Learning From FreshBooks to Build A Partner Integration Strategy SaaS Connect - SaaS Partnerships & SaaS Leaders

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, George Kyriakis, Senior Director, Business Development & Partnerships at Freshbooks, who at the time boasted 12 million global users, gives a presentation about how to go about building an integration partner program, and why you should bother.



George explains why it’s hard convincing CEOs of the importance of partner integrations, and how providing numbers persuades them to buy in. Presenting metrics such as higher long-term value and cost of acquisition are very helpful, because they align with what’s important to the CEO.



After 30 years of “doing it wrong”, George offers 12 steps to building an integration program to “do it right”:


Define the need
Get executive buy-in
Define the categories
Building an API library
Website structure per amount of partners
Value propositions for developers
Target integrations and prioritising
Negotiate value with partner
Consider outsourcing development
Marketing
Tracking
Reporting



He also shares additional tips:


Things that go wrong, and what to look out for
Common questions and answers
The next stages for FreshBooks, and ideas you can use in your next steps



Resources Mentioned:


Zendesk
MailChimp
Slack 
Trello 
Chargify
HubSpot
OneSaaS
Google
Microsoft
Zapier
BigCommerce
Lefthook



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