How We Got There

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with George Kenessey who is the CEO of Appiphony. Appiphony is a Product Development Outsourcer (PDO) and more recently an ISV themselves with Drive Connect on the AppExchange. George is one of the best humans and business leaders in the ecosystem. This conversation took place wayyyy back pre-Dreamforce but I finally got around to releasing it and it’s one of the most insightful ones. George shares his experience of helping companies launch on the AppExchange over the last 15 years as well as their own apps, taking their learnings from the PDO world to their own AppExchange journey.

He shares tips relevant to new ISVs going through the security process with Salesforce and then moves into GTM lessons from launching Drive Connect. They designed a PLG motion on the AppExchange, including building a way for customers to sign up for a trial and ability to purchase via Stripe on the backend. The best gtm motion they have found is writing specific content to help their customers and partners solve a problem that is related although not fully solved necessarily by Drive Connect. If you help people do their job for free, they will eventually give you money is something I say often and what George and team are doing over there.

Drive Connect has one of the best partner resources pages out there, I encourage you to check it out as you consider how well you are set up to enable SI partners.

Link to the episode in the comments (or on Apple Podcasts)

This episode is brought to you by Invisory. Invisory is designed to meet you where you are: whether you’re looking to list on the AppExchange, are in the process of listing, or listed and looking to accelerate success.

Links:

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Stephanie Betters who is the Founder and CEO of Left Main REI. Left Main REI is an OEM and (now) ISVforce partner of Salesforce focused on building for companies in the real estate vertical. As a fellow SUNY alum, it was great to hear Stephanie’s story of how she stumbled her way into the Salesforce ecosystem. As many founder stories go, she created Left Main REI after experiencing challenges (and an expensive SOW) in building out Salesforce to fit her business needs.

After realizing what she built had a market need in the Salesforce ecosystem, she started working with the Salesforce partnerships team and successfully launched after security review was completed. She shares why she decided to enter both an ISVforce and OEM agreement with Salesforce and where she’s found success in co-selling with Salesforce AEs with a clear way to help them. Now they have over a hundred customers, when they started Stephanie relied heavily on her network and thought leadership before uncovering more advanced motions like Salesforce AMP programs and co-selling.

In my opinion, Left Main REI’s focus and having a niche helped them with clarity of the strategy in co-selling with Salesforce AEs. They were able to share SIC codes where they were best when they met more and more AEs. Stephanie’s ability to empathize with the Salesforce AE gave her conviction to pursue the ISVforce agreement after initially just being OEM so they had a harmonious gtm approach with Salesforce.

This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors. Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in B2B Enterprise Cloud, SaaS, and IT Services companies with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-betters-a09b2a59/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/leftmainrei/

https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000FMnPoUAL

https://www.linkedin.com/company/tequityadvisors/

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Andrew Walker, who is the Founder at Sanitas Accounting. I consider Andrew a friend after our time together at TaskRay where he was our full-time CFO after starting as a fractional CFO. His business is now focused on helping smaller software companies with accounting and finance so they can focus on running their business.

We reminisce about our learnings alongside each other at TaskRay (where I headed up sales along with other revenue activities) from when he joined the business, including what he worked on in the first 90 days. Andrew shares how he optimized TaskRay’s cash position as we entered the start of the pandemic by incrementally improving our accounts receivable process, including moving our payment terms from Net 30 to Net 7. This created a give-get scenario for our sales team and helped us in our negotiation….in the rare cases when someone actually pushed back!

Other topics include legal agreement best practices around what really matters, friction between sales and finance, sales tax (which can pierce the corporate veil), pricing strategy, exiting the business, and more.

If you’re a founder without an FTE over finance, this episode is for you! If you are a gtm leader, get in the head of your finance counterpart with some lessons learned.

This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors. Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in B2B Enterprise Cloud, SaaS, and IT Services companies with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrandrewwalker/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/sanitas-accounting-bookkeeping/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/tequityadvisors/

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Jason Hoult, who is the President at Anvil App Works. We talk about the origin story of the business solving problems for his own business before launching as an OEM of Salesforce for a very specific niche. I am consistently inspired by the quality of businesses like Anvil App Works that can be built with an intentional focus like Jason and his team have done. As he puts it, “an overnight success, five years in the making”.

Jason shares how building the business bootstrapped helped them at the start then moved to raise a round to facilitate growth by investing in employees slightly before they needed that person.

Anvil App Works runs the EOS model to help the company stay focused and execute at a higher level, even helping define their initial target market of John Deere distributors to grow intentionally and learn the market. Since then they have widened to other distributor type organizations to expand their TAM. Jason also shares how they looked to Salesforce for guidance on things like marketing as well as increasing their average deal size by following their model of selling premium support and charging a percentage of annual spend to increase ARR. We talk about a variety of GTM topics and I appreciate Jason’s openness in sharing in this great episode.

Resources:

Website:⁠ ⁠https://anvilappworks.com/

Jason's LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhoult/

EOS: https://www.eosworldwide.com/

Behind The Cloud book: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion-Dollar-Company/dp/0470521163

This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors, a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in B2B Enterprise Cloud, SaaS, and IT Services companies. They are focused on SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Adobe and the MSP Clouds. Tequity has already completed 22 transactions in the Salesforce and Salesforce ISV ecosystems. Visit⁠⁠ ⁠tequityadvisors.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn how they Achieve great outcomes for our clients both in valuation and in terms.

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Sam Yarborough,  (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-yarborough-a96b3326/) who is the SVP of Partnerships at PFL (https://www.linkedin.com/company/pflcom/). We talk about rebooting a partnership program but starting with working on their Trailblazer partner score to build momentum and aligning closely with their Partner Account Manager (PAM) to build deep rapport. From there, they started diving deeply into an industry-specific approach vs. just having a horizontal message.

Sam and team has built an impressive solution in their instance of Salesforce to track partnerships with Salesforce and SIs in a scalable manner. All Salesforce AEs are now tracked and treated as customers, with marketing focus included.

Resources:

Website: ⁠https://www.pfl.com/

Sam’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-yarborough-a96b3326/

This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors, a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in B2B Enterprise Cloud, SaaS, and IT Services companies. They are focused on SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Adobe and the MSP Clouds. Tequity has already completed 22 transactions in the Salesforce and Salesforce ISV ecosystems. Visit⁠ ⁠tequityadvisors.com⁠⁠ to learn how they Achieve great outcomes for our clients both in valuation and in terms.

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Cynthia LeCornu  (https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthialecornu/) who is the Global Leader Salesforce Alliance at Avalara (https://www.linkedin.com/company/avalara/). We talk about aligning to Salesforce’s Customer360 vision, SI partnerships in the ecosystem, how to drive your ISV partner score, and more.

Cynthia brings a great energy and depth of experience to her partnerships. 

Here’s a closer look at the episode:

Resources:

Website: www.avalara.com

Cynthia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-getchis-57075891/

This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors, a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in B2B Enterprise Cloud, SaaS, and IT Services companies. They are focused on SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Adobe and the MSP Clouds. Tequity has already completed 22 transactions in the Salesforce and Salesforce ISV ecosystems. Visit ⁠tequityadvisors.com⁠ to learn how they Achieve great outcomes for our clients both in valuation and in terms.

Before we hop in, thank you for your support on our journey. GTM Guides is now part of InVisory! (https://home.invisory.co/press-release)

He shares his thoughts on partnering with ISVs from an SI’s point of view. Cloud For Good has over 20 ISV partners listed on their website. First and foremost, does it solve a problem for his clients. Next he evaluates their technology with regards to integration and extensability within Salesforce without customization. Lastly, is the company support. Support requests are inevitable but Tal shares his expectations about alignment with the end client to ensure timely and satisfactory resolution when a problem arises

They often give multiple ISV options to their clients vs. just recommending a single solution. His advice to ISVs is to look to enable consultants vs. his sales team. They track their referrals for ISVs and the top ones have had 100s of referrals since they started tracking it. The best way to start a partnership? Come with an existing mutual client and then offer up enablements to their consulting teams that leans into the technical details of your application.

As a SI, their top producing lead source is Salesforce AEs who bring them directly into client accounts. He shares openly about their successes and failures in expanding their focus area globally with local offices in Europe with languages, currencies, and employment laws.

Resources:

This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors, a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in B2B Enterprise Cloud, SaaS, and IT Services companies. They are focused on SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Adobe and the MSP Clouds. Tequity has already completed 22 transactions in the Salesforce and Salesforce ISV ecosystems. Visit tequityadvisors.com to learn how they Achieve great outcomes for our clients both in valuation and in terms.

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Mike Getchis, who was the VP of Sales at Zenkraft. They were acquired by Brinng earlier this year and he is now Partner Solutions Engineer. Mike was at the helm of Zenkraft’s sales organization which bootstrapped their way to a strategic exit but started his Salesforce journey with hands on keyboard.

Zenkraft’s top gtm strategies included working with SIs, Salesforce, and other ISVs. They found that their AppExchange listing was the starting point for the SI community, so focused on giving them partner-ready materials and a quick way to get them in touch with technical resources. The access to technical resources is an important component to any SI partner program that is often overlooked and mirrors my experience at Conga.

Mike shares his experience participating in Salesforce Accelerate and how it improved their positioning and execution of aligning with SEs and AEs. Their SDO page is a high water mark for the ecosystem in terms of enabling the Salesforce SEs to demo their solution. And when they close a deal, they are intentional about a bottoms up strategy to share the win with their peers in a lean way. Zenkraft’s app is horizontal so they have a challenge of focus which I hear from a lot of ISVs. 

In regards to their AppExchange listing, he speaks to the value from an Account Management perspective of knowing when customers refresh their sandbox and how Test Drive can help drive leads. His secret sauce to having over 300 5-star reviews? Asking them. After a successful implementation or great support experience, their whole team asks them to write a review. 

Here’s a closer look at the episode:

Resources:

This episode is brought to you by ISVapp. ISVapp is used by leading Salesforce ISVs and OEMs as the central toolbox to reduce churn, increase renewals, identify upsell potential, and close more deals. ISVapp is the only plug & play solution for the AppExchange AppAnalytics API and provides deep product insights. The set up is easy and takes less than 5 minutes. Visit isvapp.com to learn how you can take advantage of usage data in your app today.

In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Bethany Blackwell, who is a VP at Carahsoft. Bethany runs the Salesforce channel for Carahsoft, which includes Salesforce, Slack, Mulesoft, Tableau, ISVs, and SIs. Carahsoft has worked with Salesforce for the past 15 years as a Value-Added Reseller and got there start on the GSA schedule to help Salesforce sell to the public sector here in the US. They help with sales, marketing, and contracting for Salesforce and it’s partners to federal, state, and local government organizations.

If you have public sector demand for your application that includes interest from a customer, it’s a good time to reach out to Carahsoft who will get you set up on the correct contract vehicle. This will expedite the purchasing process, sometimes even avoiding the need to take it to RFP. The earlier you call them the better, even before pricing is discussed. As your public sector gtm becomes more intentional with at least one FTE focused on this industry, Carahsoft will work with partners add value to your sales and marketing efforts. Top examples are Nintex, Copado, Ownbackup, and many more.

Recent legislation in the US has caused even more opportunity for the Salesforce platform and ISV partners to help deliver value to it’s citizens. During the pandemic, Bethany recalls all of the amazing solutions that the ecosystem helped to create with 20+ states using the Salesforce platform for contact tracing and vaccine rollouts. 

We discuss FedRamp, which is a set of standards put in place for security standards for software offerings. The program is great for buyers but takes significant money and time for an ISV but is required for companies looking to go “all-in” for public sector. A common misconception for ISVs that are native to Salesforce is that because they are built on the Salesforce platform and they are FedRamp/SOC 2 Type 2 certified, you as an ISV inherit that. It’s true it makes it easier but it involves (much more) than just that.

If you’re interested in exploring this channel, reach out to them at [email protected] for an introductory meeting. A tip for your conversations is to ask them how they purchase today, do they leverage Carahsoft? Carahsoft can help partners with their gtm approach for public sector!

Here’s a closer look at the episode:

Resources:

In today’s episode of How We Got There (which was recorded earlier this year, before the downturn), I talk with Doug Landis, who is a Growth Partner at Emergence Capital. Doug spent some time at Salesforce and Box before moving into his current role in helping Emergence’s portfolio companies with go-to-market assistance. He was working in the early days of sales enablement and now recommends hiring rev ops and sales enablement roles earlier than you think, even at Series A, to drive productivity in the sales organization. 

Emergence Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in B2B Enterprise SaaS businesses for their Series A and B funding rounds. They’ve invested in Veeva, Steelbrick, Box, and many more household names in the Salesforce ecosystem. 

The biggest challenge every early stage company will face is pipeline and that can be helped by hiring Marketing leadership before sales leadership, because sales professionals won’t enjoy being full cycle for very long. His message to early stage founders is to become obsessed with pipeline. In deals over $10k, there are normally 8-10 people in the buying decision even if there is a single major person that your solution will help. A good benchmark for any AE is they should be generating ~20% of their own pipeline. 

Key metrics to look at are by account, how many contacts are on each account and then dive deeper into touches by contact to know depth of engagement in a given opportunity. Looking at conversion rates can help you zero in on gtm priorities to work on.

Technical founders make mistakes by hiring a salesperson too early because you need to learn how to sell early on. A good target is for you to sell the first $1M in ARR and collect insane insights along the way for your product while capturing referrals. Hiring customer success people early on the other hand is wise because your first few customers need to be successful, you can’t afford to churn your first customers (unless you learn they aren’t a good fit for where you’re going).

Before starting the process of fundraising, you need to know your data inside and out beyond your pitch deck that includes a strong “why”. Include customer stories to help tell your story. It’s important to make a thoughtful list of potential investors that will be good long-term partners with you who will offer you the right level of engagement to guide you on the things you might be missing. 

For the ecosystem specific advice, he shares a word of caution for ISVs in getting Salesforce Ventures to participate in your round. Doug’s view is when you take Salesforce Ventures money…..and it’s cause for pause. If they build something like what you’re offering, you could be in big trouble. He share the story of Steelbrick (Emergence was the lead investor here) and Apttus and how Salesforce leveraged their relationship to strong arm Steelbrick during the acquisition. 

Here’s a closer look at the episode:

1:37 How did you find your way into the ecosystem? 

5:13 Sales enablement 

9:55 Who is Emergence and what’s your role there? 

14:16 What are some elements that make a great go to market approach  in a series A or B company?

22:07 What’s the biggest mistake you see technical founders make before they hire professional salespeople?

25:53 So founders in the ecosystem, if they’re considering raising institutional capital, what should they know before starting the process?

34:15  What are you most proud of in your career?

36:10 The final three

Doug’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglandis/

Emergence Capital’s Website: https://www.emcap.com/

Emergence Capital’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emergence-capital-partners/