GTM 85: A $2.6 Billion Lesson and Embracing Ecosystem-Led Growth with Bob Moore

The GTM Podcast

Bob Moore is Co-Founder and CEO of Crossbeam, an Ecosystem-Led Growth (ELG) platform that helps companies use their partner ecosystems to generate leads, close deals, and grow faster.
He previously co-founded the cloud data pipeline company Stitch (acquired by Talend in 2018) and business intelligence platform RJMetrics (acquired by Adobe by way of Magento Commerce in 2016). Prior to RJMetrics, Bob worked on the Investment Team of Insight Partners.
Bob is a proud Philadelphian, where he serves as a Trustee of The Franklin Institute. He has also previously served as the Board Chair of Philly Startup Leaders and Board Member of Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT).
As a writer and speaker, Bob has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Web Summit, TEDx, Business of Software, and many more. He guest lectures regularly at Princeton University and The Wharton School.

Discussed in this Episode:

• Ecosystem-led growth is about leveraging partnerships to make your go-to-market teams more successful. It involves creating a mesh of interconnected products and services that deliver a joint value proposition to customers.
• Product-market fit is not static, and both the product and the market need to constantly align.
• The SaaS industry is experiencing a transition from defense to offense, with leading indicators showing positive signs of growth.
• Lessons have been learned from previous market cycles, but the challenge lies in passing down this knowledge to future generations of founders and investors.
• The story of a $2.6 billion mistake that Bob made and lessons learned from it.

Highlights:
(7:40) Navigating the current SaaS landscape and macro trends.

(12:26) Learning from the past: Market cycles and founder experiences.
(17:15) The future of M&A: Ecosystems and strategic partnerships.
(23:10) Diving into ecosystem-led growth (ELG).
(24:14) The misconceptions and realities of partnerships.
(27:41) Building initial partner relationships.

Guest Speaker Links (Bob Moore):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robertjmoore/
Bob's book, Ecosystem-Led Growth: www.robertjmoore.com/book
Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/
Sponsor:
Today’s episode is sponsored by The ELG Conference, presented by Crossbeam and The ELG Alliance. The smartest companies are embracing Ecosystem-Led Growth, or ELG.

Join us at the gorgeous Proper Hotel in Austin on May 15-16 and hear how the top SaaS companies are leveraging partner ecosystems in their GTM motions aka Ecosystem-Led Growth. Early-bird tickets expire next week.

What you'll get at ELG Con:

• Case studies from companies like Datadog, Cloudera, and more.
• A chance to tour (and maybe even race on?) Austin's F1 track.
• Candid, off-the-record conversations — no recordings here.

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders - the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories - revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.
This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund.
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