I expected mostly smaller companies finding their feet on cloud marketplaces

Instead in the last 3 years we welcomed people from two hyperscalers and companies like GitLab, Darktrace, Citrix, Wiz, HashiCorp and BMC Software, alongside multiple well-known AI startups and scaleups.

I expected people new to Marketplace

Experienced alliance leaders joined too. Some had already built multimillion-dollar businesses through AWS and wanted to transfer to Microsoft and Google Cloud.

In Cohort 15, one operator had transacted $1B+ through marketplaces. Others were moving their major deals off direct sales.

Different starting points. Plenty to learn from each other on how to build scalable system.

One recent cohort call captured that:

A member doubted: "Do marketplaces really drive larger deals and shorten sales cycles?"

Several people jumped in immediately.

"Yes, we just saw this in our last deal."

Others said they see it consistently.

That's what the course has become: a place to ask a candid question and hear how other operators actually handle it.

The hardest problem is building a system

• Getting sales to use Marketplace

• Winning support from the CFO, CRO or CEO

• Making co-sell work with cloud sellers at scale

• Building a system that doesn't depend on one person

• A strategy that keeps pace with AI

When those problems get solved, revenue follows

0→1: James King went from 0 → $200K revenue and $7M pipeline in 8 weeks.

• 1→100: Multiple alumni have scaled marketplace revenue to $10–50M. Many have crossed $100M. Most who lean in hard are growing 2–4X YoY.

​Ambitions are growing too. Last cohort came in with targets like 20% of revenue through marketplaces and 50% of sales team co-selling.

​The community has grown beyond the cohort calls

2,000+ people signed up for our virtual and in-person events in the past 12 months. We hosted them in San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York and London, including 100-person breakfasts.

​Alumni have gone on to join leading AI labs and AI unicorns. Speakers from all three hyperscalers now contribute to the course.

​And the questions keep getting bigger:

"Should I focus on cloud marketplaces, AI partnerships, or channel partners?"

For many software companies, these are connected parts of the same strategy.

​AI partnerships shape what you build. Channel partners help you reach and support customers. Marketplaces help those customers buy.
The work is making them reinforce each other.​

Thank you to the mentors and speakers who share their experience so openly:

Jonathan Kingsepp, Rolf Heimes, David Mauer, Mike Marzano, Brian Laing, Alex Balcanquall, Laura Rippans, Darren Sharpe, Michael Musselman and many many others.

Cohort 16 starts October 6

Three years in, the conversations keep getting better, because every cohort brings new operators and new problems to solve.

Cohort 16 starts next Tuesday, October 6. If you want Marketplace to become a growth system, not a channel for a few isolated deals, come build it with us.

​Save Your Spot in Cohort 16