I'm thrilled that Alex Balcanquall has joined our Mentor program. With his track record of đ doubling marketplace $TCV every year over the past 4 years, Alex brings extensive GTM and operational experience of marketplaces (AWS, Azure & GCP) to our Cloud GTM Leader Course.
đ Alex's superpowers are designing for operations at scale and alignment to sales and business strategy. With a 20 year career spanning Microsoft and Citrix his deep experience has enabled him to double marketplace $TCV every year for the last 4 years. We're fortunate to have him as a mentor in our community.
Alex shared his insights on how to get started on cloud marketplaces and reflected on the key marketplace trends of 2024, highlighting the role of channel partners for accelerating growth. In his own words:
đŻ How Do I Get Started on Cloud Marketplaces?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketplaces. The first stage is to determine if the marketplace will be a new GTM for your business, support an existing GTM or a mix of both.
If you are predominately enterprise sales led and/or channel sales led you should focus first on how to make the marketplace motion complimentary to those existing GTM.
Ensure marketplaces are compensation neutral as a minimum, or better yet compensation positive to your sellers and partners.
If you are trying to establish a new GTM alongside an existing motion you must focus on net-new products, adjacent markets, or segments that donât compete with your classic sales GTMs.
Start with a single offering - donât try and put your whole portfolio into the Marketplace. Make sure this offering is compelling to your target customer, and in the marketplace that influences your customers the most. What you will learn from this first offer will inform your longer term strategy.
đ Biggest Trend for 2024
The biggest trend in 2024 is the scaling of private offers to channel partners.
The biggest misconception about cloud marketplaces is that if you list your products then Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure will help drive demand and sales. While they will open customer doors and help with some marketing you are still responsible for driving demand.
This is where channel partners can help you scale. Each of the cloud marketplaces is expanding their focus on the use of channel partners.
AWS Recently retooled their CPPO program to move focus from Consulting Partners to Channel Partners - greatly expanding their reach.
The new Microsoft MPO program and Microsoft's requirement that *all* co-sell activities are now executed via Azure Marketplace means it is an imperative for all ISVs to quickly adopt Azure as a Cloud Marketplace. My expectation is this change alone will drive at least an đ order of magnitude increase in Azure marketplace offers this year.
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