SaaS Ecosystem Building

We love to talk about inbound, outbound, paid, PLG, community. But the quiet multiplier behind the fastest-growing SaaS companies I work with? Ecosystem marketing. Partners already own what you’re chasing: → Distribution → Trust → Workflows → Budgets of your ICP When you integrate them into your customer journey, growth stops being linear. It compounds. I’ve seen European SaaS tools hit $8M ARR in 15 months - mostly by leveraging agencies. Each agency brought 10–100+ new customers. That’s real leverage. Ecosystem-first companies also close enterprise deals faster - because the partner frames the value, not the vendor. And here’s the kicker: Unlike ads or outbound, you can’t automate this motion with AI. It’s built on enablement, co-selling, shared wins, and trust. Many investors dismiss it as “hard to scale.” Exactly. When everything else gets automated, the un-automatable becomes your moat. Partners aren’t a channel. They’re multipliers.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with several entrepreneurs who are developing all-in-one, AI-powered vertical SaaS applications and making significant progress. In contrast, the previous generation of SaaS companies typically consisted of horizontal platforms that excelled in one market segment, such as marketing automation or sales engagement. These products were comprehensive, serving a wide range of industries. Over time, many of these applications moved upmarket, focusing on mid-market and enterprise clients. In addition to horizontal players, numerous vertical SaaS applications have emerged over the last two decades. These typically followed a playbook of targeting small to midsize businesses in specific segments before gradually moving upmarket. They focused on delivering the most valuable features for their target audience while avoiding overly broad functionality. With the rise of AI-powered software development, including low-code platforms and vibe coding, robust cloud computing resources, and mature open-source ecosystems, building large-scale software quickly has never been easier. As a result, entrepreneurs are now creating AI-powered vertical SaaS products that combine the functionality of multiple horizontal tools into a single, purpose-built solution for specific industries. Instead of small business owners needing separate tools for their website, social media, marketing automation, CRM, and sales engagement, a single system now provides everything they need, tailored to their vertical. These solutions are offered at a significantly lower price point with greater ease of use. Moreover, because these products are directly tied to revenue through lead generation, proposals, and new business, their ROI is clear. My recommendation to entrepreneurs is to identify a vertical they or a colleague know intimately and consider building a comprehensive application that replaces multiple existing tools for that target customer. By leveraging AI, cloud infrastructure, and open-source technologies, they can deliver a fully integrated solution at a fraction of the cost.

We told a SaaS founder to stop building AI features. Seriously. Last week, a client wanted to add AI Chatbot capabilities into their platform, just like everyone else. Notion has AI. HubSpot has AI. The market expects a chatbot, right? We pushed back hard. ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are getting scary good. Soon, users won't tolerate juggling five different apps with five crippled AI assistants. They'll want one "chief of staff" AI that connects to everything - here the AI will be a massive LLM of their choice. The winning strategy isn't building another siloed AI into your SaaS. It's building your SaaS into the AI ecosystems people already use daily. Integration over isolation. But what does that actually mean? How do you solve for this? It means you stop thinking of your UI as the only front door to your product. Your focus needs to shift to: 1. API-First Product Development: Your API is the product, not an afterthought. Make it robust, well-documented, and designed for AI agents to use. 2. Exposing "Actions," Not Chat: Let AI take action through clear endpoints like 'create_new_campaign' or 'fetch_quarterly_report'. Your SaaS becomes a tool in the AI's toolbelt. 3. Building Connectors & Custom GPTs: Build Custom GPTs, Claude tools, or Zapier connectors so users can interact with your SaaS from where they already are. This is how you build a product that becomes an indispensable part of your users' AI-native workflow, instead of a legacy tool they have to consciously switch to. This is the future we're helping our clients build. If you're a SaaS founder thinking through your AI strategy, this is the C-suite level conversation we're having. Feel free to book a call. #SaaS #AIstrategy #ProductManagement #API #AgenticAI #FutureOfWork

An ecosystem is more than just integrations! Plugging into APIs and calling it a day is NOT partnerships. Often integrations are table stakes to opening a door towards a partnership, in order to drive growth and win-win's for all participants. If not, they’re just a marketing collaboration which will only go so far. Or worse, something that keeps your team busy without delivering real impact. Partner managers inevitably get fired or leave frustrated sooner or later. This is what happens in most companies: ➡ They integrate where engineering capacity allows without a clear strategy. ➡ They measure success by connection count, or number of partners and not by real business impact. ➡ Their partnerships aren’t aligned with the company’s big-picture goals, and this isn't communicated effectively enough. So what should your team be doing instead? ✅ Assess where ecosystem plays make sense. Not every integration is valuable. Focus on ones that enhance your core offering, outside of your product roadmap, improve customer experience, or create new revenue streams. ✅ Prioritise partners that create network effects, not just one-off connections. The best partnerships amplify your business by driving more adoption, expanding reach, or unlocking new markets. ✅ Structure partnerships for repeatable success. Build systems. An effective ecosystem isn’t built on one-time deals, it’s designed for scalability and long-term value on both sides Aimless integrations are just an expense. Light integrations too often frustrate customers rather than add value. A true ecosystem attracts the right partners, the right users, and creates real business impact along the entire customer journey. If your company needs help building a real ecosystem, we at Hockey Stick Advisory can help. #partnership #ecosystem #growth

Why do most b2bSaaS companies fail to achieve their partner ecosystem potential? ➡️ Most rely on loosely coupled partner networks that dont unlock enough value to justify the partnering investment. Hence the partner team layoffs. 🔑 The only solution is to move from loosely to tightly aligned ecosystems built on common objectives and coordinated and programmatic execution. Loosly coupled ecosystems typically consist of partners aligning on mutual value and better together stories without the benefit of clear and consistent playbooks that work for all parties in the ecosystem. Simply put, they fail to design programs and processes that deliver a win/win/win approach. 🎯Partnering strategies must focus instead on finding tightly coupled commercial & engagement models that align all players on common metrics and models and win/win outcomes. A good example of this is the Hyperscaler consumption metric. Here all players in the ecosystem see the value in achieving the common goal of more consumption and aligning to a program that ensures a win for the ecosystem and its joint customers. 🧐 Another example is a strategic alliance GTM (between two or more SaaS companies) that share a single, common playbook and execution plan that monetizes the alliance leveraging a shared sales & services channel. I’d love to hear your reflections on other tightly-aligned partner networks that are unlocking partner ecosystem potential. #ecosystemorchestration

Ever wonder why some SaaS & AI companies just crack it when it comes to GTM? And others... kinda just float in the noise? It’s not just the tech. Not just sales. It’s how they build relationships at scale. And it’s who they do it with. Let’s decode this. Look at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Brex  What’s the common GTM lever across these giants? → It’s not just a brand. → It’s not just a product. → It’s deep, strategic relationship building — done through events, communities, ecosystems, and IRL moments. They don’t “sell.” They cultivate tribes. At GTM Unbound, we’ve seen first-hand how these seemingly soft GTM plays actually drive hardcore outcomes. 🚀 Faster deal velocity 🚀 Stickier partnerships 🚀 Ecosystem pull 🚀 Better narrative control We call this the "Unbound GTM" layer — It’s the layer between the CRM and the spreadsheet. It’s human. It’s memorable. And it makes magic happen. And yes — we host hikes. We bring together AI x SaaS founders for roundtables where early builders jam with legends who’ve scaled, exited, and seen the full arc. We design founder circles that feel like summer camp — but sound like strategy dinners. Not because it’s trendy. But because we’ve seen this work — again and again. 🧠 Real GTM isn’t just funnels and outreach cadences. It’s pattern recognition shared over conversations. It’s trust built in rooms with no decks. It’s the compounding force of the community. At GTM Unbound , we believe the strongest GTM motions are the ones that don’t even feel like GTM at first. They feel like… connection. Curiosity. Chemistry. But beneath that — they drive velocity, serendipity, and conversion. If you’re scaling an AI or SaaS company and wondering why certain partnerships, hires, or market entries feel “off” — maybe it’s not the what. Maybe it’s the how and the who. You don’t go-to-market by staying behind a dashboard. You go into the market. You show up. You ask better questions. You build real trust. That’s when GTM stops feeling like a grind… and starts becoming your unfair advantage. Are you building with community at the core? GTM Unbound | Paddle | Efficient Capital Labs | DevRev Manoj Agarwal | Manik Mehta | Andrew Davies | Amarni Saunders | Kaustav Das | Neha Sanjay | Nikhil Lasrado | Denada Ramnishta | Rohan Bajaj | Mani Iyer | Subhadeep Mondal | Hari Subramanian | #GoToMarket #CommunityLedGrowth #B2BSaaS #AIStartups #FounderEcosystem #RelationshipFirst

🌩️ Taming the Storm: Scaling Challenges in a SaaS Startup 🌩️ Ah, the journey of a SaaS entrepreneur! 🚀 I’m sure many of you can attest to the fact that building a SaaS startup is akin to sailing through a storm; thrilling but full of challenges. One challenge that kept me on my toes was scaling. How do you grow without capsizing the ship? ⛵ As I start architecting the system @ STRABL, we have a lean team and a fantastic product. However, as demand increased so the complexity of the system as well as of the operations, customer support, and, of course, server loads! 📈 Here’s how I navigated this challenge: 🔹 Modular Codebase: By ensuring our codebase was modular and well-documented (not too much though), we could add features and scale without tipping over the code ‘Jenga Tower’. 🧱 🔹 Auto-Scaling Infrastructure: We utilized cloud services with auto-scaling capabilities. This ensured that we only used (and paid for) the resources we needed, and could handle traffic surges smoothly. ☁️ 🔹 Monitoring and Logging: Implementing robust monitoring and logging systems is crucial. It helps us keep an eye on the performance and health of our application in real time. This way, we can detect issues before they escalate and gain insights into how our system is being used, which is invaluable for making data-driven decisions. 📊🔍 🔹 Customer Feedback Loop: We established a strong feedback loop with our customers. This helped us prioritize features and improvements that actually mattered to them. 🔄 🔹 Partnerships and Integrations: By integrating our product with popular services and forming partnerships, we could provide more value to our customers without reinventing the wheel. 🤝 🔹 Strategic Hiring: A very crucial point in every startup's lifecycle. Instead of hiring en masse, we made strategic hires that filled critical technical and operational gaps. A lean, but highly skilled team proves to be far more efficient. 🎯 Scaling a SaaS startup is an art and a science. It’s a delicate balancing act that requires technical prowess, market insight, and sometimes, just trusting your gut. ✍️ Fellow SaaS entrepreneurs, what scaling challenges have you faced? How did you tackle them? #SaaS #TechStartup #ScalingChallenges #Entrepreneurship