging, ticketing, approved conferencing) so audits and analytics stay reliable. Off-platform contact can carry contractual risk.

7. ICP and lead qualification

Value Aligners will align with you on ideal customer profile and explicit qualification rules (often 5 to 10 must-haves or disqualifiers). The more precise you are, the better routing before a lead reaches your team.

Typical lead payload: problem statement, budget range, timeline, and details matched to your ICP (size, industry, geography, compliance context, technical environment, incumbents, stakeholders, process).

8. Lead response and support SLAs

Targets commonly discussed with vendors include:

• Leads: Acknowledge and schedule an initial call within 24 hours; respond to 90%+ of leads within 48 hours; share conversion feedback as agreed.
• Support: Published SLAs such as 4 hour response for critical issues and 72 hour for non-critical, plus coverage hours and escalation documented in your profile.
• Documentation: FAQs, runbooks, and troubleshooting content in editable formats help any first-line triage stay consistent with your team.

Missed obligations can lead to notice and cure, suspension from lead routing, or removal for material failure, and may tie to credits or payouts per your agreements.

9. AI-assisted support (vendor side)

The platform may use AI-style triage on support requests (patterns, logs, knowledge base) before escalation to your team. You remain accountable for substantive resolution. Clear runbooks improve outcomes and protect SLAs.

10. Checklist: have ready before you start

11. One-line summaries for email

12. FAQ

13. Contact and next steps

• Partnerships / discovery: admin@valuealigners.com
• General: admin@valuealigners.com
• Phone: +1 (949) 298-1946

Next steps: register in the vendor app, complete legal steps, profile, and first listing, then coordinate with Value Aligners on activation and any pilot or scale-up plan.

Value Aligners. This guide reflects the production vendor app flow discussed in April 2026 working sessions (legal-first gating, MOU stage, profile then first listing, dashboard for expansion). Older PDFs that reference only a long-form marketplace agreement should be retired or updated to match this experience.