The Platform Journey

In this episode of The Platform Journey, Stephen and Avanish discuss: The shift from linear sales motions to ecosystem sales motions (3:35)Integrating a financial model perspective and business model perspective (7:30)Reframing how we think about revenue allocation and the financial impact of partners on a business (9:45)Recognizing both the buy and sell side of contracts and sales execution (15:50)The importance of owning your management systems and partner motions (20:25)The opportunities (and challenges) facing new platform and ecosystem companies (25:15)Guest: Stephen HurrellStephen leads the expertise in the Office of Revenue and guides leaders in the applications and technology for buying and selling products and services to maximize revenue. The topics of coverage include partner management, digital commerce, price and revenue management, sales enablement, revenue performance management and subscription management. Stephen's uniquely diverse technology experience spans over 30 years, including leadership roles, heading up product strategy across a range of data-driven applications in sales enablement, financial reporting and planning, and billing and monetization platforms. Stephen was General Manager at InsideSales.com where he managed the C9 Analytics business, VP of Product and AI strategy at RecVue and held roles at Oracle, Exigen and Aviso. Stephen earned his BS in Economics from the London School of Economics.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Stephen HurrellFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

In Part Three, Avanish and Allan discuss: The evolution of monetization models (3:00) Understanding the three buckets of  tech partner monetization (6:45) How Procore’s model resulted in much higher levels of adoption and engagement, and a much higher orientation around how to make the magic happen (10:50)How to turn ISVs from  flavor-adders to the meal, into the whole meal (16:34)Allan’s favorite monetization model: the reciprocity or reciprocal model (20:37) Bringing it all back  to sourced revenue attribution (28:14) The importance of finding lagging and leading indications (30:33)Guest: Allan Adler, Managing Partner, Digital Bridge PartnersAllan Adler is a world-class advisor, consultant, and change agent.  As Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, he helps individuals, managers, and executives understand and leverage partnership best practices in business and society.  He is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework and has worked with a wide range of organizations to unlock their full ecosystem potential.  Allan is Chair of the Ecosystem Counsel at PartnerHacker and an Executive Member of Partnership Leaders.  Previously, Allan founded and ran MSI Consulting Group; a 100-person sales and marketing strategy firm focused on the tech industry and worked as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.  He received his MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as a Baker Scholar. Allan is a CPA and serves on several for-profit and not-for-profit boards.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Allan AdlerFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark 

In Part Two, Avanish and Allan discuss: Understanding taxation, reciprocal, and mutuality models (3:30) The role of NRR and ARR (7:27)The “stickiness” justification when monetizing tech partnerships (9:30) Understanding universal success models (12:00) Hyperscalers (14:01) Why your go-to-market or the go-to-eco motion has to be multi-threaded(20:50) Why Allan likes to look at the journey of go-to-eco very similarly to the journey of making a product(24:30) Understanding that is incumbent on partner leaders to recognize that partner operations is not a “nice to have.”(30:29)Guest: Allan Adler, Managing Partner, Digital Bridge PartnersAllan Adler is a world-class advisor, consultant, and change agent.  As Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, he helps individuals, managers, and executives understand and leverage partnership best practices in business and society.  He is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework and has worked with a wide range of organizations to unlock their full ecosystem potential.  Allan is Chair of the Ecosystem Counsel at PartnerHacker and an Executive Member of Partnership Leaders.  Previously, Allan founded and ran MSI Consulting Group; a 100-person sales and marketing strategy firm focused on the tech industry and worked as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.  He received his MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as a Baker Scholar. Allan is a CPA and serves on several for-profit and not-for-profit boards.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Allan AdlerFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

Avanish and Allan unpack a wide range of topics to kick off this series, including:Why tech partnerships harness so much power (3:42) The role tech partnerships play between channel and alliances (5:43) The commercial envelope concept and what it means for technology partners (8:02) Distinguishing between the strategy and the platform business model (10:34) Going to market directly vs. going to market through an ecosystem (12:00) Where does the customer fit in? (15:40) Why is digital transformation happening, and what does it mean for customers? (20:26) The important CEO to CPO conversation that needs to be had (24:13) And much more!Guest: Allan Adler, Managing Partner, Digital Bridge PartnersAllan Adler is a world-class advisor, consultant, and change agent.  As Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, he helps individuals, managers, and executives understand and leverage partnership best practices in business and society.  He is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework and has worked with a wide range of organizations to unlock their full ecosystem potential.  Allan is Chair of the Ecosystem Counsel at PartnerHacker and an Executive Member of Partnership Leaders.  Previously, Allan founded and ran MSI Consulting Group; a 100-person sales and marketing strategy firm focused on the tech industry and worked as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.  He received his MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as a Baker Scholar. Allan is a CPA and serves on several for-profit and not-for-profit boards.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Allan AdlerFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

Chris Grusz of AWS discusses the successful flywheel of a marketplace, developing products to meet customer demand, the advantages of co-selling with ISVs, the Amazon leadership mindset, attracting new customers, and the key to successful marketplaces: simplification.

Marcus and Avanish talk about the following and more:ServiceNow’s history as a platform company from the very beginning (3:05)The cooperation and cohesion of ServiceNow’s internal products and what partners can build (6:49)The importance of committing to an ecosystem as well as a platform—and what companies really want (12:45)The challenge of long-term investment into a platform and ecosystem strategy (24:52)Why you should be cautious of building a platform just because you can (29:00)Guest: Marcus Torres, GM and VP of App Engine Business at ServiceNowMarcus is a people, product and business leader with over 20 years of proven experience building and scaling products within organizations of all sizes across consumer and enterprise markets. Extensive experience in market segments of SaaS, cloud computing, platform, mobile, developer experience, digital marketing, location-based services, and supply chain management.Marcus is General Manager of ServiceNow’s market leading low code business, App Engine. App Engine is one of the fastest growing businesses at ServiceNow. He previously led ServiceNow’s Integration Hub business while driving product strategy for the ServiceNow Platform. Responsibilities include GTM, product management, product strategy, strategic partnerships, M&A, executive engagement and business operations with additional dotted line responsibility across engineering, product marketing and sales.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Marcus TorresFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

In this episode, you can hear Laura and Avanish discuss:Expanding single channels and products to create more value (7:00)The importance of internal alignment on products and partners (10:48)Using modeling to optimize partnerships and platform strategy (13:35)Key measures of success when growing partnership ecosystems (16:47)The benefit of defining clear metrics of success (21:12)Laura’s advice: Start where you know you can have an impact, but don’t be afraid to disrupt (28:57)Guest: Laura Padilla, VP, GLobal Partners, AirtableLaura Padilla is currently the VP of Global Partners and Services at Airtable where she is building the partner and services delivery strategy. She brings over 20 years of leadership experience in leading/building complex business units and new revenue streams to scale small, private companies to +$1B post-IPO revenue including Zoom, Nutanix, Box and Riverbed. Leadership experience across marketing, alliances/business development and partner/channel sales roles in the SaaS, Enterprise Software and Hardware industries. She most recently was at Zoom where she led the global partner and platform sales business unit that was composed of over 300 team members and over $500M in revenue. This included indirect sales with and through VAR’s, service providers/carriers, OEM's, referral partners, ISV’s and SI’s, as well as influenced revenue with technology partners such as Slack, Dropbox, Box, Okta, Five9, Twilio and others. She is known as a function builder where her strength is in scaling new organizations to drive incremental revenue and customer value. Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guest, Laura PadillaFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

In this episode, Avanish and Peter discuss: The power of maintaining a customer-centric approach (4:24)Looking down, not up, to determine how to really fix the source of a problem within your platform (5:39)How to think about delivering true value to the developers on your platform (10:17)Not setting out on the platform journey before you’re ready (16:19)Choosing the right marketing motion for your platform (22:15)Guest: Peter Reinhardt, CEO of Charm IndustrialPeter Reinhardt is CEO & Co-founder at Charm Industrial, where they are developing novel carbon removal & renewable industrial syngas technology. Prior to Charm, Peter was CEO and co-founder at Segment, a SaaS customer data platform that grew to 600 people before it was acquired by Twilio in 2020 for $3.2B. He previously studied aerospace engineering at MIT.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Peter ReinhardtFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark 

In the Season 2 premiere of The Platform Journey, Avanish and Kevin discuss: Driving value to your underlying platform through partnerships (3:35) Reevaluating the way we categorize partners; building network effects to solve customer problems (6:17) Embracing “coopetition” and the importance of transparency when building a platform (9:16) Understanding and communicating the core and context layers of your ecosystem (12:42) Kevin’s key advice for an ISV setting out on the platform journey (15:15)Guest: Kevin Ichhpurani, Corporate VP at Google CloudKevin Ichhpurani is Corporate Vice President, Global Ecosystem and Business Development at Google Cloud. Kevin brings nearly 25 years of experience in the technology industry leading global strategy, platform ecosystem transformation, venture capital and mergers and acquisitions. Most recently, Kevin served as Executive Vice President and Corporate Officer of GE. Prior to GE Digital Kevin was a Senior Partner, Global Markets at Ernst and Young and before Ernst and Young Kevin served at SAP as Executive Vice President, Head of Business Development and Global Ecosystem. Kevin holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Kevin IchhpuraniFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

Highlights of Avanish, Damien, and Nick's discussion include:Xero’s growth story from one person’s headache to a global platform supporting over 3 million customersThe genesis of Xero’s impressive platform strategyHow the company has created a playground for developers to solve for Xero’s customers in new and innovative waysUnderstanding the role the tension between things that the company could do and things that the ecosystem could do plays in overall platform strategyPracticing transparency both internally and with your partner ecosystemDefining your ecosystem platform principles to strike balance between first-party and third-party propositionsAnd much more!Guests: Nick Houldsworth & Damien TamplingDamien Tampling, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, XeroDamien leads Xero’s global strategy, corporate development and partnership teams. Prior to joining Xero, Damien spent nearly 20 years at Deloitte in a number of senior strategy, M&A and other executive roles and was a founding partner of Deloitte’s global online and mobile technology practice, Deloitte Digital. He holds a Bachelor of Business from RMIT University, Melbourne and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.Nick Houldsworth, Executive GM Ecosystem, XeroXero is a global small business platform, with over 1000 connected apps in its ecosystem. In 2021 Nick oversaw the launch of the new Xero App Store, and has held board and advisory roles for a number of startups. He is passionate about building a network of innovation through Xero’s ecosystem community to support small businesses worldwide. He is based in Auckland, New Zealand.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Nick Houldsworth and Damien TamplingFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the full transcript here.