A referral program for nearshore software firms with US clients

Why do nearshore engineering firms see good candidates first?

A nearshore firm in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil or Costa Rica works in the same time zone as its US clients and sits inside their delivery process: stand-ups, sprint reviews, code review, release planning. You know which clients keep years of tickets, design decisions and review threads, and which run on spreadsheets and goodwill.

That vantage point is useful for one narrow reason. AI developers building coding and workflow agents need records of how real engineering work gets done, with decisions and outcomes, and those records mostly live inside companies rather than on the public web. SourceX connects companies that hold such records with buyers who license them.

The catch, and the point of this page, is ownership. The client's repository, tickets and documents are the client's to license, not yours. Your role is to introduce the client's executive and step aside.

What belongs to the client, and what belongs to you?

If your contract gives you reuse rights to what you built, that still does not entitle you to license the client's records. When ownership is unclear, the company's counsel decides, and a red flag is data that belongs to someone else without consent.

Which clients may fit?

The baseline is 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), several years of documented operations, rights to license the data and an authorized sponsor. Software and IT-enabled businesses are favoured, but only if their record keeping is mature.

• Scale: a client with a product, support and operations function, not only a small engineering team.
• History: at least several years of tickets and code review, ideally with an archived earlier system.
• Breadth: records beyond engineering, such as support tickets, CRM and finance, since buyers value connected workflows.
• Process: consistent use of issue trackers, pull-request review and written decision records.
• Sponsor: a CEO, CTO or owner you can reach through your account lead.

A three-question test before you raise it

1. Would the client's CEO or owner be the person who decides, and can I reach them through the CTO?
2. Is the data demonstrably the client's, with no customer contract that bars licensing?
3. Could I describe the idea in two sentences without mentioning anything I saw in their systems?

Answer no to any and you hold the introduction.

When is the right moment?

How do you raise it with the CEO or CTO?

Open with the idea rather than the program. Say what SourceX does, that the company keeps ownership, that it decides everything and that you see nothing.

Then give the CTO a short list of questions to take to counsel: who owns what, which customer contracts restrict use, and whether any code is third-party.

What does the partner never do?

1. Pull data from the client's systems, even with a service account you already hold.
2. Mention contents of code, tickets or customer data in an introduction.
3. Use credentials from an engagement for any other purpose.
4. Promise the client a price, a buyer or a timeline.
5. Present the introduction as part of your delivery contract.

De-identification and redaction requirements are agreed with the company before any work begins; data is delivered only after an executed agreement and the company's authorization.

Conflicts of interest worth thinking through

You are paid to deliver software. A client that licenses its records might change its tooling or budget. You may also be tempted to steer a client toward a deal for the reward. Keep the engagement and the introduction separate, disclose the possible reward in writing and let the client say no without consequence. Check your master services agreement for clauses on referral income and confidentiality, and ask your counsel if anything is unclear.

How do rewards work, and what about tax paperwork?

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 cumulative per referred company. The reward is a share of SourceX's fee and is never deducted from what the company receives. It becomes payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee. No reward is guaranteed.

If your firm is the payee, the IRS says a foreign entity documents its status on Form W-8BEN-E, handed to the payer rather than filed with the IRS. Our walkthrough of filling out a W-8BEN-E for a consulting firm applies equally to a software firm. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel or tax adviser before acting.

When not to bother

Skip clients below the baseline, clients whose product is mainly consumer data, any client already locked into an exclusive AI-training license and any case where the repository includes another company's code that you cannot separate. Skip the topic if raising it would strain a renewal.

Next step

Register as a partner. Then compare the model for SAP partners, offshore delivery partners and fractional CFOs abroad. Check whether non-US residents can join, see how this differs from software affiliate programs, and try the referral earnings calculator. Final terms are in the program terms.