S7E1 – How to Build SaaS Partnerships That Actually Drive Revenue with KaraLynn Lewis

How does one Build SaaS Partnerships That Actually Drive Revenue? In the competitive world of Software as a Service (SaaS), partnerships can serve as a key driver of growth and revenue. However, many companies struggle to build successful partnerships due to a lack of strategic planning and understanding of the partnership landscape. In the first episode of the new Season 7 of the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast, Joran Hofman sits down with KaraLynn Lewis, a Fractional GTM & Partnerships Leader known for “making friends for a living.” In this episode, KaraLynn explores the different types of SaaS partnerships, the challenges involved, and offers a step-by-step guide on how to build successful partnerships that drive business growth.

The Nature of SaaS Partnerships

SaaS partnerships are more than just a transaction-based relationship where services are exchanged for money. At their core, SaaS partnerships are about creating mutually beneficial value for both parties. These partnerships can take various forms, including technology, referral, channel, and affiliate partnerships. Each partnership type requires a specific strategy and approach to succeed.

Common Types of SaaS Partnerships

Understanding the different types of partnerships is crucial to developing the right approach for your business. Here are the common forms of SaaS partnerships:

Technology Partnerships
These partnerships involve collaboration with other SaaS providers to integrate or cooperate on products. Through these partnerships, companies can offer enhanced functionality and more robust solutions to their customers.

Channel Partnerships
Channel partnerships include referral and reseller agreements. These partnerships are typically low-risk and easier to enter compared to other types. They often involve promoting or reselling a product or service to a new market.

Affiliate Partnerships
Affiliate partnerships are usually more marketing-focused. Affiliates help spread the word about a product through tracking links and earn commissions based on the sales generated from their efforts.

The Challenges of Building SaaS Partnerships

While SaaS partnerships can provide significant benefits, they are often challenging to establish and maintain. Several common pitfalls can prevent these partnerships from succeeding:

Lack of Strategy
Many companies jump into partnerships without a clear strategy in place, which leads to wasted time and resources. A lack of strategic focus can lead to partnerships that don’t deliver measurable results.

Misaligned Expectations
Clear communication of expectations is essential. Without aligning on mutual goals, both parties can end up unsure about their roles and contributions, causing the partnership to stall.

Insufficient Investment
Partnerships require time, money, and resources. Failing to properly invest in a partnership can prevent it from realizing its full potential.

Building a Successful Partnership Program

To avoid the common pitfalls mentioned above, a structured approach is key to creating a successful partnership program. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started:

Understanding and Strategy Development

• Identify organic opportunities within your organization that could lead to potential partnerships.
• Align these opportunities with your overall business goals.
• Define your ideal partner profile and the joint value proposition that benefits both parties.

Execution and Iteration

• Build and nurture relationships with your partners, focusing on open communication.
• Be flexible and willing to adjust your strategy based on real-world feedback and experiences.
• Make sure you’re delivering continuous value to your partners to build trust and accountability.

Scaling the Partnership Program

• Once you’ve built foundational partnerships, begin systematizing the partnership processes to make scaling easier.
• Invest in tools and resources that help you manage partnerships effectively and efficiently.
• Consider hiring dedicated partnership managers to maintain and grow these relationships over time.
  

Evaluating and Scaling Partnerships

To measure the success of your partnership program, it’s essential to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like partner engagement, customer success, and revenue impact. These metrics help you assess how well individual partnerships and the overall program are performing, enabling you to make data-driven adjustments and improvements.

Best Practices for SaaS Partnerships

To ensure that your partnerships are effective, keep these best practices in mind:

Start Early, But Strategically
While it’s never too early to begin exploring partnerships, a systematic program should only be launched once your product-market fit is solid. This ensures that your offering is ready for wider adoption.

Focus on Quality Over Quantity
Instead of casting a wide net for potential partners, focus on creating deep, meaningful relationships with fewer partners. This will lead to more sustainable growth.

Leverage Existing Relationships
Founders and early team members often have valuable industry connections. These existing relationships can serve as the foundation for building future partnerships.

Looking to the Future: Trends in SaaS Partnerships

As the SaaS industry continues to evolve, there are a few trends to keep an eye on. Data-driven strategies and AI tools are increasingly being used to streamline partnership management, making it easier to track performance and optimize outcomes. However, while technology plays a significant role, the human aspect of partnerships remains crucial. Trust, personal relationships, and communication are essential to ensuring long-term success.

Conclusion: The Path to Successful SaaS Partnerships

Building successful SaaS partnerships requires a blend of thoughtful planning, continuous execution, and flexibility. By focusing on delivering mutual value, setting clear expectations, and investing in the right resources, companies can create partnerships that drive revenue and long-term success.

For businesses looking to explore SaaS partnerships further, resources such as Partnership Advisory offer valuable guidance and expertise. With the landscape constantly evolving, staying informed and adaptable will be key to leveraging partnerships as a growth strategy.

Key Timestamps

• (0:00) – Introduction to Partnerships in SaaS with KaraLynn Lewis
• (0:58) – Guest Introduction: KaraLynn Lewis and Her Expertise in SaaS Partnerships
• (1:24) – Discussion on Partnership Failures and Lessons Learned
• (2:32) – Defining Partnerships in the SaaS Sector
• (3:24) – Common Types of SaaS Partnerships
• (4:48) – Distinguishing Between Referral and Affiliate Partnerships
• (6:45) – Reasons Why SaaS Partnerships Fail
• (9:47) – Steps to Set Up a Successful Partner Program
• (12:25) – Who Should Handle the Initial Stages of a Partner Program?
• (15:23) – Strategies for Making a Partnership Work
• (18:08) – Evaluating Partners Beyond Revenue Generation
• (21:18) – Scaling a SaaS Partner Program
• (23:03) – Examples of Successful SaaS Partnerships and Best Practices
• (25:23) – When to Start Investing in a SaaS Partner Program
• (28:30) – Key Advice for SaaS Partnerships: Quality Over Quantity
• (29:05) – Trends in SaaS Partnerships for 2025
• (30:25) – Advice for SaaS Founders from 0 to 10K MRR
• (31:04) – Scaling from 10K MRR to 10M ARR: Key Strategies
• (32:35) – Preparing for the Future: AI and Partnerships

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – KaraLynn Lewis

I think a lot of companies will fall down when they want to start partnerships because they see the benefits that companies that are doing it successfully are, but don’t necessarily have the knowledge of really how to set that up. And that’s where things go wrong. If your goal as a company is to expand market share or gain many new customers as opposed to one big customer, all of those do come down to the same goal, which is increasing revenue. But that’s not the only goal or the only direction that you can take. You can put your yourself in the shoes of the partner and say, Okay, how can we drive value for this partner? That’s going to get them their attention, and it’s going to build the trust that you need to drive that partnership forward. Because it’s not just the partner that has to remain accountable to the relationship that you’re building, it’s also you that has to be driving value and remaining accountable as well.

[00:00:58.480] – Joran

Today, we will be discussing why most SaaS partnerships fail and how to build SaaS partnerships that actually drive revenue. My guest today is KaraLynn Lewis. She helped multiple SaaS companies to build a partnership program from the ground up. She’s now a fractional go-to-market and partnership leader. With her company, Partnership Advisory. She helps companies leverage their ecosystems and grow their revenue through strategic collaborations. Welcome to the show, KaraLynn Lewis.

[00:01:22.860] – KaraLynn Lewis

Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

[00:01:24.670] – Joran

Let’s dive right into the topic and into her story. Have you ever signed a partner deal or partnership that completely flopped, and can you tell us what happened?

[00:01:34.240] – KaraLynn Lewis

Definitely. I would say not to be too specific, there have been many, luckily, many little ones. That’s the good part of it. But I think this is actually often something that many partnership professionals run into. Because when you’re talking about partnerships, it’s these relationships that you have with other companies. There are a lot of nice conversations, a lot of companies that are interested in getting commission in your product. So you do a lot of demos, have a lot of chats, a lot of handshakes, and then nothing really happened. And that’s one of the main reasons that partnerships do fall down, is that there’s a signature and you think you’ve got it and then nothing actually happened. So that’s really how I learned the hard way in the beginning of my career that a lot of nice talks doesn’t necessarily equal results and effective partnerships. It really takes those two parties to actually continuously drive sustainable value for each other and actually end up in a successful partnership.

[00:02:32.370] – Joran

Nice. Because that goes really well into my next question, I guess, what defines a partnership in especially SaaS? You already mentioned it, but if you frame it based on this question, what is a partnership in SaaS besides the signature? Yeah.

[00:02:45.860] – KaraLynn Lewis

Partnership is a broad term, and it means a different thing to different people when you ask them. But I would say a partnership broadly is a relationship that isn’t transactional. So it’s not based on somebody providing a service product and then exchanging money for it. It’s really a relationship that should drive mutually beneficial value. So that’s a very, very broad term. And within the SaaS space, that can fall under many different partner types such as technology, referral, channel, affiliates, as you very well know. A lot of relationships fall under that broad definition of partnership.

[00:03:24.660] – Joran

What are the most common types or common partnerships you see? You mentioned referral, you mentioned affiliate, Which others are there?

[00:03:31.210] – KaraLynn Lewis

I typically divide them into different buckets. So technology would be other SaaS vendors that you might integrate with or cooperate with. And then let’s say channel or commercial partners, those are typically the referral, reseller. But the most common relationship that you’ll see in SaaS is actually referral, mostly because it’s the lowest risk, easiest partnership to enter into. And that’s just throwing a deal over the fence and and registering it as their lead and getting a commission payment. So it’s a very simple relationship. And affiliate, of course, is one that we’re seeing more commonly. That’s really the lead for commission and is a bit more on the marketing side of things with tracking links and these types of methods that companies will help spread the word for another company’s software. Yeah.

[00:04:21.140] – Joran

And your expertise more goes into the partnership side, right? Like really, I guess, not referral, not affiliate, but more partnerships.

[00:04:30.180] – KaraLynn Lewis

So you see the partnership and the value of partnerships coming as a systemic, scalable relationship when you have co-sell motions, when you have these collaborations, and when you have these products. That’s more of the relationships I’m managing, the deep ones that create a lot of impact.

[00:04:48.940] – Joran

To distinguish referral and affiliate, referral for me is always in-app in a way where you can have an in-app referral program so you can generate a link for all your users who want to recommend you. And what we typically see, there’s two-way benefits to them. I invite Caroline to the app. I might receive a commission and she could get an extra trial or extra credit or discount or something like that. And where affiliate is purely money-orientated. So I invite Caroline to our application And I would receive 30 % for 12 months, for example. And she doesn’t even know that she signed up via my link sometimes.

[00:05:21.500] – KaraLynn Lewis

The key difference is that affiliates really build their business around the sale of the products. Those commission fees and really getting the messaging out there is the core aspect of the business. So it’s a cross between a partner and a marketing channel in that sense, which is interesting. And then the partnerships that I typically deal with are businesses that have another core business. So it’s not selling the products that’s the core business, it’s something else. And then your product or the sale of it or the collaboration with it, it folds into their core business. There’s definitely a lot of overlap, but also some big differences, too.

[00:05:59.970] – Joran

Yeah, because what we see, for example, if SaaS companies are looking for a partner program, they book a demo with us. But what we typically see is they don’t even want to give away commission or the agency doesn’t even want to receive commission. They purely want to help their client to become more successful. This is also the point where a lot of processes changes. The agencies might sell for them, they might do support for them. Sales and CS processes change, and often the ACV is also a lot higher because it allows them to actually do that.

[00:06:26.220] – KaraLynn Lewis

It just goes to show that you can say affiliate partner or you can say technology partner. While under the umbrella of partnerships, it requires such a different program, such different operational processes, and deep expertise and knowledge as to how to make those two different motions successful. It is very broad.

[00:06:45.830] – Joran

Today, we’re going to talk about partnerships. What are the top reasons partnerships usually fail?

[00:06:52.300] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, sad stories. A lot of partnerships fail, but that shouldn’t necessarily scare anyone away. I mean, there’s also a lot of partnerships that succeed. But I think a lot of companies will fall down when they want to start partnerships because they see the benefits that companies that are doing it successfully are, but don’t necessarily have the knowledge of really how to set that up. And that’s where things go wrong. So that’s also what in my business I try to help companies avoid. As I said at the top of the conversation, I’ve made a lot of those mistakes myself. So now working very hard with my clients to help them avoid those roadblocks and pitfalls. There are a few failing patterns that typically show up in startup and scale up companies. The first is not having a real strategy. So any opportunistic partnership that comes in, or maybe one partner just wants to have a commission for a deal that they already know is going to close. And having those nice conversations and spreading attention far and wide amongst potential partners is really where a lot of time tends to be wasted, and then no real results or at least scalable systemic results come from that.

[00:08:00.670] – KaraLynn Lewis

Another reason, I would say, is the wrong expectations. This is coming into more maybe the individual partnership, but also the program as well. You think a partnership is one thing or should deliver something, and you don’t really set up the operations to deliver that. For example, saying, Okay, we signed up a partner. We’re expecting tens of thousands of leads per month, whereas the partner, the same thing about you, and then nobody actually moves. Making sure that the expectations are right. You also understand that typical sales practices or tactics aren’t necessarily going to work for a different partnership program. All those expectations should be aligned and then the right efforts applied to make sure that those expectations are managed and also hopefully fulfilled. Finally, and I think this folds into both of the former points that I’ve mentioned, is the lack of investment. This can mean many things. It can mean the wrong hire, investment the wrong partnerships. It can mean the investment in the wrong activities, or it could actually mean no investment at all. So just signing that deal and expecting the leads to come in, or simply hiring a junior employee and expecting miracles to happen, but not actually putting any budget behind activities.

[00:09:17.570] – KaraLynn Lewis

Not investing properly in getting partnerships engine off the ground is probably the biggest one that I see companies grapple with.

[00:09:27.500] – Joran

Nice. We’re going to turn this around. You need to have a strategy, you need to have the right expectations. You need to be able to put investment into a partner program. If I now ask you how to set up a partner program correctly, almost step by step, what would you recommend people to do to make sure that once that signature is set things are actually going to happen. Yeah.

[00:09:47.120] – KaraLynn Lewis

I typically take my clients through this process. The first step is always understanding. This is really where the strategy comes into play. You don’t have to spend forever on it, but it’s really important to really have a direction and an area to focus so that you know that you’re doing the right things. So what I typically do with my clients, and what other companies can also do as well, is look into your organization, see where the organic opportunities are coming, who are your customers working with, and really try to find any data that you can that already exists in your organization, and also align what’s already happening and the opportunities that are there with your goals, because you can’t do everything all at once. If your goal as a company is to expand market share or gain many new customers as opposed to one big customer, all of those do come down to the same goal, which is increasing revenue. But that’s not the only goal or the only direction that you can take. So really understanding that high-level strategy and plan before moving forward. Then moving towards the partners, defining what partner is going to fit with you.

[00:10:54.060] – KaraLynn Lewis

What is the joint value proposition with that partner, where is the value for the customer, the partner, and for you to actually make that plan possible to execute on. Second step, I already said it, is executing, establishing those relationships and working with the partners. As good as your strategy might be at the beginning, it always might change a little bit or you might learn some things along the way. So executing, iterating, actually talking to partners, figuring out what works, what doesn’t, and really diving deep with the partnerships that you get momentum on. And this execution can take a lot of different paths. Maybe it’s developing developing technology integrations. Maybe it’s looking at service or agency partnerships, maybe it’s developing an affiliate program, but just diving into that one direction and making it a reality and a success. Beyond that, once you have that engine going or once you have that foundation laid, the next step is really scale. With my business, that typically is finding talent, so an in-house partnership representative or a partnership team. So the initial groundwork you’ve done can be replicated, process is applied, so it can be systemized a little bit, and then, of course, expanding and growing that success to make it actually a scaled revenue engine.

[00:12:10.530] – Joran

Before that time, if you hire somebody in stage three, scale Who does the first parts, one and two? Is that the marketing person, the growth person, or is it an external person like yourself? Who would actually do the first two steps in this case?

[00:12:25.140] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, great question. It can be a mix of all three. For many companies, it is no Two companies are alike in that sense. They’re all coming from different stages of maturity. So for some of my clients, I do it all for them. In the companies that I’ve worked for in the past, I have also done all three of those with both on my own and with a team as well. But sometimes it actually starts with the CEO or founder, because those relationships that are built from day one or that are personal relationships that are maybe strong, start with the founder who really has the vision, who has the passion, and then grow from there. Those are actually really great seeds oftentimes to start a scaled program from. Or you might have a product-related relationship where you have an integration that’s very integral to your product. That’s the seed or a great partnership. The foundation can be laid at various different points from any part of the organization. But if you’re really looking to take that formal understanding and execution and scaling part in the most efficient way, that’s typically done by a partner owner, whether that’s the partnership manager internally, an owner internally, or someone external like me.

[00:13:35.550] – Joran

Yeah, it makes sense, right? If you, I guess, are going to leverage the organic opportunities, as you mentioned, based on the existing data, you want to have somebody who knows what is within the company already who knows, I guess maybe a client who knows already the potential partner. So starting with the founder or I guess like somebody who talks a lot to your users could be really one.

[00:13:55.700] – KaraLynn Lewis

Exactly. It’s the difference between a scalable program and individual successful partnerships. Because you also might have a company that doesn’t have a formal partner program but has one really successful partner. That’s absolutely fine. But it’s less likely that that relationship is going to be replicated without the strategic understanding and then executing on processes that are built because that partnership has developed organically and without actually diving into and understanding what’s going on there. It’s not a guarantee feed that a company that looks even just like it is going to be just as successful because there’s a lot of ingredients that have to go in and a lot of stars that have to align. The best way to figure out how that’s done is to understand and start at the beginning.

[00:14:42.450] – Joran

Are you struggling to find a cost-effective and scalable marketing channel? Check out Reditus. We help you to have other people recommend your SaaS, and you would only pay them when they deliver you paid clients, making it a very cost-effective and scalable marketing channel. Want to learn more? Go to getreadytis. Com. Let’s When we did the understanding parts at the foundation, we found a couple of partners to find our ideal partner profile. We’re going to talk to them. How do we make a partnership work? So if they do have to sign that document, they put a signature on it, how can we actually make sure that they’re going to do whatever we want them to do. As you mentioned, drive mutual value, not just expecting everything from them, but also vice versa.

[00:15:23.620] – KaraLynn Lewis

One trick that I always use is actually by giving first. A lot of companies, which is a very normal thing. I mean, you’re focused on growing your company, you’re focused on selling your product, and the partner is actually focused on their world and their activities. The expectation that the partner is working for you is actually one of those common pitfalls that we talk about. So I think that if you can put yourself in the shoes of the partner and say, Okay, how can we drive value for this partner? That’s going to get them their attention, and it’s going to build the trust you need to drive that partnership forward. Because it’s not just the partner that has to remain accountable to the relationship that you’re building, it’s also you that has to be driving value and remaining accountable as well. And something that a lot of partnerships miss the follow-through. At the beginning of the relationship, you have a lot of hopes and dreams and all these sorts of things. But then when it’s time to actually drive it and follow through, that’s where everybody gets distracted by the next shiny thing and those efforts it’s going to fall down.

[00:16:31.400] – KaraLynn Lewis

Setting realistic targets and in ideas for yourself, also aligning those with the partner so that everybody knows what you’re planning on doing and everybody is really committed to those actions moving forward, and then making sure that you’re holding each other accountable and driving enough value that it’s worth it for both of you. So that’s partly setting it up from the beginning, but also partly following through once you’re actually down that road together.

[00:16:57.440] – Joran

And is it typical saying, heard it once in a session where they say, sell the first three clients for your client or for your partner, then do the next three together, and then what’s the next three getting sold by the partner? So I guess you first give them three clients where they could get commission or they might just be able to sell their services towards, help them, and then watch them. Is that a typical thing?

[00:17:20.840] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, three is to a degree an arbitrary number. But definitely, as I said, the best way to get buy-in from a partner is really by giving them something things showing them that there’s real value here for you if you’re going to work with us. It also gives them an opportunity to become familiar. There are always kinks to work out. Even if you have a really well-developed partner program, it’s still a different business, a different partner. And then once they’re up to speed, they crawl before they can walk, before they can do it independently, then you’ve really succeeded in becoming a part of their daily business and also becoming a key contributor to their bottom line. Then once you have that business built around yours, that’s when you really see that proposition start to fly. Yeah.

[00:18:08.740] – Joran

Once you start getting partners in, how do you evaluate them? Is it purely on revenue? Do you look at other things? Do you the co-marketing you mentioned before, so it’s probably not purely revenue generated. What do you look at when you evaluate partners?

[00:18:21.520] – KaraLynn Lewis

There’s a lot of different KPIs. You can evaluate the partner as an individual, how engaged they are, how many customers you have, what the success even granular of your activities has been. So not just how many activities, but actually how successful were those, what audience did you reach, and really treating it as a joint business venture. And I think a shift that I see in the partnership space now is actually that KPIs of programs with partners are being tracked and teams are being held accountable because partnerships has been a little bit of a fluffy space because nobody really knew how to do it. Everybody was just figuring stuff It was all about relationships, which can sometimes be hard to measure. But now different KPIs, not just partner sourced revenue or partner influenced revenue, but as I said, those activities, maybe the number of champions that you have in your partner, how many leads they’re driving, how many customers you have in common, having those KPIs to not only track your partner success, but also your program success enables partner programs within companies to actually have a seat at the table and have a number to work towards and also a number to show.

[00:19:34.080] – KaraLynn Lewis

The tooling that’s coming around these days, like Keyflow, intro, Euler, for example, to name a few, even working within your CRM, those are all really helpful to actually monitor the performance of your program and your partners, but also to improve upon it.

[00:19:49.670] – Joran

Yeah, because if you look at a typical PRM, so Partner Relationship Management platform, you can connect your CRM system. The partner does the same. You can match against, do we have similar deals? Do we have similar companies in there and you can co-collaborate on a deal. So especially for higher SUV, SaaS companies, this is really interesting. So you can track activities and also monitor, where’s the deal actually? And you don’t have to give updates towards the partner all the time. They can just see it themselves as well.

[00:20:15.640] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, exactly. It’s really helpful, I think, for both your internal positioning, but also for the partner as well, because it’s very compelling to somebody that isn’t necessarily focused on you yet as their core business to say, look, here’s what we drove together. This is what we can do next quarter. It really becomes running a joint business project as opposed to just a nice relationship, which is really cool. I’m really loving to see partnerships becoming a little bit more of a data-driven, formalized field and discipline as opposed to nice feelings and good relationships, which, of course, it still is to a degree, but the data helps legitimize it a little bit.

[00:20:56.170] – Joran

Yeah, the channel gets more mature in a way that you now need to start actually tracking things. There’s tools available for your specific channel, which is nice. Definitely. We’re still somewhat in step number two, right? Execution and iterations. Step number three is, of course, scaling. I guess once we set up the right KPIs, set up tracking the activities, how do we actually then start scaling the program?

[00:21:18.820] – KaraLynn Lewis

Scaling the program, always looking back at what you have done, what’s working with partners, what’s not working with partners. Also learning from partners, what do they have to say. A lot of companies have a lot of partners that are dormant. Some of that is just because sometimes partners end up being dormant. That’s the nature of the game. But when you talk to some of these partners, oftentimes there’s a reason. Sometimes it’s fit, sometimes it’s timing, sometimes it’s actually something that you can change based on experience or education or whatever, enablement, whatever it may be to actually improve that. And then that helps you grow beyond that. I think also really engaging with your partners, investing in your partners as well to help them and yourself do what you both need to get the word out and to actually make your partnership effective. And looking internally, what operational processes need to be there to make things more efficient? Going back to the systems piece, if you’re managing partnerships, three partnerships in a spreadsheet, an email, and maybe your CRM, that’s okay. But when you start to get systemized, it needs to be official. It needs to be somewhere where your partner can track their progress.

[00:22:24.480] – KaraLynn Lewis

There needs to be certain compliance that goes along with that. Figuring out what works, systemizing Raising those behaviors and processes, and then applying it to a broader group of partners is really where you start seeing that scale them into play.

[00:22:39.050] – Joran

Let’s make it, I guess, super practical also for the listeners. I guess we kept it somewhat high level, how to set up the program, how to then set up the partnerships. Do you have any examples of great partnerships you see out there or you set up yourself where they did some co-marketing, they really did things on trust, or they’re super transparent on how they do things? Anything, I guess, you can share regarding best practices?

[00:23:03.240] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, I think I wouldn’t necessarily model my program off the big players because they’re a lot different than a smaller startup or mid-size Scala. But I think what’s really interesting that you see across all of the biggest tech companies is that they’ve made themselves into a platform. So thinking about Shopify, thinking about Microsoft or Salesforce, they all have given their partners the ability to actually build their own business on top of the platform. That’s not just complementary solutions that can coexist, but it’s actually influencing the partner’s revenue, so much so that the partner is tied to the original vendor and offer a whole proposition, extra proposition and value to the customer based off of their own product. You see that with Shopify, they are supporting an entire e-commerce ecosystem, payments, shops, additional services to make shops more efficient. And they really lean in and embrace that. Another company, actually, that’s part of the Shopify ecosystem is called Gorgias. They’re in the customer support communication space. What I really liked about what they did is that they committed their whole organization from the top level, the CEO, to the Shopify ecosystem and optimized the performance of their software to Shopify merchants.

[00:24:25.480] – KaraLynn Lewis

So that’s really tailoring your customer profile to a partner. And that, of course, enables the partner to then invest in your company and make it grow because it’s servicing their customers in the best way possible. So I really love to see those collaborations and really see organizations leaning in and investing fully in their partnerships because you see that that high degree of investment is really what makes a partnership program successful.

[00:24:54.090] – Joran

When you give these examples, Shopify is, of course, huge already. I don’t know where their revenue is when it works out, there was a debate on that. For example, the smaller ones or for, I guess, companies which aren’t the Shopify’s yet. You mentioned you have to invest in it, but when, I guess, do you start investing into it? Because not everybody can build a platform like that from the ground up, especially early days. I guess if we go more towards the early stage companies, any best practices here? When should they start looking into something like this?

[00:25:23.680] – KaraLynn Lewis

Definitely. There’s two directions I would take with this, or maybe three. The first is that it’s It’s never too early necessarily to start with partnerships, but with a caveat that it’s sometimes too early to start with these programmatic elements. Like I said, the founder relationships, those friendly handshakes that you have early days, it’s never too early to start with that because warm referrals from friends in the industry get you really good customers. If you can also find early days a gap, for example, if your product solves a gap for a bigger software where even if it’s just the next level up customers or even a service company’s customers, then they are going to be so motivated to bring you in. That’s going to bring you a lot of customers. It’s never too early to start bringing them. They’re looking for opportunities like that. But typically Basically, when you’re looking at that scaled program with multiple partners or a higher volume of partners, you’re really going to want to do it after product-market fit. If you’re still building your own house and seeing what works and figuring out your ideal customer customer profile is, the thing with partners is that you want to align your own ideal customer profile and all these different elements with your customer.

[00:26:40.780] – KaraLynn Lewis

If you don’t know your own customer, then how can you identify who the best partners are for you? Plus, if you haven’t really found product market fit yet, other than fulfilling that gap for another company, there’s not necessarily a lot or as much that you have to offer as a partner to companies in that context. I would say that relationships, filling gaps, strategic things, and higher-level relationships or opportunistic relationships can always be worked on. But when you’re really looking at systemizing those things, you need to have a clear idea of what you are doing as a company, what your profile is as a company, and what partner you’re going to be to the partners that you’re going to go out and acquire.

[00:27:26.320] – Joran

Yeah, it makes sense. If you don’t know your ICP fully, you haven’t You’ve figured out conversion rates, and you don’t know how to fully sell them, how can you expect people to refer you?

[00:27:35.340] – KaraLynn Lewis

Exactly. If, for example, you only have a couple of customers that are your first flagship ones, that’s interesting. But what partners are, of course, always going to be looking at you for is what customers can you bring me? What reach do you have? You can really play with a better crowd once you’ve already built up that solid foundation for yourself. I would focus the efforts on doing things internally for your company and making your company really strong because that’s going to only make you a stronger partner and make you able to attract stronger partners as well.

[00:28:07.340] – Joran

Yeah, because in the end, there’s nothing much to give if you don’t have the PMF yet.

[00:28:11.200] – KaraLynn Lewis

You need to focus your efforts on the right things.

[00:28:13.250] – Joran

Yeah, and don’t focus on affiliate marketing either because my recommendation is get product-market first. The hard lesson here, you have to do it yourself. If I try to ask you to summarize your best advice on SaaS partnership shot, what would you say in one sentence, your best advice on SaaS partnerships?

[00:28:30.750] – KaraLynn Lewis

It’s a bit broad advice, but I would say first, of course, start with a strategy, understand your partner landscape and pick a direction, and then also don’t try to cast the net too wide, but really go deep with the right partners. So invest in those relationships that have momentum that really can go the distance, then start to scale. Don’t try to do it all at once. Quality, not quantity, maybe, is the short version of it.

[00:28:56.290] – Joran

Nice. Are there any trends you currently see in the SaaS partnership landscape in maybe 2025 and maybe even looking ahead already?

[00:29:05.540] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, a big trend, which I love, as I said, is the KPIs. Everybody is cluing in a little bit more to being more data-driven, to getting this structure in place, which is great. And generally in partnerships, I see that it’s becoming more of a common place division within businesses. So when I started out in partnerships, ecosystem was a buzzword, and it was just something people were playing with, nobody really And now you see that it’s almost a must-have for every company, even if it’s still not necessarily initiative that everybody knows exactly how to do it or the right way or the best practices. It is something that, I mean, officially, I think 75% of companies are already doing. And I would say more than likely, almost 100% are at least thinking about it. So that’s just partnerships in general being part of the go-to-market function in all companies is a trend I see in 2025.

[00:29:59.570] – Joran

Luckily, Can you keep a job like that? What the heck?

[00:30:01.960] – KaraLynn Lewis

Exactly. Keeping and growing.

[00:30:03.820] – Joran

We’re going to start wrapping up. For season 7, we have three closing questions instead of the typical two first revenue phases. You can take this more broader. You can keep it on partnerships. You can do however you want. But what advice would you give a SaaS founder who’s just starting out and going from zero to 10K monthly recurring revenue?

[00:30:25.340] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, they’re a real, true startup. I would say focus on the relationships that you have. Leverage those where you can and don’t necessarily try to systemize yet. Also those gaps, really see what, not just customer, but what potential partner or peer am I solving a problem for or a gap for and try to buddy up with them wherever possible and find the product market fit. That’s also a good one as well.

[00:30:54.220] – Joran

Nice. Well, let’s assume we achieve that or at least we achieve 10K money with current revenue, and we’re going to make a huge step towards 10 million ARR. What advice would you give SaaS founders here?

[00:31:04.340] – KaraLynn Lewis

First, starting with those successful partnerships that you have. Go deep with them, really understand them, make them a success before trying to necessarily replicate or expand. When you move up to 10 million, it’s really about taking that understanding and success and applying it to other companies there. So what lessons can you take from that successful partnership? How do you make that a system? And then grow from there, especially at the 10 million end, that’s where people should start thinking about, how do I make myself a platform? So getting more after the HubSpots, the Salesforce, the Shopify. How can you actually make your platform an integral part of somebody else’s business and actually help them grow their business off of the growth of your own platform? Because, again, that’s really where you start to see that extreme growth going into unicorn area when other businesses need your business to either survive or to grow or want to help you grow so that they can grow. And that’s that flywheel that starts really taking off that point.

[00:32:11.720] – Joran

Yeah, it’s a nice milestone. You added too early stage, you won’t have the ability to do it, but later down, you would have the ability to have other people or businesses to build on top of yours. It’s nice you put it at the end of the 10 million.

[00:32:24.380] – KaraLynn Lewis

Ten million and beyond.

[00:32:25.980] – Joran

Exactly. Final question, what in your opinion should SaaS founders prepare for in the next one to two years? Looking into the future a little bit.

[00:32:35.280] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah, looking into the future. I mean, of course, AI is the hot topic. What’s that going to mean? It’s interesting for partnerships because on one hand, AI or the use of AI tool can actually help a lot with partnership development, finding companies that suit your profile, figuring out which customers they have in common, doing those sorts of strategic research projects, that does really help. And just the operational efficiency element, co-marketing, all of these tasks that partnership managers are often loaded down with can be expedited with the use of AI. But at the end of the day, partnerships is a relationship business. You need to have that human element to it in order to make it really work. And so I also see that partnerships will be a very key aspect, and the ecosystem will be a key aspect for companies to really stand out amongst the noise. Because with tens millions of personalized emails and touchpoints and marketing campaigns and all these things, those will still be important. But what’s really going to cut above that is the human to human contact, the relationships, that trust element. And partnerships is really the embodiment of trust between two organizations.

[00:33:50.340] – KaraLynn Lewis

So partnerships will only become more important. So I would say over the next 2-3 years, it’s something that people are really going to want to pay attention to and invest in. Nice.

[00:34:00.000] – Joran

With a little bit of automation, but not too much keeping in mind.

[00:34:03.840] – KaraLynn Lewis

Definitely makes a lot of tasks easier. I’m a fan and I’m excited to see what’s going to be coming out of that space for my field and SaaS in general.

[00:34:11.900] – Joran

We’re actually at the moment building our own AI agents to find potential affiliate for SaaS companies. It looks really promising. I’m really curious as well what it’s going to bring for us. And you can almost do the same thing for partnerships in a way.

[00:34:24.100] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah. Well, in affiliate, I think it’s especially important because you really finding you want to more affiliates that are successful. I think having that ability to cast the net wider in that sense with that research as opposed to a manual googling or however it used to be, that will make a huge impact. I’m excited to see how that goes.

[00:34:45.470] – Joran

I’ll keep you updated. I will try to summarize. If we go all the way to the beginning, a partnership is a relationship that isn’t transactional, so you need to drive mutual value. It’s never too early to start with SaaS partnerships. Typical failures, not having a real strategy strategy, wrong expectations, lack of investment in any way. If we put it into a process like how to set up a partnership program correctly, first understanding, so find organic opportunities based on existing data, leverage the founder relationships, align things based on your goals, and define your ideal partner profile, define the joint value, and dive into execution, talking to partners, what is working, so really iterate or iteration on what is already working. Give first, expect later, and make sure you follow through on partners and track KPIs and activities. If you’re going into the scaling phase, do this after product-market fit. Find somebody who is responsible, could be responsible for the scaling of the program. Find out why partners are dormant, engage and invest in into your partners, and then systemize the processes along the way. Best practice, I guess, like try to build up an ecosystem, but maybe not do it too soon.

[00:35:51.800] – Joran

It gives you ability to build a business on top of yours to people or other businesses. And in the end, AI can automate things, but you need to keep the human element to really stand out.

[00:36:01.760] – KaraLynn Lewis

Absolutely, yes. I like the last one, especially.

[00:36:04.740] – Joran

Well, if people like this episode, how can they contact you, Caroleyn?

[00:36:08.840] – KaraLynn Lewis

Best find me on LinkedIn, Caroleyn Louis, making sure it’s spelled correctly. You can also find me at www. Partnershipadvisory. Com or partnershipadvisory on LinkedIn as well. Perfect.

[00:36:20.710] – Joran

Well, we’re going to add links towards both of them. Caroleyn is spelled with a K and a Y and double N. For people listening on Spotify, please leave a review just so we can boost the algorithms. Like and subscribe. Exactly. This is the first time somebody else did it for me. Thank you. And thanks again for coming on, Caroleyn.

[00:36:40.820] – KaraLynn Lewis

Yeah. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

[00:36:43.440] – Joran

Thank you for watching this show. Of the Grow Your BTB SaaS podcast. You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you like this content. If you did, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you like this content, feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show. If you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to know more about Reditus, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your B2B SaaS.