Published by Mike Davis
Are you trying to get ahead in the Salesforce ecosystem and just wish someone would tell you what to do (and what not to do)? Join Mike Davis as he picks the brains of leaders at successful ISVs and people in the ecosystem to bring you insights you can use.
Listen on Apple Podcasts36 min
Heather asks and helps answer “How do you create a point of view about your solution in a way that will talk to Salesforce about how it works together for that specific customer?” For ISVs so they can take a strong point of view about a specific customer vs. approaching with just questions. “It’s easier to find this information than it’s ever been. Don’t be lazy and use the tools and you will have much better conversations.” This episode of How We Got There features a conversation with Heather Mason , Founder of ISV Accelerators . Heather brings their clients her knowledge forged by experiences at an ISV (Insight Squared) and Salesforce themselves, 5.5 years at each company. Her company works with “high potential” Salesforce partners to assist their GTM motions in the ecosystem - Salesforce, other ISVs, and SIs - so the ISV can help make it easier for the customer to buy the solution. We talked a bit about the challenges her team faced at Salesforce within her focus on the Pharma vertical, which had a strong publicly traded OEM of Salesforce in Veeva to contend/cooperate with and the new-normal of fewer people at Salesforce focused on ISVs. Partners need to adapt to how Salesforce is changing their selling motion, aligning to Salesforce AEs with modern better together messaging. The challenge is Salesforce is still figuring it (it being Agentforce) out too. Heather shares insights around traffic on the AppExchange listing by most common personas and what it means to ISVs through the lens of who buys their solution. At the level, the Salesforce sales team aligned to a specific account can be over 20 people but at the SMB level it might just be an AE and their RVP, who will be VERY hands on with the deal alongside their AE. We touch on big strategy but also tactics around things like when is the right moment to reach out to the Salesforce account team in an opportunity cycle. It all starts with you having a unique value to share and if you do, you should expect an 85% positive response rate. If you are lower than that, I would challenge you to harden your messaging. Heather loves to connect with people in the ecosystem and takes pride in making herself available to meeting new people. I learned a ton from my conversation with Heather and am grateful she is actively helping ISVs and OEMs in the ecosystem. Connect with Heather at the Arcadia leadership experience in Montana run by the Yarboroughs. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp . ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
46 min
This episode of the How We Got There podcast features a conversation with Mark Rutledge , Chief Storyteller | Global ISV Partner Solutions at Salesforce . The builder advocacy program that he works on is one that every ISV should learn about and explore if they might be a fit for working with them. Fun fact - I worked with Mark Rutledge when he as a client of my former business, GTM Guides, while he was building on the Salesforce platform for at Moody’s. Thanks to Codescience (now Bridgenext ) for bringing us together. Mark shares his journey of being in the ecosystem to working at Salesforce to bring the human aspect to partners - contemplate who we are building for vs. just what we are building. PDOs are an essential part of the ecosystem as they have a view of the technology and the market to help an ISV’s vision come to production - especially important for composite apps who don’t have Salesforce dev and architecture talent internally. One of my favorite parts of the conversation was hearing Mark talk about constructing a hero story around the pain end customers will be feeling all the way to “the universe has been saved” in the narrative. It all starts with spending time listening to customers, approaching it with empathy. If you’re just getting started, try to end a demo of a feature with “…so you can _________” as an easy way to integrate what it actually means to your customers. We touch on the shift from per-seat pricing to consumption-based pricing and how ISVs should be looking to adapt to the model where Salesforce is goring towards. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp . ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
33 min
I got introduced to Jeff Freund , Founder & CEO of Akoonu , a number of years ago and I finally got to hear his full story on How We Got There earlier this year. Jeff has been in the ecosystem in 2003 and founded the business in 2014 as a native Salesforce app to solve b2b sales - inspecting pipeline and then forecasting. Jeff lays out the story and the why of Akoonu so clearly - overnight, in Salesforce, a large portion of the opportunities in the pipeline disappeared. Which deals were they? What happened to them? Are they lost or delayed? We all have been there. I used to (try to) solve this with a whiteboard in the office! I appreciate his approach and point of view on AI/Agentforce for their customers. They already have some features to help users have an “on-ramp” to using AI capabilities like their embedded insights. A passive ability to get real value. Jeff shares his decision around keeping the business bootstrapped and how it’s helped him shape the business the way he wants to vs. going the VC-backed route. He recently hired a Chief Growth Officer to help grow the business more directly and talks about why he pulled the trigger on that key hire. I appreciate the renewed importance in the ecosystem around being native with some the recent security concerns in the ecosystem, specifically around composite apps. It’s also unlocking a true “better together” story to layer functionality on top of forecasting tools in Salesforce. On the GTM front, the AppExchange continues to be a great source of leads but the number one source of revenue continues to be word of mouth or a customer moves to a new company. Related to the AppExchange, they are exploring a freemium option to increase top of funnel lead flow in 1H of this year. Jeff also calls out the value of events - both from a selling perspective but also from a learning perspective to get immediate feedback. He went to places like Opstars and Dreamforce. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp . ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
39 min
I met Brittany Hart , founder of Communiscape , from an introduction from Blakely Graham . I was planning to interview her on How We Got There about her experience scaling an SI ( Fortimize ) as employee 2 before starting/exiting her own Salesforce SI ( Platinum Cubed ) but then I got to listen to her present via a professional leadership community I am a part of called Arcadia and I knew that I had to expand the conversation to have her share a bit about how ISVs can help your customers digest your app through “change architecture”. Brittany shares her experience around industry focus and its importance from her time at SIs, who both went deep in order to more effectively co-sell with Salesforce. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes - you’re interacting across the screen with customers with a different communication style going on and then you are using this technical jargon about new screens of an app that the customers have never seen - the least you can do is work to use the customer’s industry terms to help break through the noise. And don’t let your depth of knowledge cause you to glaze past key learnings during demos. One that we talk about is Salesforce reports & dashboards. Every ISV I have worked with undersells the importance of this functionality. You gotta give before you get. The best ISVs she worked with genuinely care about solving customer problems, not just growing pipeline/revenue, but also commit even before asking for anything in return like TaskRay did with them early days. The worst ones operate much more transactionally. Brittany brings in the 5 terrains of communication through the lens of how ISVs can provide better service to their customers. As an actionable example, listen in to Brittany’s tips around voicescape which is especially important when conveying confidence and authority for women. There is so much goodness in the 2nd half of this episode for sales and services people. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp . ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
36 min
Salesforce Solution Engineers are like general contractors, according to David Young , who leads a team of them at Salesforce . They need skills like carpentry and framing and plumbing but also know when to stop and call in an expert. In the Salesforce world this might be knowing when to bring in a service cloud or an Agentforce expert. They need to know enough to see the business challenge and know who to tap for help. I have always advocated that ISVs spend time thinking about SEs, even moreso than AEs, because the math just maths. AEs have shorter tenure at Salesforce than SEs. AEs have more ISVs reaching out to them than SEs. And AEs might have 1 or 5 accounts in the enterprise, but SEs often support multiple AEs which just multiplies the number of accounts that a single session with you could reach. We cover a bunch of topics, but here is a summary: What does an SE at Salesforce do? What type of person is an SE at Salesforce? How does David decide which ISVs to engage with? How do SEs learn about new ISVs? What are some dos and don’ts when ISVs are engaging with SEs? Shoutout to Myroad.io , who is doing a great job of it. What should an ISV know/do before they are “ready” to engage with Salesforce SEs? How do SEs work with SDOs and IDOs to demo Salesforce’s tech? Thanks again to David for sharing with the community! And thank you to Sam Yarborough for the intro. If any of you have a Salesforce AE or RVP that might give us the real talk, it’d be great to get their pov. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp . ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications.ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals.
36 min
Wondering what SIs care about and how they approach implementing ISVs for the first (or hundredth) time? This episode if for you! In the latest episode of How We Got There, I speak with Steve Simpson , VP of Global Enablement & Learning at Copado , Co-Founder of Catcusforce and Certified Architect Instructor. Steve and I dive deep on the reality of the complex deal cycles that Salesforce ISVs experience and how best to posture in them, especially with new to you SIs. It’s a timely episode as Cactusforce and Architect Dreamin’ are coming up in Phoenix in late January and it’s not too late to sponsor to fill the funnel for the new year….and get some warm weather in the winter! Go to the websites to learn more and find the prospectus. The customer, Salesforce AEs/SEs/RVPs, SIs can all be involved in a deal. Steve explains the personas in a deal and how it can/should change based on how you came to the deal. Did Salesforce or an SI bring you to the deal? Then they are the dominant person in the deal and you need to adjust your posture but one thing is a common through line is to make sure you continue to do right by the customer “with honesty and delivery”. Obviously you can ignore all of this complexity, but it introduces risk in your deals! Steve has wonderful detailed suggestions on how you position your experience in a specific scenario, even if you don’t have any, that he borrows from a friend who trains physicians. He then relates it to how an SI can communicate their experience on your app. We talk about learning strategies that is tailored for customers and partners, the latter covering both sales and delivery. Steve is a wealth of knowledge and I am grateful for his sharing so freely. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
26 min
Agentforce is everywhere and everything but in speaking to many ISVs, they are still wondering when is the right time to lean into AI with more than just a story. Where in the hype cycle are we is something I wonder about a lot. So I set out to find an ISV that is actually succeeding in the Agentforce world and that journey led me to Igor Stosic , CEO of Quadrix Soft who make Goat Email on the AppExchange, as my next guest on How We Got There. They are actually selling the first Agentforce use cases for customers, which has to be making AEs covering those accounts VERY happy. Igor is based out of Serbia so we touch on the geographical benefits and challenges around being an ISV out of Europe. They’ve found a lot of success driving leads from the AppExchange from a gtm perspective. We touch on what has been working and mistakes made along the way, sharing transparent feedback about how to build an app that goes wide so you can know what works for customers and lean into those items. But then we dove into the main topic of Agentforce. We touched on various concepts like how they came up with the Agentforce use case, how they monetize the Agentforce element, and much more. A specific example a use case where they use Agentforce is variability of tone based on the location of the customer that you are interacting with - sending an email to someone in the US looks different from sending an email to someone in Germany. If you are curious about Agentforce, this episode is for you. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond! #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
49 min
On this episode of How We Got There, I am joined again by Jason Hoult , the Founder and former CEO of Anvil App Works who was acquired by Tractor Zoom in 12/2023, for part 2! If you missed it, give our first episode together from July 2023 a listen. It was an excellent episode where we talked about a wide range of topics, but my highlight was his approach to company building & nailing a niche. You don’t have to start a business that is a massive multi-trillion TAM. Jason got great advice to stick with what he knows well, Salesforce & John Deere dealerships. You can later expand from there, like they did to expand other types of dealerships. On this episode, we look back into how he met their acquirer, initially at an event that both companies were sponsoring. Talk about an ROI from sponsoring a trade show! Jason shares openly about the courting process but also talks about how the partner relationship started with a formal partnership & co-marketing agreement. This enabled both teams to lean in and prove the mutual customer value before taking the next steps. We talked about how he knew it made sense to sell from a timing pov and lessons learned to help you avoid a couple mistakes (like some paperwork with customer agreements). Jason is a true believer of EOS to help align a company on strategy & values. He is such an asset to the ecosystem with his transparency & authenticity. I hope you enjoy this session even half as much as I did. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
29 min
On this episode of How We Got There, I am joined by Rey Perera who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gridmate . He shares his story as moving from an SDR to an enterprise AE at another Salesforce ISV before jumping into co-founding Gridmate along Hicham El Mansouri . Rey talks about how they build a business with diversity as if you look at their team, they are located all across the world and come from a number of cultural backgrounds. It helps deliver outstanding customer support that is clear to see in their AppEx reviews . I met Rey years ago but you will see him and his team at many of the Salesforce events around the world. We discuss how they decide on which events to sponsor and the ROI around them from a sales and marketing pov. It’s not all about direct ROI when considering which Dreamin, World Tour/Agentforce, and Dreamforce events to sponsor. Their investment in the ecosystem goes deep, working with their team to take at least 3 certifications (that are fully paid and incentivized!) per year to help them in their work and their careers. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
33 min
On this episode of How We Got There, I am joined by Alex MacKay , Executive Chairman & Co-Founder of Tequity Advisors . He shares his start in CRM when running Siebel Canada and found his way into sell-side advisory for M&A at Tequity, with deep experience in the Salesforce ecosystem with 28 companies and counting. *If you are at Dreamforce next week, make sure to reach out to Alex or Mahnoor Naeem if you will be there too* They take a long-term view of the relationship, oftentimes getting to know a company over a period of 2-3 years to help them get ready to sell. They help demystify the journey, even serving as an informal board member in many cases. We talk a bit about lessons learned and Alex shares his advice at various stages of an ISV’s journey from first customers, to a couple million in ARR, to scale. He talks about the importance for entrepreneurs to roll out a management operating system, like EOS , to help set the business up for growth. Alex shares his advice for early-stage ISVs around speaking with customers in their language, not about your product! This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
38 min
I am joined by Melanie Kruger , one of the best people leaders that I ever had the chance to work with. She has deep understanding of helping to scale Salesforce ISVs of all sizes. She actually found her way into the Salesforce ecosystem via networking between her husband and J Manning , bringing her to the Head of People at Conga. I got to work with Melanie twice at Conga and TaskRay and was so impressed with how she helped set culture and nurture culture so the companies could grow. Melanie shares that when she joined Conga, lots of people were generalists - Conga had a number of Business Analysts that did everything customer facing - Sales, CS, and Support. This can be a really good model of ISVs early on, but eventually specialization is required. Something similar happened at TaskRay and one of their BAs was Jon Barlow who is now a top tier enterprise AE in the ecosystem. We talk about culture and how it shifts over time, sharing her experience with Red Canary. We explore hiring pitfalls for early-stage ISVs and the importance of job descriptions. We go deep on this topic because it is so, so important to align expectations and help secure top talent as well as touching on some creative perk ideas for employees, like “two weeks to infinity”. It was a lovely conversation that blended business lessons and life lessons. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
31 min
I am joined by Ben McCarthy , Founder of Salesforce Ben , Lab.club and advisor to a number of great companies in the ecosystem like AscendX , Tequity Advisors , and PipeLaunch . We talk about his journey from university to stumbling upon Salesforce and then after being called SalesforceBoy grew into Salesforce Ben. We talk about how to approach thought leadership, holding nothing back from the reader. Give back and give value and best practices without selling first. Obviously your offering will help more, but for basic use cases consider helping those salesforce users solve their problem without using your solution. There will be time to position your premium solution once trust is established. People in the ecosystem will know of Salesforce Ben and Ben himself, but some ISVs might not know that you can actually engage with SFB to help engage the Salesforce community with things like sponsored content, thought leadership, dreamforce activations and more. Their team has data and expertise to help guide ISVs on what works and what doesn’t to drive conversions. We talk about the state of the ecosystem around things like events and how it’s changed over the last decade. Experimenting with things like video and shorts vs. things like white papers. Speaking of exploration, Ben also gives his point of view on how and why they launched NowBen , a similar platform to Salesforce Ben but focused on the ServiceNow ecosystem. I think everyone can learn from his point of view on this topic. Make sure you follow Gearset and Elements.Cloud with Kevin Boyle and Ian Gotts, respectively. Here is the link to Salesforce Ben’s parties and events guide for Dreamforce 2025 next month. https://www.salesforceben.com/official-dreamforce-parties-and-events-guide-2025/ This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
37 min
I am joined by Sean Lewis , Director of Partnerships at Vicasso and the Serviceblazer User Group Leader for AMER. We talk about his journey from customer support to sales to partnerships and everything in between. When he was selling, a Salesforce AE sent them a referral to a F100 company that really opened his eyes to the value of the partnership. Now Vicasso has two FTEs focused on partnerships to drive further top of the funnel growth. The partner team at Vicasso focuses on Salesforce AEs, SEs and leaders but has started to explore SI partnerships as well since Vicasso no longer provides SI work as part of their business as a pure ISV. Sean shares an incredibly valuable learning around focus when it comes to coselling with Salesforce. One time they found that one Service Cloud RVP has 5x the number of existing accounts and were only in 5% of their total accounts. Hyperfocus means Sean and his team knows where they will provide value to them. If your app helps add value to Service Cloud users, the Serviceblazer community events might be worth your time to check out. Here is a link to join the serviceblazer slack community . We talk a bit about Chris Voss’ book called Never Split the Difference , which is a sales classic everyone can get value out of. And Sean calls out Matt Kravitz as a great person to follow to learn about service cloud. And thanks again to Jon Schultz for the recommendation to have Sean on! This episode is brought to you by Invisory . Invisory is designed to meet you where you are: in your cloud marketplace journey through a strong go-to-market strategy that helps drive prospect and co-sell opportunities with Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, and Google. v2
27 min
I am joined by Ryan Sieve , the CTO at Accounting Seed . We get to talk about his journey from consulting in the Salesforce ecosystem to his time at Salesforce itself, before heading to Accounting Seed to lead their technology group as CTO. And thank you to Jon Schultz for the suggestion to be joined by Ryan! We start out talking about positioning products to buyers in ways that focus on solving problems vs. the speeds and feeds of a product. We touch on feature prioritization at a mature ISV like Accounting Seed and how best to collect feedback from internal and external constituents. Ryan and his team leans into customer and partner feedback to help drive features they build and at the 18:10 mark shares tactically how they execute and track the product feedback in their own internal instance of Salesforce. Accounting Seed has worked with Agentforce to optimize both collections and accounts payable to drive improved cashflow for their customers, freeing up time on their teams to be more strategic. Ryan shares their experience of how best to align with Salesforce on this new technology but always with an eye on what is going to help their customers as the top priority. We touch on their team's use of App Analytics from Salesforce, setting up listeners to understand better how your application is being used in the wild. And ISVApp is an option that layers on top of that for even better insights. Accounting Seed leverages Trialforce technology with org creation automation and to keep the data and config up to date via Github repository. This episode is brought to you by Invisory . Invisory is designed to meet you where you are: in your cloud marketplace journey through a strong go-to-market strategy that helps drive prospect and co-sell opportunities with Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
45 min
I am joined by Blakely Graham , who is a board advisor to Left Main REI , host of the Not All Business Podcast , Founder and former CEO of TaskRay . This one was a long time coming. On a personal note, my time at TaskRay was some of my most formative. I found a balance while there between my previous experience of excellence with true work life balance and a focus on values that stays with me. I am so grateful that Blakely and team took a chance in hiring me for a role that I was almost kind of qualified for and her friendship since then. I'll do my best to summarize this episode, but it's more than worth a listen because I don't have enough characters to summarize it all. Blakely's Salesforce journey starts in 2001 and spans a ton of roles and experiences. We dig deep into her experience founding TaskRay 15 years ago in 2010 as Bracket Labs as one of the early ISVs on the AppExchange where VCs told her that her business was not investable and it was "a lifestyle business" at best because the Salesforce ecosystem was too small. She grew it in spite of that and by the time they sold the business, they were getting endless inbound interest. We talk about culture and values and why they were so important to her and the team at TaskRay. One of the core values was Connection that was the inspiration for Project Connection where the founders and I went to 5 cities and sat across the table from over 20 customers without an agenda outside of learning how our customers used the app. It drove focus for years to come that had nearly endless valuable outcomes like clarity of product roadmap, dramatically reduced churn, drove brand/marketing strategy, and much more. She shares how founder conflict snuck up on her with Eric Wu as well as how they (eventually) resolved it. As we switched gears to talk about gtm, Blakely shares how TaskRay evolved from the primary source of leads being the AppExchange with mostly SMB customers to more enterprise selling with content strategies, partnership motions, events, and more knobs we turned. The lesson is you are going to try stuff - some will work, some won't but you have to innovate and measure. We talk about how to select and what you can expect from an advisor. At TaskRay, we rolled an advisor program out modeled after a talk Blakely listened to from Andy Wilson, founder of Logikcull. Shoutout to Phil Stern who was my sales leader advisor at TaskRay who helped me avoid many mistakes. Show notes: Jolene Chan's LinkedIn where she was talking about a personal board of directors: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolenec/ Not All Business podcast with Heather Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/company/not-all-business/ Podcast with Andy Wilson from Logikcull where he discusses his advisor program that we modeled TaskRay's after: it starts at 14:05 and lasts 4 minutes starts at 14:05 and lasts 4 minutes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/saastr-236-logikcull-ceo-andy-wilson-on-%240-to-%2410m/id1089973241?i=1000439148009 This episode is brought to you by Invisory . Invisory is designed to meet you where you are: in your cloud marketplace journey through a strong go-to-market strategy that helps drive prospect and co-sell opportunities with Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
30 min
I am joined by Heather Cooper , the COO at Baker Law Group and the former CEO at Cloud Coach . Heather and I didn't know each other when we competed against each other (TaskRay and Cloud Coach) but have gotten to know each other since, which has been really fun. She is starting a podcast with one of my favorite work people, Blakely Graham , that will launch later this year. While Heather was at Cloud Coach, they found a great talent pipeline by running an internship program recruiting heavily from the local university near their HQ, Colorado State in Fort Collins, CO. She shares lessons learned regarding sizing of that program. We talk about her experience working with Tequity advisors , who are a sell-side advisory firm, helped her navigate leading the process where Cloud Coach exited to private equity and how engaging early, way before they were ready to sell, was important along the way. Even though Heather is A lawyer, she isn't YOUR lawyer. With that in mind, her and I talk through some important concepts for every ISV to consider and hold the line around key contract terms like termination for convenience, multi-year deals, and the importance of educating the buyer on how security works with the Salesforce platform. This episode is brought to you by Invisory . Invisory is designed to meet you where you are: in your cloud marketplace journey through a strong go-to-market strategy that helps drive prospect and co-sell opportunities with Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
30 min
I am joined by Sam Yarborough , the Chief Growth Officer at Invisory and a co-founder at Arcadia. Sam and I met at a New York World Tour years ago where she shared her experience at PFL and taking a much more focused approach to partnerships than is typical in the ecosystem. Treat partners (AEs, SEs, RVPs, SIs, etc.) like customers by leveraging the CRM to track activities for them and give them a great partner experience. We talk about being like Tommy Boy and getting overly excited about things like Financial Services Cloud and Work.com when it was good for Salesforce but not necessarily good for us as ISVs. Salesforce can take more risks than small ISVs can with excitement with actionable advice around trusting but verifying stoke you hear from a single RVP. We touch on how ISVs should be thinking about their Agentforce strategy and how to test your approach to the new technology, but make sure it makes sense for your market and your resources. If you don’t have anything right now, that’s ok but make sure you put an AI concept on your roadmap to make sure you have a narrative at the ready to share. Sam is a brilliant mind and a good friend and I hope you enjoy this podcast episode. This episode is brought to you by Invisory . Invisory is designed to meet you where you are: in your cloud marketplace journey through a strong go-to-market strategy that helps drive prospect and co-sell opportunities with Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
28 min
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: George's LI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgekenessey/ Appiphony LI - https://www.linkedin.com/company/appiphony/ Drive Connect AppEx listing - https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000FMlVWUA1 Invisory LI - https://www.linkedin.com/company/invisory-co/ Drive Connect Partner Page - https://driveconnect.me/partner-resources/
32 min
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/
21 min
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/