How We Got There
40 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 6 ratingsAre you trying to get ahead in the Salesforce ecosystem and just wish someone would tell you what to do (and what not to do)?
Join Mike Davis of Invisory (invisory.co) as he picks the brains of leaders at successful ISVs and people in the ecosystem to bring you insights you can use.
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Episodes
How We Got There: George Kenessey, CEO of Appiphony
February 19, 2024 18:14 - 28 minutes - 52.6 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with George Kenessey who is the CEO of Appiphony. Appiphony is a Product Development Outsourcer (PDO) and more recently an ISV themselves with Drive Connect on the AppExchange. George is one of the best humans and business leaders in the ecosystem. This conversation took place wayyyy back pre-Dreamforce but I finally got around to releasing it and it’s one of the most insightful ones. George shares his experience of helping companies launch on t...
How We Got There: Stephanie Betters, Founder and CEO of Left Main REI
September 08, 2023 00:41 - 32 minutes - 75.2 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Stephanie Betters who is the Founder and CEO of Left Main REI. Left Main REI is an OEM and (now) ISVforce partner of Salesforce focused on building for companies in the real estate vertical. As a fellow SUNY alum, it was great to hear Stephanie’s story of how she stumbled her way into the Salesforce ecosystem. As many founder stories go, she created Left Main REI after experiencing challenges (and an expensive SOW) in building out Salesforc...
How We Got There: Andrew Walker, Founder of Sanitas Accounting
September 06, 2023 17:41 - 21 minutes - 50.1 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Andrew Walker, who is the Founder at Sanitas Accounting. I consider Andrew a friend after our time together at TaskRay where he was our full-time CFO after starting as a fractional CFO. His business is now focused on helping smaller software companies with accounting and finance so they can focus on running their business. We reminisce about our learnings alongside each other at TaskRay (where I headed up sales along with other revenue act...
How We Got There: Jason Hoult, President of Anvil App Works
July 05, 2023 16:27 - 29 minutes - 66.7 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Jason Hoult, who is the President at Anvil App Works. We talk about the origin story of the business solving problems for his own business before launching as an OEM of Salesforce for a very specific niche. I am consistently inspired by the quality of businesses like Anvil App Works that can be built with an intentional focus like Jason and his team have done. As he puts it, “an overnight success, five years in the making”. Jason shares h...
How We Got There: Sam Yarborough, SVP of Partnerships at PFL.com
April 05, 2023 14:26 - 20 minutes - 46.3 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Sam Yarborough, (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-yarborough-a96b3326/) who is the SVP of Partnerships at PFL (https://www.linkedin.com/company/pflcom/). We talk about rebooting a partnership program but starting with working on their Trailblazer partner score to build momentum and aligning closely with their Partner Account Manager (PAM) to build deep rapport. From there, they started diving deeply into an industry-specific approach vs. ju...
How We Got There: Cynthia LeCornu, Global Leader of the Salesforce Alliance at Avalara
March 29, 2023 01:33 - 23 minutes - 53.5 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Cynthia LeCornu (https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthialecornu/) who is the Global Leader Salesforce Alliance at Avalara (https://www.linkedin.com/company/avalara/). We talk about aligning to Salesforce’s Customer360 vision, SI partnerships in the ecosystem, how to drive your ISV partner score, and more. Cynthia brings a great energy and depth of experience to her partnerships. Here’s a closer look at the episode: 1:30 What Avalara does a...
How We Got There: Tal Frankfurt, Founder and CEO of Cloud For Good
February 09, 2023 22:54 - 29 minutes - 67.1 MBBefore we hop in, thank you for your support on our journey. GTM Guides is now part of InVisory! (https://home.invisory.co/press-release) In today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Tal Frankfurt, who is the founder and CEO of Cloud For Good. He shares his journey to the Salesforce ecosystem and to the the US from the early days of Salesforce consulting, starting 13 years ago. Cloud For Good is a Salesforce SI focused on Non-profits, higher ed, and more that now has over 200 employe...
How We Got There: Mike Getchis, former VP of Sales at Zenkraft and now Partner Solutions Engineer at Bringg
November 04, 2022 15:36 - 27 minutes - 63.1 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Mike Getchis, who was the VP of Sales at Zenkraft. They were acquired by Brinng earlier this year and he is now Partner Solutions Engineer. Mike was at the helm of Zenkraft’s sales organization which bootstrapped their way to a strategic exit but started his Salesforce journey with hands on keyboard. Zenkraft’s top gtm strategies included working with SIs, Salesforce, and other ISVs. They found that their AppExchange listing was the starti...
How We Got There: Bethany Blackwell, VP at Carahsoft
September 13, 2022 13:29 - 35 minutes - 64.5 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There, I talk with Bethany Blackwell, who is a VP at Carahsoft. Bethany runs the Salesforce channel for Carahsoft, which includes Salesforce, Slack, Mulesoft, Tableau, ISVs, and SIs. Carahsoft has worked with Salesforce for the past 15 years as a Value-Added Reseller and got there start on the GSA schedule to help Salesforce sell to the public sector here in the US. They help with sales, marketing, and contracting for Salesforce and it’s partners to federal, ...
How We Got There: Doug Landis, Growth Partner at Emergence Capital
September 12, 2022 03:02 - 38 minutes - 89.1 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There (which was recorded earlier this year, before the downturn), I talk with Doug Landis, who is a Growth Partner at Emergence Capital. Doug spent some time at Salesforce and Box before moving into his current role in helping Emergence’s portfolio companies with go-to-market assistance. He was working in the early days of sales enablement and now recommends hiring rev ops and sales enablement roles earlier than you think, even at Series A, to drive producti...
How We Got There: Jon Schultz, Director of ISV Sales at Salesforce
August 11, 2022 13:49 - 33 minutes - 76.6 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There (which was recorded earlier this year), I talk with Jon Schultz, who is a Director of ISV Sales at Salesforce. Jon has spent his career in partnerships, including the last 6 years at Salesforce. He got a PAM role at Salesforce after moving with his now wife across the country without a job! His team works with horizontal ISV partners who are high growth partners and/or partners who have been in the ecosystem for a long time. His team serves native, high...
How We Got There: Ari Treuhaft, COO of Litify
July 21, 2022 14:47 - 23 minutes - 54.1 MBIn today’s episode of How We Got There (which was recorded earlier this year), I talk with Ari Treuhaft, who is the COO of Litify.. Apologies for the audio quality but the conversation was too good not to share! He spent time at a law firm building an operating system for law firms on Salesforce and from there, Litify was born. They offer vertical SaaS for legal organizations, who think of themselves as unique and specialized organizations who need to build custom solutions. Litify has raise...
How We Got There: Stony Grunow, Co-Founder at Breadwinner & Co-Founder/CTO at Salesbolt
June 21, 2022 13:43 - 28 minutes - 64.4 MBStony Grunow is a Co-Founder of Breadwinner and Co-Founder/CTO of Salesbolt. He shares how he got started in the ecosystem and how he solved a problem he was experiencing with Breadwinner - integrating Salesforce and online accounting platforms. On the Salesbolt side, they are solving the problem of customer contact data getting out of date in CRM by reaching out to LinkedIn to get the latest and greatest into Salesforce. Stony shared about his first sale as Breadwinner as an English major ...
How We Got There: Brooke Daniels, Director at Salesforce Ventures
June 12, 2022 02:49 - 25 minutes - 58.5 MBBrooke Daniels who is a Director at Salesforce Ventures. She spent years using Salesforce before joining the core team and working on the Mulesoft acquisition integration. In her role, she is the go-to-market expert for Salesforce Ventures portfolio companies and helps portfolio companies as needed. Brooke shares the variety of funds under the Ventures umbrella including the Impact fund (sustainability and re-skilling the workforce) and the Slack fund in addition to Salesforce Ventures. The ...
How We Got There: Jack Campbell, Director of Strategic Partners at OpFocus
May 20, 2022 16:23 - 29 minutes - 67.1 MBIn today’s episode, I am joined by Jack Campbell, Director of Strategic Partnerships at OpFocus, Jack has been in the Salesforce ecosystem for over 8 years with a focus on the System Integrators throughout his career. OpFocus is solely focused on helping SaaS businesses optimize their revenue operations and that usually centers around their usage of Salesforce. I was excited to talk to Jack because he sees a ton of growing SaaS business so he can share trends that are likely relevant to you ...
How We Got There: Ian Gotts, Founder and CEO of elements.cloud
April 20, 2022 13:00 - 32 minutes - 74 MBIn today’s episode, I am joined by Ian Gotts, Co-Founder and CEO of elements.cloud, who has been in the ecosystem for almost as long as it’s been around (2001!). After launching elements.cloud in 2016, he brings years of experience to the conversation that he is readily willing to share with others. He shares about how they stay in their lane by working collaboratively with ISVs that are complimentary partners. Oftentimes there is feature overlap, don’t worry about it, instead focus on how ...
How We Got There: Stevan Simich, Founder and CEO of Mogli
April 13, 2022 23:24 - 27 minutes - 63.2 MBIn today’s episode, I am joined by Stevan Simich, Founder and CEO of Mogli, from working at Altvia to founding Mogli. He shares deep experience in how to look for patterns in customer interactions to figure out what to build, starting with services to connect with customer needs. Don’t productize until you see something 10 times in a row, a guiding principle to know when to lean in to any products. Although word of mouth has really grown the business, he reflects that he wishes that he hire...
How We Got There: Chris Federspiel, CEO and Cofounder of Blackthorn.io
March 09, 2022 13:00 - 31 minutes - 73.1 MBIn today’s episode, I am joined by Chris Federspiel, CEO and Cofounder of Blackthorn.io. He shares his vision for Blackthorn and a bit about the journey along his way. His company has deep knowledge of going to marketing with what was previously known as Salesforce.org (or .org for short). Chris is delightfully open (on LinkedIn and in real life!) and shares vulnerabilities of building a business while being bi-polar and the benefits he’s seen with therapy, especially as a founder. He talk...
How We Got There: Learning about the Dreamin’ events with Eric Dreshfield of Midwest Dreamin’ & Mogli
March 04, 2022 22:08 - 15 minutes - 35.6 MBA special type of abridged episode to share a bit about the Dreamin’ events now that these are largely back on. Many ISVs attend and sponsor these events to drive awareness and leads for their business. Eric Dreshfield is the Founder and Co-Chair for Midwest Dreamin’, who GTM Guides is a proud sponsor of this year, and he is the Product Evangelist of Mogli. In this episode Eric shares who attends these events, how ISVs can make the most of them, and what options for sponsorship exist. If y...
How We Got There: Ryan Hitchler, CEO & Co-founder of Centro
January 20, 2022 17:12 - 25 minutes - 59.4 MBIn today’s episode, I talk with Ryan Hitchler who is the CEO and co-founder of Centro. He shares how we got into the ecosystem. We discuss building a unique connector between Salesforce and Slack after his time at Conga and CRM Culture (ActionGrid). Ryan is the guy that I go to whenever I have any questions about Slack and is on the leading edge of all things Slack & Salesforce. I really appreciate his honest take of options for ISVs to learn more about Slack and how to integrate to it.......
How We Got There: Steve Jacobson, CEO & Founder of Appinium
December 13, 2021 21:35 - 30 minutes - 70.7 MBSteven Jacobson, CEO & Founder of Appinium, shares his journey to the ecosystem with video and learning on Salesforce with Appinium and prior to that he founded Cornerstone for Salesforce (formerly CyberU) Steve used feedback from Mark Cuban(!) led Steve to not only build a moat but build a river around Appinium. He shares candid learnings around how important having alignment is for a high-performing organization and how Salesforce’s V2MOM framework. Shoutout to Tiffany Kreinbrink on his t...
How We Got There: Yeva Roberts, Director of Strategic Alliances at AllCloud
December 02, 2021 20:03 - 28 minutes - 64.3 MBYeva Roberts, Director of Strategic Alliances at AllCloud, shares her journey into the Salesforce ecosystem starting with Taylor, PFL, and Yotpo before switching from ISVs to SI alliances with AllCloud. AllCloud is a platinum Salesforce SI and one of the fastest growing ones out there. Yeva shares her perspective on the value exchange between ISVs and SIs by creating a compelling story to demonstrate how your application can close a gap for them or help them meet their revenue goals. Great...
How We Got There: Andrea Maliska, Founder of Rebel Learn
November 08, 2021 03:39 - 20 minutes - 46.9 MBAndrea Maliska, Founder of Rebel Learn joins the podcast. Rebel Learn is a learning and development consultancy. Andrea has taken her learnings from working at Conga to many companies inside and outside the ecosystem. She shares a few examples but is most proud of the CTA bootcamp she worked on with Sebastian Wagner called Flow Republic. She shares how to start small on internal and partner learning and development. It’s important to identify and lean into your internal subject matter exper...
How We Got There: Max-Michael Mayer, CEO & Founder of ISVApp
September 16, 2021 18:29 - 36 minutes - 83.7 MBMax-Michael Mayer, CEO & Founder of ISVApp joins the podcast. Salesforce ISV/OEM partner since 2008, starting with PropertyBase before solving his own problem and founding ISVApp to help other Salesforce ISVs/OEMs with a toolbox to understand your usage analytics, flagging churn risks in the customer-base. He shares which usage metrics every ISV needs to track, specifically around the diligence process with potential investors giving them confidence in how you run your business (beyond just...
How We Got There: Maria Pergolino, CMO at ActiveCampaign
August 28, 2021 20:32 - 24 minutes - 56.1 MBMaria Pergolino, CMO at ActiveCampaign, after working with Marketo, Apttus, and Anaplan has built much of her career in the ecosystem. From giving away a car at Dreamforce to trials in the enterprise, Maria shares some of her learnings from Marketing to the Salesforce ecosystem. I really enjoyed her thoughts on trialing while balancing self-serve and sales-led to improve the overall health of the pipeline. Sharing her journey as a woman executive and how she has reflected on helping other ...
Casey Karp, Director of North America ISV GTM Strategy at Simplus
July 27, 2021 18:15 - 26 minutes - 59.5 MBCasey Karp is the Director of North America ISV GTM Strategy at Simplus. She shares her journey from an ISV in the ecosystem to running ISV alliances at Simplus a platinum SI. If you’ve listened to the podcast, you are likely picking up on a theme - that Systems Integrators are a key reason why the ecosystem is so attractive to ISVs building product. Casey shares her POV that will help you as an ISV think through the WIIFM in terms that the SI can understand. She shares actionable tips and ...
Melanie Fellay, CEO & Co-Founder of Spekit
July 06, 2021 15:00 - 31 minutes - 71.1 MBMelanie Fellay, CEO & Co-Founder of Spekit shares her journey into the Salesforce ecosystem starting with owning a Salesforce instance and feeling the pain of adoption & documentation that inspired her to start a company to modernize how it’s done. Melanie shares best practices around validating an idea using the Ideas Exchange and connecting with people in the ecosystem directly to harden your approach. Melanie shares a plethora of founding Sales tips - you need resiliency as you will fail...
Ben Asfaha, CEO & Co-Founder of PipeLaunch
June 22, 2021 13:19 - 25 minutes - 58.4 MBBen Asfaha, CEO & Co-Founder of PipeLaunch, shares his founding story and reflects on the time he has spent at various ISVs like Nintex and Conga as well as Salesforce itself. He provides some tips around how to go about launch the app by taking a detailed mockup to customers & partners to refine their product prior to building out the brand and the value he saw by focusing on the challenge first. This episode is brought to you by Appiphony. Appiphony is a leading Product Development Outsou...
Maritina Tsembelis, Strategic Partnerships Manager for Salesforce at Gearset & Founder of the Salesforce ISV Meetup
May 24, 2021 12:00 - 21 minutes - 49.9 MBMaritina Tsembelis is the Strategic Partnerships Manager for Salesforce at Gearset. Maritina is an American in England and has been active in building community for ISVs in the ecosystem in the UK as the founder of the Salesforce ISV Meetup with over 700 members. She created this community out of a way to learn about the ecosystem that she found herself creating alliances during her time at Data Dwell. At Gearset, she shares how she approaches aligning with the technical customer-facing team...
Drew Quinlan, Vice President, Strategic Alliances (ISV & GSI) at Ring Central
May 05, 2021 00:12 - 29 minutes - 67.3 MBDrew Quinlan, Vice President, Strategic Alliances (ISV & GSI) at Ring Central, is a long-time ecosystem member (and big US Soccer fan) who has built his career on building and improving alliances programs. Drew shares his perspective on how founders need to take a focused approach to building an alliances motion and how to vary the volume of potential targets when talking technology partners (2-3) and services (20-30). He shares about his time at Conga where they invested in web-based educat...
Lucy Mazalon, Head Editor/Operations Director at Salesforce Ben & The DRIP
April 14, 2021 15:13 - 25 minutes - 58 MBLucy Mazalon, Head Editor/Operations Director at Salesforce Ben & The DRIP, is a long-time ecosystem member who offers a unique voice via Salesforce Ben & The Drip that helps Salesforce practitioners up-level their careers. Lucy shares her perspective of how ISVs are adjusting their strategies as in-person events have come to a halt due to COVID. Lucy walks through how to run effective experiments in driving leads, sharing best practices like looking at time on page and impressions but not g...
Jon Jessup, CEO and Founder of 1440.io
March 30, 2021 16:34 - 19 minutes - 43.8 MBJon Jessup, CEO and Founder of 1440.io, launched his first AppExchange app in 2009 and is an active member of the Salesforce ISV community. His company 1440 has three products listed on the AppExchange today including Commerce Studio, Reputation Studio, and Translation Studio. He shares his feedback on why he builds on the Salesforce platform and some go-to-market tips for more technical founders. This episode is brought to you by Appiphony. Appiphony is a leading Product Development Outsou...
Mike Wolff, SVP, Global ISV Partners at Salesforce
March 15, 2021 15:46 - 24 minutes - 57.1 MBMike Wolff, SVP Global ISV Partners at Salesforce, talks about what he took from his direct sales experience to help guide him in his role with the ISV channel and shares a tip for how ISVs should best work with their PAMs (Partner Account Managers) - leveraging a V2MOM. If you’re unfamiliar with V2MOM, it is a technology to drive alignment on top priorities across Salesforce’s business. If you haven’t already adopted something like OKRs or Traction (with ROCKS), the clarity it will provide...
JP Leggett, CEO and Founder of Squivr
March 01, 2021 23:13 - 20 minutes - 46.2 MBJP Leggett, CEO and Founder of Squivr, talks about how he came up with the idea of Squivr by living the pain of account transitions in the Sales/CS world and about how to maintain sales cycle control when partners like Salesforce bring you the deal. This episode is brought to you by Codescience. CodeScience is a founding member of the Salesforce Product Development Outsourcer program. The only Master PDO, CodeScience helps businesses thrive on the AppExchange by guiding them through the ful...
Brandon Metcalf, CEO & Founder of Place Technology
February 22, 2021 14:00 - 29 minutes - 67.3 MBBrandon Metcalf, CEO & Founder of Place Technology (placetechnology.com), talks about building multiple apps in the Salesforce ecosystem and when to think about TAM (Total Addressable Market) and SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market) for your organization. This episode is brought to you by Codescience. CodeScience is a founding member of the Salesforce Product Development Outsourcer program. The only Master PDO, CodeScience helps businesses thrive on the AppExchange by guiding them through t...
Phil Lelliott, Alliance Director International at Copado
February 07, 2021 22:52 - 26 minutes - 61 MBPhil Lelliott, Alliance Director International at Copado, talks about how going to market in EMEA (and the rest of the world) differs from going to marketing in North America in the Salesforce ecosystem. Phil has built his career in the ecosystem from his time at DocuSign, Conga, and now Copado. For US-Based ISVs, he recommends a general path of focusing on the UK, the Netherlands, and the Nordics prior to going to France & Germany as those countries really need a native speaker to find succ...
Niji Sabharwal, Cofounder & CEO of AgentSync, talks about the importance of SEO in driving early success
January 25, 2021 22:50 - 24 minutes - 55.1 MBNiji Sabharwal, Cofounder & CEO of AgentSync (www.agentsync.io), talks about launching the company, leaning into alliances early, and how investing in SEO helped them land their early customers...all while moving from the Bay Area to Denver in the midst of a pandemic! This episode is brought to you by Codescience. CodeScience is a founding member of the Salesforce Product Development Outsourcer program. The only Master PDO, CodeScience helps businesses thrive on the AppExchange by guiding t...
Nam Le, Head of Sales, Embedded Platform at Workato
January 11, 2021 19:50 - 27 minutes - 63.1 MBNam Le shares Workato's (www.workato.com) journey in the Salesforce ecosystem going from inbound partner activity to a focused approach on outbounding new partners predictably over the last 18 months. This episode is brought to you by Codescience. CodeScience is a founding member of the Salesforce Product Development Outsourcer program. The only Master PDO, CodeScience helps businesses thrive on the AppExchange by guiding them through the full solution lifecycle, from building to commercial...
Susie Wallingford, Director of Partner Alliances at Prodly
December 29, 2020 15:49 - 38 minutes - 87.3 MBSusie Wallingford of Prodly (www.prodly.co) shares her approach to defining an IPP (ideal partner profile) and how to focus on SI (System Integrator) relationships that will help your business grow. This episode is brought to you by Codescience. CodeScience is a founding member of the Salesforce Product Development Outsourcer program. The only Master PDO, CodeScience helps businesses thrive on the AppExchange by guiding them through the full solution lifecycle, from building to commercializ...
Eric Wu, Co-Founder of TaskRay
December 08, 2020 15:20 - 42 minutes - 96.7 MBEric Wu shares TaskRay's journey in the Salesforce ecosystem over the last 10 years and touches on what he has learned about himself along the way. I hope you enjoy and if you want to hear more from Eric from TaskRay, check out his podcast called Feeling Felt. This episode is brought to you by Codescience. CodeScience is a founding member of the Salesforce Product Development Outsourcer program. The only Master PDO, CodeScience helps businesses thrive on the AppExchange by guiding them thr...