Here are my top 5 takeaways from the panel with Kevin Goodspeed (Google Cloud):

1. Reframe how customers think about committed spend

John Murray (MongoDB — 6X GCP Partner of the Year):

“A lot of them view it as a sunk cost or just a procurement exercise. In reality, it’s a strategic lever.”

When a customer buys your software on Marketplace, they’re not adding net-new spend. They’re accelerating initiatives already budgeted for — burning down commit while maximizing ROI on dollars already committed.

Do that well, and “Marketplace stops being a billing vehicle and becomes this growth engine. You’re not just closing a single deal, you’re unlocking this multi-phased project where customers modernize their entire platforms.”

2. Co-sell is a system, not a tactic

John Jahnke (Tackle.io processes $1B in marketplace transactions/month):

“This is a strategy, people, process, and technology problem. The automation’s not going to solve the problem for you.”

The pattern he sees often — broad-based enablement where nothing happens. His advice: start with a tiger team. 5 deals. 20 co-sells. Learn what works, build the story, then go broad.

Russell Efird on the other side:

“If you wait till the very end, most of your deals are gonna have friction. That’s not the point of co-selling.”

Early engagement is what unlocks the co-sell & marketplace benefits.

3. Align to what matters to the Google rep right now

Russell (~60% of Quantum Metric’s net-new revenue is influenced by GCP) was direct:

“The key to maintaining strong engagement in that co-sell motion is aligning to what matters most to the Google rep in the moment.”

This year, that’s Gemini Enterprise. Quantum Metric built their Felix AI agent on Vertex, leveraging Gemini Pro, supporting ADK and A2A protocol. That alignment is what drives field attention at scale.

4. PLG changes the conversation

MongoDB offers a 14-day free trial on GCP Marketplace. By the time sellers engage,

“it’s no longer this theoretical thought idea — it’s about scaling something that’s already working.”

The conversation shifts from “why this ISV” to “how fast can we expand.” They run ~4 webinars/year with a direct CTA to the free trial. Simple, repeatable, frictionless.

5. Agents meet marketplaces

John Murray:

“Marketplaces are going to be the primary distribution channel for agents, not just software. They’ll be optimized for agents and evolve towards selling capabilities and outcomes.”

Still early — but the distribution question is already being answered.