On this episode of the Unlearn podcast, listen in to Peter Caputa, where he delves into his role at Databox, an analytics platform with a unique Benchmark feature. Discover how Databox helps companies harness data for decision-making, and their partner program for accessible data-driven insights. The conversation also explores community building, product launch challenges, and Caputa's journey from engineer to CEO. Learn about his expertise in sales, partnership strategies, and the dynamic business landscape he operates in.
00:00 - Introduction.
02:32 - Starting the partner program at Hubspot.
05:06 - Proving value and gaining resources vary by company size and effort.
10:09 - What's top of mind for you right now?
10:51 - Introduction to Databox.
13:44 - Data-driven way to build a sales organisation.
15:46 - Aggregating data for benchmarking.
21:03 - Survey component to the benchmarking tool.
22:04 - Building valuable communities.
27:34 - Thinking of Community led growth as a viable strategy.
30:39 - Learning from community peers.
33:38 - Blunt LinkedIn style - its impact, and reactions.
39:36 - Building a partner program.
44:20 - The need for rigour in partner marketing.
47:04 - Career journey over the years.
50:15 - Monetizing partnerships.
00:24.25
Asher Mathew
Hey everybody welcome back to another episode of the unlearned podcast today. We have a super special guest who's actually. Very well known for starting trouble in companies with their partner programs at least that's the story that we were told you know so Pete Welcome to the show. So Do you want to tell people a little bit about yourself because I think a lot of people know you? But
00:45.84
Peter Caputa
Yeah, Thanks! Thank you, Thank you Asher? How's it going?
00:56.61
Asher Mathew
Just for the sake of our audience also being introduced, we should just have you tell people about you on their journey.
00:58.92
Peter Caputa
Yeah, no, we shouldn't have assumed that everyone knows who I am, yeah um so I think what you're referring to there is that I started the HubSpot program against the witches of Brian and Dharmesh um and then ultimately grew it.
01:09.67
Asher Mathew
Yes.
01:18.86
Peter Caputa
Ah, I grew, you know I led the team and grew the program to about one hundred and thirty million so it worked out. Okay for everybody. It's now you know a billion-dollar business but yeah it was I started it I guess I caused a little trouble Brian who's ah Halligan CEO of Hubspot
01:27.64
Asher Mathew
Yeah.
01:38.61
Peter Caputa
Was just being interviewed by Mark Robert who was my boss at Hubspot and ran sales and Brian was telling the story of the other just the other day and he talked about how he told me not to even call the leads and not to call the marketing agency leads and I ignored him. Um, and did it, and then his version of the story is that I was hitting 400% of quota a month later but it didn't take it took a few more than it took a little bit longer than a month but was able to grow HubSpot sales as a result of starting the partner program there. So I think that's what you're for.
02:06.96
Asher Mathew
Um, I gotta tell you the first time I heard the story I was like wait this doesn't sound true but it sounds exciting. So no, not knowing that it is a true story. No, I didn't say it's a lie I was just like this is a this to sound like,e or yeah you know? yeah.
02:15.20
Peter Caputa
Um, ah, you not good trouble will make a liar right of sure Kelly's heard this story a few times. Yeah.
02:16.35
Kelly Sarabyn
Are you calling him a liar? Ah.
02:25.53
Kelly Sarabyn
Ah, how big was Hubspot How big was this hu one at the time now Hubspot is quite large but um.
02:32.45
Peter Caputa
Um, I officially started the program in like 2009 but that was after some you know success already so it was probably 2008 when I started working with agencies for like you know a good portion of my time. Um. I was a sales rep So I was a fifteenth employee and then the fourth sales rep and I had a quota just like every other sales rep and we were generating these leads Hubspot was old from the beginning at generating leads and a good portion of the leads like 20% were marketing agencies, marketing consultants and the sales team. Um, you know.
02:58.84
Asher Mathew
Yeah.
03:07.91
Peter Caputa
The sales team would waste a lot of time with them initially every new salesper would be like oh I got this agency or consultant that has 5 clients and they're gonna bring 5 of their clients on board with HubSpot and so the salesperson would get excited and the agency would never show up to the second call and so I knew I figured out how to. Sell to them effectively and not get 5 clients on it once usually, but get them to get their clients on board eventually. So um, yeah, it was pretty early.
03:34.98
Asher Mathew
This is great. I mean there's this statement that people say that a lot of little salespeople go to partnerships but I would say we should make this podcast a post to search out for.
03:49.26
Peter Caputa
Um, ah, ah yeah, so the difference I think I think the mistake that a lot of software companies make when they build a partnership program is they think.
03:51.12
Asher Mathew
No, people that really can build businesses. Go to partnerships you know so you know see you.
04:03.57
Peter Caputa
Our product is great and we can sell it. So other people should think our products are great and they'll want to sell them. In reality, that's not how it worked at Hubspot at all and I think it's also not the optimal way to build a partner program or retail retail out program either.
04:07.49
Asher Mathew
Um, you know? yeah.
04:15.83
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, that's great. Yeah, so I mean so.
04:20.32
Peter Caputa
And so yeah, the selling was truly consultative. We had to break down a marketing agency's business help them rebuild it, and think how to do it and you couldn't do that by pitching them software or explaining how awesome their software would be for the clients. It was much more about what.
04:26.69
Asher Mathew
So.
04:35.79
Peter Caputa
Um, the program could help the agency improve its cash flow and grow its revenue. All that stuff.
04:41.69
Kelly Sarabyn
And that takes a lot more time. So I don't. I've heard your story before from various people including an article you wrote but is it correct that you were partly doing this essentially on your time b think one of the challenges partner people face right? is like when you have ah a.
04:46.93
Peter Caputa
Um, you shall.
04:58.50
Kelly Sarabyn
But business. That motivates them very much in direct motion. They don't necessarily see the value. How do you prove the value enough to get them to invest the resources to make it sustainable, right? think. I asked about the size of the company. I think it's very different when you're trying to ramp it up in a smaller company than a company that says it is 8000 people but what was your experience even though you know in the earlier stage at the time is. Did you have to take it on your own time, build out those resources that you're talking about on your own time, show enough subtraction, and then they were like oh ok, let's give you some more headcount? Let's give you some more bandwidth.
05:32.86
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah, it was a little more contentious than that. But yes that was I would be which idea. Um, so yeah, we were in sales. I had a quota. The more I sold the more money I made I was motivated. Um, we know it was an early-stage startup and stockpot stock. I think my first stock options were. Seventeen cents and yeah you probably know but hu plus the stock price is just around four hundred and fifty dollars right now. So um, so that worked out um pretty well I was very motivated. The culture was just like going to figure stuff out like it's a lot different than it is now at Hubspot Um.
05:59.21
Kelly Sarabyn
Um.
06:08.57
Peter Caputa
And so yeah I just started calling those leads. I had run a business before um, where I sold marketing services. We actually had software that we had built but we sold services along with it and so I kind of understood some of the problems inherent in an agency. I also went through some intense problems. Consultative sales training and coaching ao I spent a lot of time learning how to sell well therefore when I started talking to agencies I would talk to them about their whole business figure out the problems and validate what the problems were. Ah, to the point where I could, you know, get on a call and in 40 minutes convince them to change their business model. Um, so yeah, but it was a very different time. Yeah, a very different time. Yeah.
06:48.12
Kelly Sarabyn
Which is important right? And and.
06:52.48
Asher Mathew
You know, did this? Ah, this is great because it validates that companies. Normally you know when they want to start an office in another country or open up the vertical. They almost always send some of their top salespeople to go do this work but when it comes to partnerships they're like oh yeah, again.
07:09.42
Asher Mathew
That world is changing now, right? like that's not what's happening right? because you want to survive in Partnerships If you were should a ah say a salesper percent Anyways, right? So it's the notion that you should send some of your top sales and marketing talent to go figure out a new route to market.
07:09.94
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah, yeah, what am I right.?07:26.10
Peter Caputa
Yeah, you would you would? That's a great point. Great parallel yeah, you know you didn't so wouldn't send salespeople people to go figure out a new market and just to add to it Kelly probably knows g two Metani is a good personal friend of mine. The business that I started.
07:28.60
Asher Mathew
Because that's what you were doing ah for anything else. Also,
07:43.76
Peter Caputa
Um, before HubSpot was with him. Um, and he now runs services but he opened every office internationally for Hubspot he went over and opened the Dublin office as the managing director and grew international. Ah, I don't know what it is exactly but 40 percent of Hubspot's revenue, and he
07:51.70
Asher Mathew
While.
08:03.61
Peter Caputa
Spent a bunch of time in the partner world and when they opened offices that was one of the first things they did. We would find good partners to partner with in different countries the parallel story I get is different but it reminds me of what you hear.
08:13.62
Kelly Sarabyn
And I think something you said too is that's so important that the partner you still see partner programs for getting to do the work on is that personal work it sounds like you already had a lot of the Persona dial then which accelerated your ability to deliver. But I think a lot of times.
08:15.56
Asher Mathew
Um, I know that's great.
08:26.16
Peter Caputa
Yes.
08:29.31
Kelly Sarabyn
It's so obvious in the customer journey, right? We have whole teams of people doing customer research and doing customer interviews. RLet'sput that ideal customer profile down. We have told their little ah their pictures their roles their interest doing the same work as part of your partner program is essential right? because then you can have those.
08:44.66
Peter Caputa
08:48.47
Kelly Sarabyn
Conversations that take 45 minutes instead of trying to pitch them for months because you don't even know what they care about and you still see partner programs not investing in that properly. Yeah.
08:52.82
Peter Caputa
Yeah, yeah, not doing that. What I see frequently in earlier stage saas companies is um, they reach out to me and like hey we heard about you building the part of the program. Could we get a half hour of your time to pick your brain about ours.?And I'll get on the call and they're like well we think we have 5 different partner targets and this is like a series of backed companies and like and they don't even know one of them. Well, they're just like they had 1 example, maybe of each and they're like we think we can do this and that's where they read about different companies doing I'm like you gotta pick one and you gotta know that 1 intimately and that's. Fortuitously what happened at Hubspot for me is that I happened to know one and we had all those leads coming in and I spent enough time to understand the persona. It was probably like a year or 2 into the program where before we defined partner Paul I don't know if they still have a persona for part. Solution partners at hHubSpotanymore if it has I'm sure it's evolved. But yeah we had partner Paul after a little while.
09:51.95
Asher Mathew
Great all right? Well I mean this is the unlearned podcast. We talk about go-to-market topics there even though Kelly and I are very deep in the part of the partner role we always start with like what's top of mind for you pPeteobviously this story that we were told was very interesting for us to hear. Do.
10:03.20
Peter Caputa
Um, like.
10:11.90
Asher Mathew
Ah, what's top of mind for you.?
10:13.81
Peter Caputa
Dogged um top of mind for me. I'm building another partner program at Databox and that's top of mind for me, spending a lot of time on it. Um, I think one of the parallels like the connection between Hubspot is that I'm trying to build. Like a business model for companies to run and I think that's similar to what we did at Hubspot early on where we taught these agencies a business model and so that's really where I'm focused. It is like how I help a consultant the marketing agency Etc. Leverage Data box to build a consulting business and so you know and yeah, sure, Yeah, we're analytic software. Um, most people know us by reporting on Dashboard. We've evolved a lot since ah, ah from that but the core use case is people.
10:52.10
Kelly Sarabyn
And you explain to the audience rudely. What a database is.
11:09.67
Peter Caputa
Search us out and end up trying us out to pull performance data from multiple different tools into 1 spot so that they can build custom dashboards and custom reports. Um and Aore closely manage monitor or report on the performance of their business. We also have. More advanced features in the product such as benchmarking to be able to compare performance to other similar companies forecasting on a generative AI that AIits out how your company is performing in text and other more advanced things that we're working on. Um, all all geared towards trying to make it simpler for companies to rot just know how they're performing but think through what they should do next to their performance.
11:55.27
Asher Mathew
And that you're doing today right? But what do you ultimately want to accomplish with Indian Box great so would you be the key backer then is that what you're saying?
12:02.90
Peter Caputa
I'll build the matrix.
12:10.62
Peter Caputa
I Don't care who's the key maker. But yeah, um yeah I think like in most small businesses. Small mid-sized businesses. Data is usually an afterthought.
12:19.77
Asher Mathew
So.
12:24.80
Peter Caputa
Um, it's usually pulled together in the month-ended or quarter-end deck and doesn't factor into day-to-day management or month-to-month tweaks to you know activities or projects and I think rarely even gets ah is an input to annual planning and and and.
12:36.61
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah.
12:41.85
Peter Caputa
And we want to change that. We want to help companies leverage data at all levels of the organization to make smarter decisions on a daily, weekly, monthly,y, and annual basis, and to do that we're trying to ameliorate the complexity of that process. What's that?
12:46.47
Asher Mathew
And I'm assuming it's all Market data that you're focused on sorry I was saying I'm assuming this is all go-to Market data that you're focused on or ultimately like you want all go-too market.
13:02.20
Peter Caputa
Um, no, not just that we have built a lot of integrations with software for sales marketing service. Hubspot is one of our bigger integration partners, right? exactly? Ah.
13:10.90
Kelly Sarabyn
You know you have tons of installs in the HubSpot marketplace. I know that.
13:17.51
Peter Caputa
And then you know Google and Facebook products like we have all those integrations and I think marketers tend to have a lot of data. Um, and so we've built a lot of integration for markers. But we also have integrations with Crm's financial systems and then our biggest most popular integrations are people connecting to.
13:37.19
Peter Caputa
Data Warehouses Sql data warehouses and spreadsheets and so where we have people restoring almost any part of their business using the aware.
13:48.80
Asher Mathew
It's very interesting that we're returning because I feel like you know, posts like Aaron Ross's predictable revenue and like every CML out there saying the brand is dead, demand is the new thing, or Chris Walker and all these people like.
14:00.23
Kelly Sarabyn
Look.
14:02.44
Asher Mathew
Like I feel like the data-drivenness of the off, go-to-market has been around for like 10 years, and yet you still are building a company that helps startups or even scale us for that matter. Um, get better at managing their data.
14:16.44
Peter Caputa
Yeah,h I don't think people are very good at it I know Aaron Ross and read his book and contributed to his book. The last chapter was written by me. So I know that well. I don't think that's very predictable. I think that's like an old-school way of building a funnel. Ah.
14:25.38
Asher Mathew
For.
14:31.24
Asher Mathew
At.
14:33.72
Peter Caputa
Through cold email I don't think most companies are operating to the point where they're you know, measuring everything that can be measured and monitoring that for you know, regular improvements I think. Mark's bookMark Roberta's book The saleThecceleration formula is a much more data-driven way to build a sales org in terms of managing it and everything but I still think it's just scratching the surface in terms of what's possible. Um, for example,e I have ah um, a benchmark that I built it has um. 70 of Hubspot's top solutions partners in it and in there I can monitor the media and performance of those 70 companies and the top quartile on the bottom quartile and see what the trends are and I can see very very clear trends. And then point that back out to them but they don't know that they have no clue that oh if their traffic is down is that the same for other companies like them and knowing that is is valuable to know all right? Well maybe we need to adapt our strategy and it's not doing what our peers or our competitors are doing and so on.
15:32.90
Asher Mathew
And yeah.
15:43.25
Peter Caputa
I think there's so much more that we could be doing with data to inform strategic decisions.
15:45.46
Kelly Sarabyn
And do you aggregate that from customers anonymously sharing it on your platform?
15:50.19
Peter Caputa
We do? Yeah, we have a free product that we launched a little over nine months ago called benchmarks, and if you go to benchmarks-databox.com anyone can opt in. We have tens of thousands of companies that can connect any number of data sources from HubSpot to GA search console ad platforms etc. And then it picks who they want to compare it to so we want to compare it to by company size or industry. We also can let our partners create these groups where they control exactly who's in the group. So like I use that functionality to build a group of just Platinum Plus Partners for example and those platinum partners all opted in yes, anonymously.
16:27.45
Kelly Sarabyn
Yeah, it's super valuable. I mean I think you know larger companies right? They rely on these Analyst market-wide reports for the industries and those are astronomically expensive but B they're only applicable at a certain aggregated level. But I think that you're providing.
16:29.10
Asher Mathew
Are.
16:37.24
Peter Caputa
By.
16:45.38
Kelly Sarabyn
Um, to your point, like for ecosystem specific or it could be. It could be any new product category and ASASs, right? It could be anything where there's not going to be that industry-wide data or enough data. You need to hone in on the niche.
16:59.91
Peter Caputa
Yep.
17:00.56
Kelly Sarabyn
Super valuable to disaggregate. Especially right now when the economic conditions are so troubled right? It's easy to be like oh my business isn't doing well because the economy's bad but like is that the case and looking at something like the benchmark where it's like oh wait all other Platinum Partnerstraffics going up so actually is probably my bad marketing play.
17:09.93
Peter Caputa
Right? I don't know.
17:20.16
Kelly Sarabyn
Um, that just sounds super valuable for Midmarket and small companies and some large companies too are in particular niches that don't get good coverage.
17:20.77
Peter Caputa
Elarate favor.
17:27.43
Peter Caputa
Yeah, no, you need to nail that well. I think you could mess up. I couldn't say it better. Yep.
17:29.48
Asher Mathew
So this is pretty innovative. Yeah I mean it this pretty innovative because on the backside of this you mean do you have a consulting service at least today or maybe your solution partner program that can go help these companies with ah. With getting better but okay.
17:45.97
Peter Caputa
Yes, yeah, so we're approaching,g, right? So we just started bringing on partners um with this product and we're approaching a hundred partners and we're signing up like ten ten a week um and we're allowing them to do all the consulting I don't want to be in the consulting business. Um. But what the software allows them to do is create their group. So for example, um, we have a partner that only works with those marketing work for mental and behavioral health clinics and they have 200 clients. They created a benchmark, added all their clients with permission and now they can go to any of their clients or any of their prospects and say.
18:04.96
Asher Mathew
Um, and have yours.
18:12.59
Asher Mathew
Um, so.
18:21.12
Peter Caputa
He, we know how your Facebook ads and your Google ads should be performing because we have data anonymized across 200 clients. Would you like to see how you compare it allows them to go in and compare.
18:34.73
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, or donate. No no so what? What? what? what? I think right now as a pet is saying this right is such that you've created a data coop right? I think it is the right way to think about i.? Yeah, hit.
18:34.81
Kelly Sarabyn
Asher, you need to create a benchmark around communities.
18:37.18
Peter Caputa
At all.
18:46.48
Peter Caputa
Yeah, it's fair. Yeah, yeah, it's free for everybody. So yeah.
18:52.16
Asher Mathew
And then the and what you've done is almost like a database. A version of this could be like a data box for partner teams and for example, stripe and Avallara Sagesage, and all these companies should have instances of this for their partners.
19:01.56
Peter Caputa
In.
19:11.85
Asher Mathew
And when you go to like partners dot Sage dot Com It should just show you in a mirror-like this is the wind rate for partners and in like La hand here's the window root for partners and stuff like that and there's like the Median traffic by size and people could just like do a whole bunch other things and the how good am I doing.
19:30.23
Asher Mathew
Kind of like self-serve. You know the partner manager doesn't have to be tasked with like Sohese reports to figure out how good your partners are doing. It's literally like shown on a graph. Um, we used to do this again, just like a solid earth story like I was employed over eighty at Avlora.
19:47.40
Asher Mathew
and I used to use Tableau or dashboards to kind of create these snapshots to send to partners and stuff. But what you're doing is if you're already plugged into their traffic and some of their other systems. Ah.
19:49.86
Peter Caputa
Have the owners. Yeah.
20:02.58
Asher Mathew
Creating a dashboard that people just like to customize for themselves I think that's super powerful.
20:05.92
Peter Caputa
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we have 70 integrations out of the box. So that allows people to just go in and benchmark themselves. What you're talking about is very similar to actually something we had a hotspot and I don't. I don't know if HubSpot still has it but we built what we called it. Um, shoot. Forget but it was basically a quiz or an assessment that the partner would take and we also had their data about how their clients used the product so we combined those 2 into a report that will allow them to see the correlation between things that they were doing.
20:36.45
Asher Mathew
You know.
20:43.30
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, this and and and to add to.
20:43.64
Peter Caputa
With their performance. Um, I think I think it's gone now I think I hope. Yeah, I think they did years ago. Um, but that part is one of those by the way Kelly ah, but ah, but yeah, that's what we're going for is the other.
20:46.61
Kelly Sarabyn
Yeah, I had not heard of it doesn't mean it's not there. But I haven't heard of it. But that's not that down that sounds valuable.
21:02.21
Peter Caputa
A piece of our benchmark tool is a survey component and so when we partner up with someone. We're not just allowing them to build a benchmark of Kpis but they can also run a survey and ultimately our goal is to be able to compare how people answer the question to questions of the surveys to their actual performance.
21:19.93
Kelly Sarabyn
Oh, that would be super interesting because I'm so in and it would be different for different populations right? like um, and people don't fully appreciate that like these groups are self-selecting for certain traits. So like if you ask.
21:21.80
Peter Caputa
With GoGan.
21:28.00
Peter Caputa
Um, you.
21:36.80
Kelly Sarabyn
Ah, product people, I guess that certain types of questions are going to be more on the point you salespeople or partner people. They're probably a little more delusional about certain things but you need the data to know right? like you need to, you need to crosscheck. So I love that idea.
21:41.70
Peter Caputa
Um, yes, right? Yeah yeah.
21:48.64
Asher Mathew
We just lost 40% of our audience by the way just after that first really forgot you like yeah, it's like moving forward I will be doing this podcast by myself.
21:56.11
Peter Caputa
Um, if they come here to get peanuts.
21:58.76
Kelly Sarabyn
But just saying.
22:02.74
PeteOrn'tuta
Or don't mention children.
22:05.11
Asher Mathew
Be empathetic towards our audience, not just vilify them. Yeah oh but to answer Kelly's question around the community piece. So I was just at CMX summit maybe a week or so ago and the tech stacks for communities are like.
22:10.80
Peter Caputa
Ah away. Yeah.
22:20.37
Asher Mathew
I would say worse shape than the tech stack for partners. You know I mean like when I was there now I mean it's interesting because like you have brand communities which you know like you Walmart would say we have a community right?
22:22.84
Peter Caputa
Oh wow, that's saying something.
22:28.13
Kelly Sarabyn
It's true though.
22:35.42
Asher Mathew
Or a Classical notion would say we have communities right? And then you have these business communities something like what part your leaders and some of these other companies are ah communities are building and that there's a distinct business model right? The brand communities need different um metrics and then the business communities.
22:53.40
Asher Mathew
It needs to be integrated into like hubspot and Slack and like you name it like this is more B Two B than anything else and then and then and then the metrics of like how do you measure engagement is it like a like is it a view the the lurkers which pocketjet of the lurkers in and which bucket of the participatory or. Ah, but.
22:56.36
Peter Caputa
Yeah, yeah.
23:10.50
Peter Caputa
Right? Yeah, and you're probably trying to sell things versus a brand that is just trying to build community and connection. Yeah, yeah.
23:13.10
Asher Mathew
Ah, participating in this playbook is like correct and so it's an It's very um, at least when we were there we were like Wow you know? ah, we feel like partner teams ah don't have a lot of resources like community teams.
23:32.93
Peter Caputa
Got it.
23:32.97
Asher Mathew
Like literally don't have anything there were like maybe 9 companies that are building stuff for them.
23:35.54
Kelly Sarabyn
Well, it's interesting to you because some brands have bought existing communities. It was either Penda or Amplitude who bought mine, right? Which was it and so I don't know that we have enough data points on that yet, but it'll be really interesting to see if it works because.
23:52.14
Kelly Sarabyn
Even though Brands usually aren't trying to sell anything too Explicitly there's that's the ultimate goal, right? So there's always the skill set to run this effectively and keep it clean because of the danger to the community. Um, and this is true of a community. That's a professional community or brand owned if you tilt too far in the right direction.
24:06.78
Peter Caputa
Yeah.
24:12.13
Kelly Sarabyn
But you have to maintain some control but it's kind of like behind the scenes and in the structure versus being too pushy in front of it. So it's really interesting, but yeah, the tooling around it's kind of like dark social tooling. It's still.
24:26.48
Peter Caputa
Right? Yeah yeah.
24:28.31
Kelly Sarabyn
Nasson stays and it ah is always coming up against the creepiness factor right? of like how far we want to go and monitoring connections DMs Dms and the things that people find valuable about a community.
24:38.54
Peter Caputa
For sure.
24:40.36
Asher Mathew
So the Nvidia community leader was there and um and they have like I want to say maybe like over a million people in their community and they use it.
24:52.19
Peter Caputa
Well yeah.
24:57.50
Asher Mathew
Purely for Obstacles Tells they don't use it for new business acquisitions. So it was very like I was sitting there for dinner and just listening to this lady and she's like yeah you know the community stack sucks I'm like.
24:57.20
Peter Caputa
Okay, community.
25:11.17
Asher Mathew
Agreed but like what are you working on and telling me to March yourself which is like yeah we have like one point five million people in our community in this same video right? like and we have gamers and then we have like they have they had it very well segmented and so so then naturally like half of the day the conversation I'm like what do you use your community for because you're in the video you have like.
25:16.57
Peter Caputa
Yeah, right.
25:31.14
Asher Mathew
Distributors people that on your products like you have every channel The planet is working for you right? Yeah yeah, like what do you choose it for? She's like upsells and I'm like oh that makes so much sense.
25:32.48
Peter Caputa
Um, right? yeah right.
25:45.51
Asher Mathew
And I wonder why more people like let's say in our Saas world. Don't use communities for upsells and they just try to use communities for landing and ah landing new customers versus if they use it for upsells.
25:53.29
Peter Caputa
I think yeah, most hatch companies don't have the number of skews and the ability to upsell right? I think that somebody told me that was the hot topic at Easter this year.
25:59.35
Asher Mathew
Um, oh yeah, yeah yeah.
26:08.31
Peter Caputa
Launch new products and sell them. Yeah, so that we could sell more to our install base I think most SAAS companies are still single products or you know figuring out their second worst we're figuring out our second product. Yeah.
26:13.12
Asher Mathew
Yeah, yeah, which is probably another full-day conference of like Well how do you launch a product when you a company because like every single company, and by the way even like this this may be too much information on this podcast. But even at partnership leaders who are like.
26:25.80
Peter Caputa
Ah, yeah.
26:32.43
Asher Mathew
How do you launch a feature for a member? Yeah and then Chris and I are sitting there thinking wow collectively between the 4 of us we have been through 14 companies and we still messed up a future notch and so on.
26:49.30
Kelly Sarabyn
Well, maybe you should hire a product marketer. You do know that people do this for a living asher. Ah.
26:51.80
Asher Mathew
Exactly exactly. Oh yeah, it was like we're We're a very small broke company exactly. So let me kind of figure out all these resources but it's amazing because every single company that I've been at um, wrote where Ro was a startup.
27:10.90
Asher Mathew
Ah, I had this problem with how we launch a feature.
27:15.23
Peter Caputa
Yeah, it's not it's not easy it's not there you go I'm sorry I always type Peter but the other one and met.
27:19.50
Kelly Sarabyn
Join the product marketing alliance join that community and you'll get some good tips but um, wait is it Peter Peter your name says Peter but I looked it up okay um I have a question for you because you're yCEO CEO you're a founder right? what.
27:19.46
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, that's true.
27:34.45
Kelly Sarabyn
When you think about this new term I don't know I assume you're at inbound 2022 where hubspots like community-led growth. It's a new thing but it is a thing, right? like but nobody knows exactly what it means because it could mean partners. It could be communities like pavilion and partnership leaders. It could mean a lot of other things.
27:41.20
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah.
27:50.67
Kelly Sarabyn
How do you think about that as a founder of a Saas company is that something you even think is a viable strategy or are you just looking at it as direct but partner-led? How are you framing it for your own company?
28:01.60
Peter Caputa
Ah, so just to be clear out of respect I am not up for the founder I'm not the founder I joined the company as a CEO just not enough doesn't matter I just want to put that out there of respect we have or that there are two co-founders. Oh yeah.
28:12.44
Asher Mathew
So much for researching Kelly yeah I think we're okay launching over features. Ah.
28:18.75
Kelly Sarabyn
Ah, set 1
28:19.29
Peter Caputa
Um, to answer your question and I'm totally on board with all these movements. There are multiples, right? There's a community-led. There's a partner who has heard there are earbuds from the guys and the guys and guys reveal I am working on my methodology which I've started sharing with people that I call collaborative growth.28:37.19
Peter Caputa
Which is really about integrating partnerships through marketing first. Um, but ah, but so yeah, I'm totally on board with I think it's so nascent. There's no clear one there I don't think there's one way to go about it yet and I don't know that there ever will be 1 way to go about it like yeah like I mentioned earlier people get on and call me and say like we're thinking about these 5 different channels and I think those 5 different channels will always exist a small company will never be able to capitalize on 5 different channels but there's different ways to go about through partnerships I think Kelly you're 100 % focused in on so you know so sas partnerships right? with Hubspot right.
29:14.70
Kelly Sarabyn
Right? um.
29:15.27
Peter Caputa
Companies like us at Databox and I'm very obsessed with how we work with consultants and marketing agencies and their distributors. There's you know for products you go through retailers like there's all these affiliates right? There's all these different things and then of course hosting a community and. All that. So I don't know if we'll ever have one method. I look at it as like you got to pick one when you're a small company and go with it and then when you get to 8000 employees how's 5 you can do 4 or 5 exactly? Um, but yeah, um.
29:41.60
Kelly Sarabyn
5 different strategies.
29:43.40
Asher Mathew
Ah, you know it. It's so true I mean like if you hire a startup CRO that person is not going after S And B Milmark at enterprise sales all at the same time they would be fired very quickly and they would even resource just go dots right? And so the.
29:51.20
Peter Caputa
Record but yeah, never words.
29:58.43
Kelly Sarabyn
Um.
30:01.93
Asher Mathew
The notion that you like to put on a recipe is that you have a partner program and then like 18 different types of partners walk through the door and then you're like I want to serve all of them that all certainly does not work at all. You know that second recipe for disaster. It's interesting. But
30:08.38
Peter Caputa
Right now I agree. Yeah, I think a lot of those partner careers come when you have a certain amount of commercial success right? Like if Hubspot had tried and we tried we tried to launch an integration platform long before the one that's there is. It's live and it didn't get much traction because we didn't have good APIs. There wasn't that we didn't have enough customers to warrant somebody's, you know, development Efforts like so if you do all these things prematurely. It just doesn't, it just doesn't Work. You can't make it work really.
30:39.15
Asher Mathew
Yeah, I Don't want to come back to 1 point though, it was interesting that the minute I talked about a product marketing problem Kelly said you should go join the part marketing alliance rigid and it's like communities are designed for connection as I mean if you go drill deep down in like they're.
30:50.24
Peter Caputa
What.
30:56.84
Peter Caputa
Um, and learning. Yes, yeah.
30:58.33
Asher Mathew
Should be designed to connect people over and over again. But we are in a world where like our gut instinct, everything else that's written out there isn't true at all and you should go learn from a community versus just going on Youtube and like like there's really good information there too right? so it's interesting that we're in this world where we don't trust anything that's out there except for what our peers recommend.
31:21.51
Kelly Sarabyn
Well, it's only going to get worse with Ai right? I think there's too much content. There's too much crap out there so people are leaning more into I want to go to a trusted professional like someone who I can validate for myself that sounds like knows what they're talking about.
31:24.56
Peter Caputa
Is it worth it? yeah.
31:38.16
Kelly Sarabyn
Have um, you know the right job experience and they're trustworthy versus just some rando article on the internet from some random site often a vendor that you've never heard of like it's tough and I think now that Genitive AI is up and running. We're just going to have more and more of a content glut which is going to cause people to lean in.
31:53.33
Asher Mathew
Yes.
31:56.89
Kelly Sarabyn
To trust either individuals or companies or publications or communities that they feel comfortable with is vetted and they're only getting high-quality information and sort of resources.
32:09.80
Asher Mathew
Also what's interesting is if you were to join the product marketing alliance today you wouldn't know if the people in there are giving you good information or not right? and so for some reason, we're like hey I'm gonna trust a group of people right? Ah right away versus. Expert content. That's out there because the notion is that everybody's used some sort of AI or something like that and produced a massive argument.
32:32.27
Kelly Sarabyn
I don't think so. I think it's an appeal to authority if you go into that group then people have resumes right? like they're the leading product marketing at g 2 their their product marketer at Hubspot now that's an appeal to authority all those people could be wrong for sure. You have to use your judgment. But I think it's a practice. It's an industry and so.
32:35.36
Peter Caputa
Ah, now.
32:44.40
Asher Mathew
Um, yes.
32:51.74
Kelly Sarabyn
You're not going to. I would not have thrown out to go to the product market alliance if I thought that was a bunch of people who were in college looking to become product marketers right? So it is ah there is a vetting mechanism for these communities.
33:01.79
Peter Caputa
They get each other's expertise right? and and and collectively they have authority. So I think yeah because it's not they're connected and in and they're transparently like i. Presume on the product market alliance. There's a discussion board where people can ask questions and so if somebody puts a bad answer there. It's going to be or it's gonna we're gonna respond and say that doesn't make sense or hey my experience is different or there's gonna be 5 people to say 1 thing and 1 person this says another and so I think.
33:20.32
Asher Mathew
It's my turn. Yeah.
33:26.86
Kelly Sarabyn
The wisdom of the group right? yeah.
33:38.20
Peter Caputa
That happens not just in closed communities. But it happens on social media as well. Like I've been digging into usLinkedInedin for the last year and it's amazing. The type of information I can glean. Um, so quickly from people that have a resume that backs up what they're saying. Um, and then you know you can see patterns of what people say like I had a post yesterday that has like 170 comments on 1 very specific topic and there's in there. It's like half the people represent 1 perspective and half represent the other and I can vet out like why do these people have this opinion because. One half is doing things 1 way and the other half is doing things another way and that's basing. That's what the base of their experience is and you can't see that from a single perspective of an article that's written by 1 author you can only see that if you see multiple perspectives.
34:17.19
Asher Mathew
Yeah.
34:30.99
Asher Mathew
Super What else is talking mind for you?
34:34.89
Peter Caputa
Ah, I Don't know I would have prepared more if there was a you have question i.
34:36.10
Asher Mathew
Um, that's okay I mean this podcast is not designed for preparation like we did the way you did.
34:41.70
Kelly Sarabyn
Well no but I havLinkedInedin question for you because Pete you have a very blunt style on Linkedin which I appreciate but I um as someone who's also pretty blunt I think it does.
34:50.24
Asher Mathew
It's more um.
34:53.71
Kelly Sarabyn
Against the norm. So I'd be curious to ask you. um was that an intentional choice that just like so much of your personality it just flowed out naturally and you found it. Beneficial has there been a backlash to you getting naDMs Dms what's the story?
35:01.67
Peter Caputa
Right? It is very much. All.
35:11.80
Peter Caputa
Um, no I've always been this way if you talk to anyone that worked with me back in the day at house rock will know that I was very strong if I don't know what the wiki is like anymore but like there was rarely a post on the wiki that didn't have me calling out something about it back in the day I'd call bullshit on Halligan over the wiki. So. No, I'm not afraid of that. Um, don't recommend calling bullshit on your Ceo in front of other people. Do it privately. Well, I learned that lesson but I think publicly I don't I don't ever make it personal I always remove names if I'm telling a story if it's you know if it's somewhat critical of them. Um.
35:34.69
Asher Mathew
Um, Dr Ceo yeah it's not for everybody.
35:47.94
Peter Caputa
And I have found that by sharing my honest perspectives which are often against the grain. Um that ah more often than not people agree with me. Um, and somebody is rarely sitting there saying no, you're wrong. Um, it's usually when I'm calling out a behavior that they're doing but they never acknowledge it that way. They're just like oh you're an asshole I hate you I lose respect for you like I get those Maybe once a month but I can very quickly see why they're saying that like if I call out cold.
36:18.76
Kelly Sarabyn
I was not much.
36:26.84
Peter Caputa
Prospecting which from my perspective is most companies. Do it. It's just spam um and the person that says they lose respect for me when I'm being negative and I look at their profile and that's what they do for a living is sense sp um then like clearly I'm not going to take much personal offense to that and yeah, they probably weren't going to do business with me anyway. So. Um, so no I don't get much backlash. It's usually what it does is I'm usually highlighting something that twenty thirty forty percent of the population agrees with but nobody's talking about um and that usually encourages people to say oh yeah, you're right? Finally, somebody said it.
37:00.89
Kelly Sarabyn
Yeah, which I think does create brand loyalty essentially to yourself as a brand and a CEO because um, people do appreciate I think one of the problems wLinkedInedin right? If you get a lot of the same things being said over and over you can get these echo chambers.
37:18.56
Kelly Sarabyn
Or also these like hype cycle chambers and developing where people all cheering each other on which is fine like if people are getting value out of it. There's something wrong with it. But um, if that sort of becomes what people are seeing a lot then they have like I think a greater affinity if this someone goes against a gray. It's like hey I'm going to call out some truths here and be.
37:21.53
Peter Caputa
I'm sure.
37:37.81
Kelly Sarabyn
Be direct and be real even if some other people don't agree. Which disagreements don't have to be negative right? They can be highly productive.
37:42.76
Peter Caputa
Yeah, and like I should be. We should be clear I'm willing to take a stand but it's not every one of my posts, right? I'm usually positive most of the time. I'm trying to teach people things. Yeah.
37:51.35
Asher Mathew
It has started. It's the start of Renegade Pe You. It's like speaking the truth feed over here. But we probably have to clean up this podcast of it because my opinion of Pe As is like this person that's just like it is completely like there's all this panic and frustration in the world. They.
38:08.11
Peter Caputa
Um, ah yeah, is not good I'm very comfortable I'm very comfortable with yeah right? yeah.
38:11.39
Kelly Sarabyn
I mAsher'ser's constantly calling partner people out on Linkedin right? He's like you stay, get a partner you do not? yeah.
38:11.43
Asher Mathew
That's the court He is. Yeah, I can be totally clear but I'm part of the problem. That's why I feel like I can call it. I can call people hard because I was a shitty partner. I'm assuming at some level I still should be a partner but hey.
38:26.74
Peter Caputa
Yeah.
38:26.94
Kelly Sarabyn
And
38:32.50
Peter Caputa
What.
38:34.49
Asher Mathew
We're all growing in this direction a direction that makes a life of progress every day. I think we're gonna get there. So what? So many think about where this partner movement is. Go out, you're you seem to be somewhat involved in something.
38:38.44
Peter Caputa
I agree I agree that's the battle. Great.
38:41.40
Kelly Sarabyn
All right, different.
38:50.10
Asher Mathew
From different angles and stuff. What do you think is gonna happen?
38:52.28
Peter Caputa
It's funny I get sucked into conversations like these and like with the reveal and nearbound guys and I hope he's kind of reluctant to do it because I'm not. I am busy building a partner program I do not like trying to sell.
39:08.94
Asher Mathew
Um, exactly. But
39:09.54
Peter Caputa
Um, be broken, consulting, and every time I do one of these I get 4 in my inbox I'm like ah I don't be a jerk to say no. But I don't want to spend time on this anyway, now is the end of the year. You could talk go? um.
39:18.30
Kelly Sarabyn
Um, tell him to make a benchmark. Ah.
39:20.13
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, yeah self-serve everybody to get together if you help. Yeah.
39:26.90
Peter Caputa
So yeah I am busy building a partner program. I think that partner programs are sales-ledales and I think they need to be more marketing-led. I think the first engagement that partners should have, other than a product integration if necessary is co-marking. Um, because there's just much more scale that way for both partners.
39:32.45
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah.
39:44.10
Asher Mathew
Yeah, yeah.
39:46.54
Peter Caputa
Um, it also helps to create an inbound funnel. It's a kinder Gentler way to introduce a partner to your customer base if necessary and so um I'm leaning very much into that. We've built a product around it. We've built private ticket processes around it. We have a team around it.
39:52.27
Asher Mathew
That.
40:03.25
Peter Caputa
Um, and so that's where we're leaning in is how do we help each other you know, gain attention and capture capture.
40:07.74
Asher Mathew
And and and you and you're right? You're very right about this because traditionally the partner, let's call it like a hiring plan, has always had partner sales managers or partner account managers. It's like it's this thing that the channel company teams are products right? but
40:19.21
Peter Caputa
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
40:26.20
Asher Mathew
If you look at the modern go-to market I think that this metric is still ah true and you can correct me if I'm wrong. Ah, 50% somewhere close to 50% of his marketing team's budget is spent on paid media, right? And so.
40:38.41
Peter Caputa
I'll delight them. Ah, okay, what?
40:42.49
Asher Mathew
So if you're 50% of your direct. Go-to-market is um, the marketing budget is spent on paid media. Why wouldn't similar rates be spent on your partner? Go-to-market like but it doesn't make any sense right? because you're already doing it over here.
40:50.40
Peter Caputa
Um, right? yeah right.
41:00.84
Asher Mathew
And then when you move this way you do complete something completely different versus just put out. Ah, even better together or whatever story you want to call it the flavor of the month and put it on social media and see if the workflow actually makes sense to people, and then there contact Ust us form.
41:16.47
Peter Caputa
Right? Yeah, I think I think the main or only marketing support your typical partner manager gets is generating leads to acquire new Partners right? Ah, always above the idea.
41:18.14
Asher Mathew
It starts right here.
41:24.67
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, it doesn't make 10
41:26.58
Kelly Sarabyn
I mean partner marketing teams are usually small and off to the side and I will say in Saas companies. They almost always report to marketing. But the CMO doesn't particularly.
41:32.44
Peter Caputa
Yeah.
41:40.52
Peter Caputa
Well.
41:41.17
Kelly Sarabyn
Invest in it and then you have the partner team off there trying to close sales and co-sell Potentially so it is a very under-leveraged motion and I think um and it's interesting too because you're focused on co-marketing with agencies as a Saas company right?
41:45.61
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah, yeah.
41:48.48
Asher Mathew
Up.
41:57.27
Peter Caputa
Ah, yes, yeah co-marketing with agencies consultants ye exactly? Yeah yeah, you have a community or 2 we're doing stuff with and some creators as well. But yeah.
41:58.79
Kelly Sarabyn
And how familiar it is to the agencies.
42:07.10
Kelly Sarabyn
And are the agencies that are familiar with it because like I am looking at the Hub spot ecosystem? You see a couple like smartbuy who seem to be investing in doing it well but I wouldn't say that you see a ton of um, the agencies and.
42:16.54
Peter Caputa
In early marketing. We have to kind of walk them through like we probably do 80% of the work. The 20% of the work they do is important but stuff that we wouldn't be able to do necessarily but we're doing a good portion of that work. But we've built this streamlined process similar to the way you would almost sell.
42:26.35
Asher Mathew
Yeah.
42:36.30
Peter Caputa
A software product is like we have these steps that we go through and if it's not done by ourselves in our product. It's done in our project management system in a pretty standardized world. Yeah.
42:39.82
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah.
42:47.39
Asher Mathew
Yeah, this is great. I mean Kelly and I did a report where they were like the number the biggest innovator to partner marketing is the planning tax which is something that our good friend John Miller taught us right? and and and ever since then um, and we did this at ad.
42:55.96
Peter Caputa
Yeah, ah, okay.
43:03.83
Asher Mathew
But a friend da Anderson who ran partner marketing in Apple Ori was a firm believer of this toe this consultative approve may work in partner management but doesn't work in partner marketing. You just have to be prescriptive and then align calendars as fast as possible and then get a market.
43:13.10
Peter Caputa
Yeah, yeah, but you'll have to send me that research I'd love to. I'd love to reference it. I say this all the time like most co-marketing partnerships start with hey we look like we sell to the same people we should jump on a call and see what we could do together.
43:23.76
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah.
43:30.59
Peter Caputa
And they're like what do you guys do? Want to do it? what do you want to do and then oh I don't know if that will work. Maybe that works. Okay, let's do that and then the person that proposed that thing ends up doing all of the work and the other person doesn't do anything so and like like that's literally how it happens every time and so yeah, no, I'm very much like we have a process if you don't want to follow it.
43:30.62
Asher Mathew
Um, Target and they're like yeah.
43:41.80
Asher Mathew
And um, yeah, the planning taxes are real.
43:46.74
Asher Mathew
L It's f.
43:49.91
Peter Caputa
Sorry, we're not going to work together. But if your oranges didn't follow it. We'll teach you how to do the stuff you need to do and will be very collaborative but like in these ways but not in these ways and this is your well you to do This is what we will do.
43:57.99
Asher Mathew
Yeah, ah by the way this is what I call this is what I call our partner people on Linkedin the rigor of all this stuff goes back to Kelly's comment about me calling partner people who are like my own people you know so it's like.
44:06.35
Peter Caputa
Yeah.
44:14.56
Asher Mathew
Yeah, it's the rigor piece of it is that we get to revenue and then there's no focus or repeatability, and then there's no focus on rigor, and if you just move from like I Love this trust conversation. It's awesome, But we need to convert the trust conversation into like research and development conversation. And then move to like revenue and repeatability because if you start moving in that direction. That's what the cross and the CMOS are also working on trying to figure out. How do we get repeatability in our motions and then when this conversation happens at this like let's call it Big Boy table? It becomes much more credible.
44:42.81
Peter Caputa
Yep. Yeah.
44:50.43
Asher Mathew
Or it comes off more credible. Ah because you're working on the same problems that the other people are also working on and you're not like bringing theory to the table when the other people are bringing experiments to the table.
45:01.31
Peter Caputa
Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah know if you can do something repeatable and it produces a result for the business in your partnership program. Then yeah, you're at the same table. Yep.
45:08.39
Asher Mathew
Yeah.
45:11.74
Kelly Sarabyn
And is your product for Co-marketing together like through channel marketing automation or is it that slash project management?
45:20.50
Peter Caputa
No, so um, so the product that we built to enable the co-market is the benchmark groups thing we were talking about before and so it's kind of like thinking of Linkedin or Facebook if you were to go and create a group, and then invite your 5500 contacts to join that group. You're helpLinkedInedin grow their audience right and grow. Grow activity on their platform. So ours is the same way if you build a benchmark group and you add your clients or invite your prospects. It helps us grow our overall audience. We. Also since people go to that site and look for groups and since we market that and we market the partners groups. We're also helping our partners get leads. So in a way. We're marketing the same thing which captures a lead for both of us. So that's how it's built-in.
46:03.15
Kelly Sarabyn
Okay, so you're working with the owners of the group to essentially showcase their group and vice versa. They're showcasing your platform.
46:12.80
Peter Caputa
Yeah, so just take the um, the marketing agency that works with mental health clinics so they built that on our benchmark on our platform. They have a group for a benchmark group for mental health clinics so when we co-marketing together. We're both promoting that group. So if.
46:18.57
Kelly Sarabyn
Um.
46:29.31
Peter Caputa
1 of our marketing activities helped them drive a sign-up that would be a lead for them that we generated and if they add a new prospect to that group that would also be a lead generated by a free signup right? They're signing up for a free product. So yeah, that's how co-marketing into a product.
46:43.12
Asher Mathew
Can we would it be to Um, if this is a very transparent podcast and we don't prepare anything? Everything is live as you can see. I was just thinking that you should like it because you have a data box and you should maybe call your community unboxed and come up with something like.
46:49.48
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah, that's clear.
47:00.85
Asher Mathew
Music for park co-marketing image campaigns and call it Ju Jubox you know, maybe this list can go on and on but the other more interesting question is you went from a salesperson who built a partner program to becoming CEO but can you?
47:02.58
Kelly Sarabyn
Oh.
47:05.98
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah.
47:17.59
Peter Caputa
There were a few steps in between. Yeah um.
47:19.28
Asher Mathew
Yeah, 2020 so that's that thousand can you tell us that about your journey because like this is creative?
47:23.71
Peter Caputa
Yeah, so first of all I'm an engineer so I'm very analytical-minded. I did engineering out of school for a while. Um, then I started a business in 2000 we built software and somebody had to learn to sell it so that became me so I went and learned I went and enrolled in a twelve month
47:31.18
Asher Mathew
Um, kind of.
47:40.33
Peter Caputa
Intensive like sales training and coaching programs I learned to sell. That's when I joined Hubspot as a sales rep. Once I was at Hubspot and we started building the channel. I became a sales manager while I was managing the program as well. So I was doing program management for the partner program as well as sales management and then the program kept.
47:43.74
Asher Mathew
Fact.
47:56.36
Peter Caputa
Growing and we kept growing the sales team so I became a sales director and the sales VP with multiple directors. So as I did that I was very close to the whole executive team because it was pretty as I got big that became a pretty core piece of the business. So and so I got involved in a lot of strategic decisions.
47:58.92
Asher Mathew
Yep.
48:05.69
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah.
48:14.10
Asher Mathew
Help.
48:16.11
Peter Caputa
And Hubspot, which you know, gave me great results. Yeah, mMBA Mba on buildinSAASsaas business as we grew it so jumpingCEO CEO wasn't far I had done it before although not very successfully but I had done it before and then I feel like I got a hell of an education, and HubSpot of course too.
48:21.70
Asher Mathew
Um, without.
48:30.91
Asher Mathew
Yeah I mean this is great I mean you have the experiences that stack up on top of each other to actually get you to this point and then you can go think something.
48:40.88
Peter Caputa
Yeah, I almost left HubSpot I'm trying to remember when um, probably like at the 70000000 a r phase or something like that and I sat and. Halligan had me sit down with Davidock who was one of the board members. I don't think I've ever told this story publicly and ah any he and ah he sat down with it. It didn't say much. She asked me what I was thinking what I was doing why I was upset and why I wanted to leave ah. And he said to me, he's like so when did you join and it was like I joined it like 3 three hundred thousand are so like below a million in ar and he's like, and oh okay, that's a pretty good story. You went from like 1 yeah, you probably say 1 to 100000000 but what would be great is if you if you went to. You saw the whole story. Ah, I didn't make it to a billion in revenue I left before that I think but so that's true. It was good advice. He wasn't just trying to sell me something. It was good advice and I think the earlier you can start a star the longer you can stay which is kind of a monumental task. Um.
49:30.53
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah.
49:38.72
Asher Mathew
Yep. Now.
49:45.88
Peter Caputa
I think the quiet of it is quite an education. You can get it.
49:46.86
Asher Mathew
Um, yeah, no I.
49:49.80
Kelly Sarabyn
It's quite a journey to change right? like that size of the company and that transformation because the reality is the personality trait required to be successful in the early stage and large companies can be quite different. So. I'm even impressed when I look around Hubspot now and see how many people have been here for 10 years or because I'm like that company was very this company the size the way it works the way it was structured very different than it was and the fact that so many people have held on to like to make the journey I think is interesting. Um.
50:05.78
Peter Caputa
Um, absolutely.
50:13.49
Peter Caputa
Yeah, and the changes that go? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:18.17
Asher Mathew
Yeah, no I'm a firm believer you have to stick around at a company and then like move around a little bit to get well-rounded the way I got into partnership is.
50:24.63
Peter Caputa
You.
50:31.40
Asher Mathew
Um, so I came to this country and I went to school for computer science similar to you or a busy I don't know where to engineering you went but I went for it to be a software engineer and I got out and then I'm thinking man I have to sit on this desk and court all day for the rest of my life. This is.
50:49.22
Peter Caputa
Ah.
50:50.17
Asher Mathew
Just doesn't sound great at all. You know I mean it and and and and and and and and the only reason why I went to Scooba Computer's ze was so I could understand how technology works and and then I always wanted to figure out how to get the business side connected to the tech side and if you are the connecting point. You'll always have a job that was kind of my strategy.
51:07.38
Kelly Sarabyn
So Asher made it one week as an engineer but.
51:09.40
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah, yeah.
51:09.48
Asher Mathew
And then told did created one Va Ri and as an engineer and then they were like hey we need somebody to do demos for us, you know and I'm like oh this is my life with this like living by my line out and you know like like can you go do demos for us I'm like absolutely do I'm gonna do demos.
51:21.93
Peter Caputa
Are.
51:28.75
Asher Mathew
All day long and then literally I was I would watch all these salespeople like they're just gabbing or out etc, etc and that one day one of the salespers went out on vacation and was inbound for a very large e-commerce company. Very large. Ah. A company came in and they were looking for an e-commerce site which is what we were selling back then and I clearly remember thinking to myself like well I want this call they are giving me all the signals to buy and they've shared their timeline with me. They shared everything with me. All they're just kinda going to take from here is just asking if they want to buy now. So for now. Well like this is Gonna break the rules but who cares, let's see what happens right? I like on the phone with them like hey ah it sounds like you guys want to be live in like ninety days you want to start now. And they're like yeah um and then they and it is like is that I'm like you are do you think you're in a position to pay today and they're like yeah how much is going to be I like literally used to sell our software for like 25 k and I just said 100000 and they're like no problem. Like just send us the order now we'll sign it and be like wait is sick this is actually how that is done so like that's how I started and then and then my partnership story is even more interesting so I landed Avalara.
52:44.65
Kelly Sarabyn
Ashers like Wow sales are so easily a false advertising experience. But ah.
52:50.46
Peter Caputa
Um, ah the.
53:01.45
Asher Mathew
And ah and I'm in sales again and I'm thinking man everybody has this pressure to do 4 deals a month how do you do 40 deals a month and then our CEO was like far I was like well that's what the partnership team does I'm like okay, let's go to the partnership team and I look at the partnership team.
53:15.45
Peter Caputa
Yeah.
53:19.79
Asher Mathew
And they're like you can't join the key I'm like what do you mean? I like well you're from sales. You can't join the partnership scene because we're likely to do very important work. I'm like well what's very important work right? So the way I just like to walk this is like there's like 80 employees you know, just similar to you like it's very open but like I think show me what do you have right like our core does depend on it. So let's review what you have.
53:35.56
Peter Caputa
Um.
53:39.86
Asher Mathew
Like a hundred and 16 contracts signed and 2 partners end us deals right? Like oh, this doesn't sound good at all guys, right? like I'm going to McFarlan, right? Ah, and I say hey man you know everybody on that team is all managing partnerships. But there's nobody monetizing partnerships.
53:48.55
Peter Caputa
Um, ah.
53:58.77
Asher Mathew
And so I think what you should do is you should put me in as the monetizer and then forget this other stuff because I already have a record of tractor and monetizing stuff is like a deal if you can get us to like from 4 to 6 deals of a month that's actually like it'll change the day right? So I jumped in.
54:07.57
Peter Caputa
Yes.
54:16.36
Asher Mathew
And again similar to what we all call a very vigorous process today back then there was no playbook, right? And so like let's look at all this stuff. Let's get on the phone with all these people. I got on the phone with all the CEOs of the partners and like hey guys like we need to get to this point I'll give you whatever you need, but like we just need to get this thing done. It's got to be done in ninety days like putting a time limit on them. And then we got to like sixteens a month in like six months and then ah and then that kind of started this whole program of how do you work with like just working with like solution partners. The solution partners have to bring you in and like how you get like. And ISV to work on right? And so I'll share this story that I think we're like on time but we'll probably bring it back again. But then I had a backturn in Microsoft and Sage and these are like large organizations, right? like building a partnership with them that requires extreme skill and lots of years
55:08.34
Peter Caputa
Yep.
55:09.83
Asher Mathew
But then I look around and I look around this portfolio of Isv because Avalor has like 1200 integrations right? This is not like some small thing. Um, I look at an intact Netsree and workday 3 companies that are our portfolio that are all headed towards cloud and nobody's caring for them.
55:23.93
Peter Caputa
And
55:28.35
Asher Mathew
And nobody likes working on these plans with them or anything like that. So the year changes and this is like year four of me at Alara and I was there for seven and a half years and I go and say hey guys like I think I want to go taking Netsu intact and workday and then they're like why? Well for one.
55:31.60
Peter Caputa
With.
55:47.38
Asher Mathew
Initial stand for win. So I'm assuming there's some good luck in there somewhere. But for 2 like you have Oracle execs and Peoplesoft execs and see yeah. Ah, Tom Heeble's friends are like in these companies like they are going to do something like it doesn't make any sense that like these companies aren't going to think they've raised like $30000000 and so so I get vilified for by the entire part of their team on this thing by.
56:04.56
Peter Caputa
Well.
56:13.90
Asher Mathew
And this said like my entire career would be on the line level. You know all the drama that happens right? So I walk in and I literally like part of myself in the Bay Area and I would travel up here every two weeks for a week and sit in these company's offices literally like sketching out how their org works and who the execs are.
56:29.56
Peter Caputa
I Want yeah.
56:31.66
Asher Mathew
Ah, this stuff for what the sales process looks like and I start training every single BDR on how to qualify for an hour because I like the lazy salespeople. But if the BEDS qualifiedly you're going to get all these leads coming up Anyways, right?
56:40.55
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah, yeah, and.
56:46.77
Asher Mathew
And so Liz Kane who's at stage 2 capital now used to run the North American BRD king she had 4 people in our BRD team she was the first person who like me ah took the risk with me. We trained this entire business ah team on how to qualify for alamore.
56:53.60
Peter Caputa
Okay.
57:02.55
Peter Caputa
And
57:04.27
Asher Mathew
That business went from like 300,000 to like 3000000 in like a year and then and then and then from there I think that business is worth like thirty-forty million right now but that word portfolio brought Avalara into the enterprise, right? because that's where those companies went in. Yeah.
57:07.52
Peter Caputa
Oh wow.
57:18.31
Peter Caputa
Right? right? Because all those probably sell it to the enterprise.
57:22.34
Asher Mathew
Like similar to what your story around like hey how do you monetize these things that's where actually the ah the magic is and now we're in a world where like everybody's trying to figure out how to call up with ISSVA like this thing has been going on for like 1014 years it's not that hard. You just look at the supply chain of ah off an opportunity. It starts at a BDR. And just like working backward from there, everything will work itself hard right? But now it does take time depending on how big your company is. Well.
57:41.83
Peter Caputa
Um, doubt it.
57:48.53
Peter Caputa
Right? Yeah, I've never sold through ISVSs at all. It's not something that I've ever done. But um, so it's a bit of a mystery to me but seems much more aligned with the direct selling motion right? because they're just the force of referrals and they have pre-existing relationships.
58:00.38
Asher Mathew
Yes.
58:06.54
Peter Caputa
Building Relationships building systems integrated all that stuff.
58:08.49
Asher Mathew
Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on to our show. You know we did the introductions last which is great but we love to bring you on maybe six or seven months down the road and see how you're doing with your company and I'm sure there are some other things that you can talk about.
58:12.10
Peter Caputa
Um, yeah.
58:19.70
Peter Caputa
Friday for.
58:26.40
Asher Mathew
That is not related to all the 17 partner movements that are going on right now and we can talk about going to market for that. Ah, that is a little bit more integrated Kelly than anything that you want to say.
58:31.33
Peter Caputa
Ah, yeah.
58:34.50
Peter Caputa
Sure.
58:35.67
Kelly Sarabyn
No thanks for coming on. It was a pleasure to talk to you and great to meet you. Yes.
58:38.55
Peter Caputa
Same and good to be a spot partner by the way so keep up the good work.
58:45.25
Asher Mathew
All right, hold up one second.
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