In this episode of Consulting Spotlight, host Michael Bernzweig interviews Tye DeGrange from Round Barn Labs. They discuss Tye's journey in tech and marketing, the importance of multi-channel strategies for SaaS companies, and the common pitfalls in partner marketing. Tye shares insights on the role of influencers, the impact of AI on marketing, and the essential metrics for scaling partner programs. The conversation emphasizes the need for genuine connections in marketing and the importance of product-market fit before launching affiliate programs.
Summary
In this episode of Consulting Spotlight, host Michael Bernzweig interviews Tye DeGrange from Round Barn Labs. They discuss Tye's journey in tech and marketing, the importance of multi-channel strategies for SaaS companies, and the common pitfalls in partner marketing. Tye shares insights on the role of influencers, the impact of AI on marketing, and the essential metrics for scaling partner programs. The conversation emphasizes the need for genuine connections in marketing and the importance of product-market fit before launching affiliate programs.
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Michael Bernzweig (00:01.679)
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I'd like to welcome everyone to this week's edition of the Consulting Spotlight. I'm your host, Michael Bernsweig, founder of Software Oasis. And this week, we're actually joined live by Ty DeGrange. He is with Round Barn Labs. And with that, Ty, welcome to the podcast.
Tye (00:23.228)
Thanks so much, Michael. I really appreciate you having me on and excited to talk to you today.
Michael Bernzweig (00:28.131)
Yeah, no, a lot of fun and I can tell from some of the questions that came in from the audience prior to the episode, there's a lot of excitement and interest in some of the topics that we're gonna be covering today related to SaaS and consulting companies online looking to unlock some growth. So let's get into it. With that, I was hoping you could...
For anyone in the audience that may not be familiar with either yourself or Round Barn Labs, if you could give us a little bit of your backstory and give us an idea of what got you to where you are and what you do there.
Tye (01:04.781)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Michael. I actually grew up on a working ranch in an hour north of San Francisco. parents were horse people and grandfather was horse people. They did other things and teaching and such, but I had a really great upbringing in that way and got to have a great experience. And who knew knew I would end up in tech and, you know, laptop, you know, jockey, as they say.
But it's been a great ride. It's been very fortunate. After college, I was able to get into a Sequoia-backed startup in San Francisco that really exposed me to startups, to tech, to venture, to programmatic, to performance marketing. And from there, it really kind of had the bug and was hooked. So I have a long history in that space. I was able to work at one of the early and successful affiliate networks and grow.
the Step Up affiliate program quite significantly. It went on to eBay and house and part of the global team that grew their program when really eBay was at its peak in some ways and really had a lot of resources to build and put forth a best in class global affiliate program. Quite sizable, obviously at that time. But yeah, from there I got to be in house for a number of businesses, a lot of venture backed startups.
Michael Bernzweig (02:15.184)
Yeah.
Tye (02:34.158)
look at ways to run multi-channel marketing. I like to look at things from a growth lens, a reforged community has been really instrumental in my thinking, has as did a stint at Amazon for me in my career. So I'm really fortunate to have some great experiences. Real briefly, Barn Labs has been around for about 10 years and we've really just, we've done a lot of different things candidly from paid marketing to experimentation to A-B testing.
But affiliate influencer has really emerged as just such a critical area that we've really doubled down there. That's where we see a lot of enterprise client growth. That's where we see a lot of growth. And it's just been a fun ride. We really focused on that and seeing a lot of need there. In particular, as costs on paid channels like Meta and Google have gone up so much.
Michael Bernzweig (03:24.76)
Yeah, and I think, you know, it's so interesting. We've had some really exciting guests over the most recent episodes, but, you know, I think one of the segments that stands out in my mind, we had Stella Garber, who was on the original founding team over at Atlassian. And...
Tye (03:47.384)
That's amazing.
Michael Bernzweig (03:47.469)
obvious, actually a Trello and they were acquired by Alassian recently. And, you know, I know her journey was very, you know, very traditional in terms of SaaS. They, know, Trello was one of the very first productivity apps and, you know, the way solutions like that.
Tye (03:53.012)
Mm. Yep.
Tye (04:08.728)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Bernzweig (04:13.348)
found their way to market years ago is very different than the way individuals are finding solutions today. So when you're working with different clients, how do you advise them in terms of getting their hands around some of the right strategies to help amplify their reach, boost their revenue, build an ecosystem?
Tye (04:16.75)
Yeah, thank you. And I think what I have, we're in a fun and exciting position to
execute and I think it helps us is having come from a lot of those experiences, having come from an in-house perspective, knowing what are the kind of growth levers that they can pull, what are the growth loops that they can tap into, having a reasonable understanding of how Google meta, immersion rate optimization, a lot of those things interact with performance marketing is a really helpful foundation for us to guide, I think clients in a way that
I think other just affiliate focused teams or individuals are maybe not going to be able to do. I think we can feel their pain to some extent and also counsel them on when it's not time to invest in still at marketing or creator marketing. But as you would imagine, because we've done it for so many clients for so long at such a scale, there is a good need for those to knock on our door to ask for that help. And so we really do enjoy.
strategically thinking about how do we maybe set up a program from scratch? How do we take an existing program and really optimize it? And I think that an interesting call out that we can kind of explore perhaps here is just, it's actually kind of a multi-channel approach. You're dealing with humans, but each of those humans and those businesses can promote a Trello or an Atlassian or a B2B SaaS product or a brand.
via a lot of different channels and it's not necessarily you're only working on meta or you're only working on content marketing or you're only working on email. Through affiliate or creator or influencer, however you want to define it, describe it, you could actually tap into all of those levers and channels via a performance paid approach.
Michael Bernzweig (06:27.436)
And it's amazing, you we're...
Today, SaaS founders have so many different areas that they need to get their hands around. And I think a lot of it is just that. Like you said, it's multi-channel. It's understanding. Or if you don't understand yourself, finding someone that does, understanding how consumers go through that onboarding process in the year 2025 versus the way things were done in the past.
Tye (06:58.03)
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a big part of what we what we look at, right? It's not just, you know, the more we can be very aligned from a data and a strategy and execution perspective to that person sitting internally from the CMO to the VP of marketing to the head of growth to the head of affiliate or whatever that might be is just critical. And so, you know, looking at
aligning the data we're seeing in an affiliate platform with what they're seeing internally, making sure that their North Star metric is accounted for. We're not just racking up wins on Lead or Visit or even MQL, but we're minding that ROI, minding that closed revenue and being very mindful of like, is this really giving back the revenue? Is it being attributed correctly?
Those are some of the fun challenges that we look at. And there's just such a need for that building of trust through third party content sites and providers.
Michael Bernzweig (08:03.568)
Yeah, and it really is amazing. I mean, I think a lot of things have changed in the current landscape. mean, SaaS founders not only have product, they have marketing. They have everything related to their solution to get it to market. And now it's not only.
Tye (08:18.446)
Thanks.
Mm-hmm.
Michael Bernzweig (08:23.726)
you know, regionally or nationally, it's a global space. mean, a couple of weeks ago, had Lucas Lovell over at Paddle join us on the podcast. you know, there's a platform that helps a lot of these founders, you know, acting as a merchant of record.
as they're starting that journey towards globally, you know, getting the brand out there. But I guess that that would be another another question. do you see differences in different regions of the world in terms of that onboarding?
Tye (08:47.925)
And then.
Tye (09:05.11)
That's a great question. Very unique to, I think we certainly do. It's certainly unique to the different demos and products we're talking about or SaaS tools we're talking about. The short answer is I think there are certainly some differences. There's obviously also some overlapping commonalities in their business use cases.
Yeah, it's a really interesting one. And I think for that, honestly, it's a good reminder to, we like to really get in close with almost that sales mindset. If, you know, if it's PLG, product led growth, even almost that put on that CRO hat or that conversion rate optimization, AB testing hat, and really look at the qualitative data.
in terms of what are you getting told by the customer through the sales process where you can get that via quick snapshots, whether it's like gathering insights from them person, Zoom, digitally. And then on the data side, the quantitative side, there's a lot to be cleaned from looking at segments of users, looking at court series users by geo and kind of learning that rather quickly. So not necessarily relying just on the call.
So if you combine those, we are seeing that those be some stark differences, but certainly some commonalities without giving away too much. I think you kind of think of it that way and you put on that sales CRO customer empathy hat. There's usually some really good things to unlock there that we can bring to performance marketing to do a better job of performing to goal.
Michael Bernzweig (10:50.666)
So if you're looking at the current landscape where we're at today, do you see some big misconceptions or common mistakes that companies are making when it comes to partner marketing strategy?
Like if you were to bullet point a few other different things that you say.
Tye (11:08.014)
It's really good question. Yeah, I think one of the areas that, I think one common trap is that treating it like it's programmatic, treating it like it's meta or Google or LinkedIn is one big trap to avoid. It is a bit more relationship-based, it's a bit more long-term.
It is not going to start, stop on a dime. What's more of a cruise ship that you kind of have to guide and, and course correct through a more longer term means and looking at through a longer lens. Another piece I would say is concentration risk. There's a lot of brands that will stand up a partner program and that 80 20 rule really applies to partner marketing a lot. So.
Sometimes it's the 10 % that are driving 90 % of the value. That can be scary for a brand because obviously you have a concentration risk. We've seen programs we looked under the hood where it's even more. So a lot of times we'll come in and work with brands to avoid and mitigate and improve upon that and diversify a program to de-risk it. I think the last piece I'll say is...
there's an explosion of content out there that can educate people on software. And I it's that going beyond one particular type of partner type, don't go too far on creator only, don't go too far on content educationally, don't go too far on, you can invest in so many different channels within an affiliate program. wouldn't necessarily...
write a business model off until you've gathered more data. But there's just a lot there and pricing it right. Just a lot of times people get caught up in how we set the price point to pay off this partner XYZ and we never look at it again. You don't want to pull the rug out from other partners, but you know, regular monthly quarterly reviews of that performance is really important to look at what is the ROI? What is the new customer
Tye (13:22.104)
percentage, what is that MQL or SQL rate? What is that conversion rate? What kind of LTVs coming through that cohort of users? Because a lot of that information can be used to inform, maybe we should be paying this partner more. Maybe we should have a conversation with this partner as a human to maybe think about being more efficient and paying them less. those are some big ones I would look at if you're considering optimization and avoiding pitfalls.
Michael Bernzweig (13:51.629)
Interesting. And can you give our audience an idea, I don't know if you can share specific case studies or specific clients, but a little bit of a day in the life of maybe one of your current clients or past client of what things looked like before versus after working with Round Barn Labs and what that was like?
Tye (14:15.406)
Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest. You know, one in particular, a multi-million dollar global brand didn't have a partner program at all.
Tye (14:33.542)
after nearly three years, I mean, even before that, I'd say after two, you're looking at a channel that is now one of their most efficient. You're looking at something that's really highly diverse. You're looking at a multi-billion dollar brand that can now tap into dozens, if not hundreds of creators.
Michael Bernzweig (14:45.306)
Wow.
Tye (14:57.486)
to really educate, you know, I think video is a really powerful mechanism. Obviously here we are on video. That's when something that consumer tech brands have tapped into with us and even, and certainly B2B SaaS brands have tapped into with us. And so it's not the only lever, but it's, think that's a really big one that in this case has really worked well. You know, we're doing that through giving them regular partner suggestions every week to.
Michael Bernzweig (15:03.802)
Sure.
Tye (15:24.162)
deep dive strategic QBRs and quarterly business reviews to say, here's what's missing, here's where we should go, here's the gap analysis vis-a-vis your competitors.
Michael Bernzweig (15:33.73)
So you're really providing that 10,000 foot overview as to here's where we are, here's where we need you to get to. You're like the guide along the way.
Tye (15:42.38)
Yeah, we are. I think, you know, we were always striving to be more strategic. And sometimes we can only be as strategic as as the kind of maybe the scope or the partner allows for lack of a better term. Obviously, we take a lot of ownership on our side to bring that to our engagements. But I think that's an accurate statement. It's not just saying, hey, yeah.
Michael Bernzweig (16:01.306)
Yeah, and it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like like you're really doing more than just laying out the roadmap. It sounds like in a lot of cases, you're actually doing implementation or working along with their, marketing team to, to, to guide the implementation based on your background.
Tye (16:17.514)
Yeah, Michael, great point. It's really, it's often a way, there's not a huge pool of talent in partner marketing generally. And so oftentimes it's just about taking it off their plate. And it can be, it can be all of those things, but it's a lot of tactical as well.
Michael Bernzweig (16:37.72)
Yeah, no, that's really, it's amazing. And I think it's very needed because I think there's so many opportunities in the space. I think, you know, consumers are one heck of a lot more savvy, you know, online than they were years ago. I think people are really looking for genuine.
communication, honest, real feedback and dialogue. They don't want marketing messages or ads or things. They just swipe right past that.
Tye (17:03.854)
honestly, Michael, that is one of the biggest things we're seeing in the data just in the last 10 years, five years, six months. People are coming out of the woodwork outside of marketing saying this is, this movement is taking over a lot of what we do on a regular basis. The explosion of influencers. almost grew a group. joke about it as hyperbole, but in kind of.
to get discussion going that like influencers are the new oil. mean, they are Marquis Brownlee is a good, good example. I mean, he is one of the leading consumer tech YouTube voices at an insane level. mean, Apple is, was the CEO of Apple sat down with him and had a fireside chat. mean, you have Gordon Ramsey, you know, getting in front of a hex cloud and being kind of
Michael Bernzweig (17:59.525)
Yeah.
Tye (18:03.726)
part of their board practically, I believe. We have seen so much distrust, unfortunately, just kind of how things have happened in terms of how people view certain parts of pop culture, certain parts of news, politics, people, businesses. don't necessarily, look at, you haven't been given a lot of reasons to fully trust businesses over the past 20 years, right? And so, you know, people are really leaning into
Michael Bernzweig (18:29.029)
Yeah.
Tye (18:33.102)
other friends, family, people like you and I to guide them. And so if they're a business to go to G2 crowd to see honest, genuine, authentic, hey, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. This is what I recommend you do. It's just, it's kind of taken over. see.
Michael Bernzweig (18:48.484)
Yeah, what's amazing to me, you know, we've seen such a transition from traditional search online to AI assisted search, you know, all of these traditional search engines, your Google, your Bing, your Yahoo, are seeing steady declines in search. You know, I was just looking the other day.
some big names, mean, HubSpot, Salesforce, that accounted for a huge volume of their traffic from traditional search. They're seeing literally 80 % declines in organic search, which is just unprecedented. And as you know, obviously traditional ads are getting more more expensive every day. So it's really so important to find other ways to bring
Tye (19:14.062)
Mm-hmm.
Tye (19:19.918)
Mm-hmm.
Tye (19:31.79)
it's absolutely happening and we're seeing in the data.
Michael Bernzweig (19:41.23)
not only consumers to your products, but engaged consumers that are really genuinely connecting with your brand, connecting with your messaging, all of that. I think we're seeing that firsthand.
Tye (20:02.068)
Even those working in the paid ad world are leveraging as much of the creator influencer world in the ads themselves. They're trying to get existing customers and models to build out, you know, human models, not LLM models to build out, you know, ads on top of that. Yes, you do have AI coming. And that's kind of exploding literally as we speak. it's,
It's interesting in it. And I think like, it's exciting to be part of something that has that tail and there's so much need for it. There's people really clamoring for the traditional affiliate side, but also the creator side. And it kind of creating a lot of positivity around our space and lot of interest in what we're doing. You know, it can make up.
Michael Bernzweig (20:51.44)
Well, I know you're a fellow podcaster, if I heard correctly. just to give you a little shameless plug, us what's your podcast? What do you focus on?
Tye (20:57.496)
Thank you.
Thank you. No, I appreciate it, Michael. You know, we, think I shared, we're coming up on, I think 80 episodes now. It's been a lot of fun. We've talked to a lot of people in our performance marketing space, some people in the growth product-led growth community. We've had a lot of B2B SaaS platforms, but B2B SaaS businesses on there. It's called Always B Testing. It's kind of a riff off of the Glenn Gray, Glenn Ross scene with
Michael Bernzweig (21:29.583)
Sure.
Tye (21:30.694)
which is just classic and I love the movie and love the humor and the dark. Yeah, yeah, always be closing. But there's so many people have come on and talked about their experience and experimentation and saying like, if you don't have a certain amount set aside for expanding into new channels, trying new things, documenting, learning those things, I mean,
Michael Bernzweig (21:36.12)
Always be close. I love it. Great movie.
Tye (21:58.254)
All the growth hacker stuff that came up in the 2015 era or 2010 era that kind of became a little BS. think the good stuff that came out of that was around having those really clear assumptions and documented experiments. And we try to really live that. And so the goal of the pod is really to talk to really smart people to deliver a lot of learnings. Like what did you learn from that test? What did you learn from that ad campaign? What did you learn from that channel?
What are you doing from that work experience? then sprinkling some fun life stories as well. So that's it's been fun and appreciate you letting me riff on it.
Michael Bernzweig (22:35.152)
And, you know, I'll be honest with you, the thing that always amazes me, and I have to say this is changing pretty quickly, but I think it amazes me the volume of brands that just don't get it yet, and they're still just throwing, pouring all kinds of money down the drain, you know, towards things that were the way it used to be, whereas, you know, even podcast advertising. mean...
Tye (22:51.735)
Yes.
Tye (22:55.373)
Yes.
Michael Bernzweig (23:02.394)
you know, you're connecting directly with a very engaged audience. You may not have a huge volume of listens, but you have someone's attention for the better part of an episode, you know, and it's amazing. I mean, we're seeing it firsthand. Every single episode across all three of our podcasts, the actual ad spots are sold out indefinitely. So, you know, we see...
Tye (23:17.983)
Yes.
Tye (23:29.301)
congrats.
Michael Bernzweig (23:30.752)
huge transition in this space, know, firsthand. And I think a lot of brands are starting to get it.
Tye (23:39.374)
Oh, congratulations on what you've built and it's awesome. I love to hear it and it's been a lot of fun. mean, you are part of that crater economy. I am part of that crater economy. I just post, I have something going live here shortly where influencer as it's related to the performance marketing world, I think they're gonna capture, they're gonna generate 10 billion this year. So like, you know, we're on.
Michael Bernzweig (23:51.471)
Yeah.
Michael Bernzweig (24:04.421)
Yeah.
Tye (24:07.252)
sort of onto some stuff and onto some things. We're not necessarily getting it all right every time, but it's fun.
Michael Bernzweig (24:12.4)
No, not at all. So for some of the, you know, individuals listening to the podcast, one, I always like to throw in a few actionable tidbits. What are some of the details that they should
be thinking about is they're considering building out a partner program for their organization, whether it's a product or a service or whatever it is, you know, maybe they're like that, company that had nothing and they're just starting from scratch, or maybe they're at the very early stages of just getting things off the ground. Do you have a bulleted list of what you'd like to recommend?
Tye (24:55.609)
Absolutely. I think product market fit is key. Obviously, that's an elusive concept that's highly talked about in startups. seeing that recurring revenue go up into the right, seeing that consistency to have that retention and engagement to use that reforged language.
have that monetization engine dialed in before you really go aggressive on Acquisition is I think really important. I typically like to see some other type of paid ads Excuse me. I typically see some other type of paid ads like a google and a linkedin
Michael Bernzweig (25:32.556)
Sure, that makes a lot of sense. mean, as you mentioned earlier, it's part of,
Tye (25:41.74)
Yeah, I would just say like, I would typically like to see Google, LinkedIn up and running and performing well before you launch an affiliate program. And then we try to really look at a lot of data around conversion rate, that funnel process for product lead growth, SaaS, PLG, so that, hey, we have a sense of what this funnel looks like. And we've got some partner feedback and some data and some experience to say, hey, this can work or it can't.
You know, once you get over that north of 50 million a year, it helps a lot and just from a, okay, you can invest in this. You can build something here. So there's a longer checklist to get into, but I hope that gives you some.
Michael Bernzweig (26:26.36)
Yeah, I think, you know, building on that point, I think it's hard to ask someone else to promote your solution if you haven't figured out how to, you know, get the metrics down with your own sales. So I think, you know, if you're asking someone else to invest their time in generating sales, I think you need to figure out that whole funnel.
Tye (26:50.636)
Yeah, it's a great point, right? Like you just hit the nail on the head on the core reason, right? You're asking third parties to invest their time, money and effort to build and promote you when they can promote anyone and everyone. And so to have your systems pretty dialed in, you know, it's one of the good and bads of affiliate creator influencer, right? can't just, it's usually not the channel I would start with.
Can it be your most efficient? Can it be your best? Can it be 10, 20, 30 % of your revenue for some brands? It's possible. It takes a lot more time than Google and Meta and LinkedIn.
Michael Bernzweig (27:29.816)
Well, I'll share with you my mom was an entrepreneur at heart at a very young age. She started her first business and you know, vision was always hire the best people that you can surround yourself with and always find someone that's been there and done it before you.
Tye (27:36.63)
Hmm
Tye (27:42.478)
Wow.
Michael Bernzweig (27:54.341)
so that they're not learning in your time. And I think that goes a long way. And it's the same type of thing with affiliate or partnership marketing. You really need to dial it in before you can ask someone else to jump aboard. So are there some favorite tools or technologies that you like to use in scaling a partner program?
Tye (27:58.734)
Ugh.
Tye (28:04.002)
Mm-hmm.
Tye (28:09.71)
Absolutely.
Michael Bernzweig (28:20.336)
for your clients that you just are your go-to tools.
Tye (28:25.87)
Yeah, absolutely. we, I'll share a few, know, for impact.com has been great, great way to manage payments, handle all tracking, recruit partners. I would also say that for B2B SaaS, partner stack has been very strong. They've invested a ton and they're very focused on B2B SaaS.
Michael Bernzweig (28:47.856)
Sure.
Tye (28:51.726)
Others, would say, you know, we've, we've had a lot of success with the creator.co on the influencer side of things. So thinking specifically through the lens of creator and influencer. Those are some that I would take a look at and hopefully that gives the audience some, things to chew on. And there's certainly a lot more that we look at. I also would say.
Michael Bernzweig (28:58.466)
Okay.
Michael Bernzweig (29:12.366)
Yeah, think in the early days there were not so many solutions, you know.
Tye (29:17.772)
Yeah, I think a really important thing to start wrapping head around is also like attribution, incrementality. Those get into those complex questions of, this actually driving value when I look at TV spend? When I start spending like 2 million a year or more, when I have like four five channels, it gets complex. And so thinking about really accurate attribution, really accurate incrementality.
If I remove a channel or a test, would I have gotten this customer, would I have gotten this lead? things like Howes, Northbeam, Paramark I'm looking at. So these are some of the big tools that we've had in the pod. We've tested, we're talking to, we've seen clients benefit from. We try to be good at curating the short list and saying, here's what we recommend. You choose what you want, we'll help you.
with XYZ part of it or send you to someone who can.
Michael Bernzweig (30:16.068)
Sure, no, I love it. And are there certain, this is more of a question that came in from a lot of different people in a lot of different ways from the audience, but are there some KPIs that the company should be watching most closely as they're scaling the program?
Tye (30:37.87)
You know, it's funny, there's in partner marketing, one of the better ones to look at is like earnings per click. And so it's not one that internal teams really will look at a lot.
EPC is the common acronym, but thinking, putting it, putting yourself in the shoes of the partner that's promoting you and kind of relying on the income, whether it's an individual or business is good. And then you can kind of think about just like you're saying, Hey, here's my North Star metric. Maybe it's, you know, engaged users after a certain period of time or, you know, an SQL or
Obviously B2B SaaS, you're going to need stuff like that. MQL, maybe it's just a lead. for every, think about how much it takes for them to bring someone to your landing page or your website. So oftentimes they'll look at it from like, what did I earn for each hundred clicks I drove, which is oftentimes an EPC metric. In affiliate and creator and partner market, that's a really good barometer for them. And so.
Obviously, you're going to be very focused on your North Star metrics to make sure it's really tied to your growth loop, your foundational growth strategy, and that your agency partners and your affiliate partners are following that. But I think the brands that are doing great and really nailing it is they have enough empathy to kind of at least think through, does the juice worth the squeeze for this partner? So they're sending me 100 clicks.
What are they getting in return? Obviously it has to be profitable for the brand. What does that pay out there for them with the equated value? So that's a big one I would say. And obviously, you your classic B2B metrics, you'd want to be able to see that funnel, that MQL, that SQL, that engaged user after a certain time, depending on the B2B SaaS brand. We deal in more PLG, product lead growth, as you could probably tell, but
Tye (32:44.206)
But those are really powerful. if you can kind of have that empathy on the partner metric side, then it helps you be a better driver and strategist and help helper of them to grow for you. Cause they're really the ecosystem. They're really the ones doing the heavy lifting. Obviously the brand is paying the bills and managing and kind of guiding, giving them the creative and the landing pages and the strategy. But, but the, but the part, the partners, the ones that they're authentic voices kind of shouting to the rooftops, Hey, you should stack out.
You know, HubSpot or one of the other softwares out there.
Michael Bernzweig (33:19.214)
Sure, and as you know and I know and we talked about earlier, there are so few firms that really get this space. So if you were to give a shout out to the kinds of organizations that you were able to move the needle the most for that really will be able to...
you where it's a real win-win relationship on both ends who are they what do they look like what kinds of organizations
Tye (33:51.176)
Yeah, I think on the B2B SaaS world, it's probably the product-led growth software SaaS out there. There's just better feedback loops, and it's a little bit easier to scale that way. I would say that crossing that, you
Michael Bernzweig (34:07.576)
Sure.
Tye (34:12.462)
$50 million a year revenue ARRs. just, there's a bit of an arsenal available to them. They probably have a lot of those things I mentioned earlier, such as a fairly developed performance marketing kit, but maybe not a mature partner marketing kit. Kind of a willingness and awareness to align. Like a lot of times they have ambassador for program programs. A lot of times they have implementers.
A lot of times they work with agencies to like a HubSpot, you know, certainly as an agency model, right? So I think thinking if they're willing and able to kind of align strategy and incentives, so one's not outweighing the other, those all can grow together in a partner ecosystem, which is kind of cool. So you're, could technically combine affiliate influencer, you know, some of your content strategy, some of your implement implementers of your software.
kind of like partner evangelists and kind of, if you think about them similarly, I think they can all kind of work together in unison as opposed to like either competing or one's gonna be neglected. That's I think the holy grail of B2B SaaS growth. That's what I've seen. And if they have somebody internally that knows affiliate really well, that's an exciting thing. Cause then we could be the external team that kind of wraps around them to really propel that even further.
And they're doing a little bit more of the like, this is why it matters internally stuff.
Michael Bernzweig (35:38.512)
So did.
Michael Bernzweig (35:44.857)
Yeah, so it's really like being a band conductor and keeping everybody organized and in tune and in sync. I love it. So I'm glad that we've made it this far in the podcast without mentioning the AI word. But I'll ask you one question. Sitting in the space that you're sitting in at a high level, you see
Tye (35:48.174)
You understand?
Tye (35:53.25)
I love that. Well said, Michael.
Tye (36:02.261)
Ha
Michael Bernzweig (36:12.45)
a lot of different things in the landscape changing. How is partner marketing changing based on AI?
Tye (36:27.543)
Great question.
Partner marketing is changing because of AI. I'd say that we are implementing a lot of it into our systems. And so where it can help people make their lives easier, take things off their plate.
That's a big piece of it. I think the other piece is that with this rise, Google's already kind of cleaned it up. There's like a lot of muck out there, think, in creative, in content. And so in some ways, I think it's kind of exacerbating this challenge that we talked about earlier. Do you trust what you're getting fed?
Are you trusting the articles you're reading? Are you trusting the marketing that's being fed to you? you, was the Coca-Cola ad that you saw in the ad generating image or not? I think from my view, it kind of just underscores the need for that human authentic third party. would, I think people would rather hear from Michael's extensive experience talking to hundreds of experts, consulting, working in software, having your podcast, getting your perspective then.
AI. Yeah, we get it. The AI can be, you know, PhD level at some point and we get it. AI can spit out deep research and yeah, now as of two days ago, OpenAI has their, they're blowing up ad creation now because now you can spit into it, visual images like you had before. It's moving crazy fast. So it's coming for us. It's going to be impacting a lot of areas of our life. But I think my view is like,
Tye (38:13.3)
Lean in and get the knowledge, try the tools, test the heck out of them, try as much as you can, use them to your advantage to improve your workflow. You and I get to now show up to work with this arsenal of robots, essentially, whereas before we didn't. So maybe the expectation of our impact goes up a bit. Maybe we have an ability to do more as the AI tools get better. But I think what it does also do is underscore even more the needs for that.
the need for that real human, thoughtful connection. somebody that somebody's on video, you know, they're real. You've taught you met them in person or you've seen them and they have a history with them on social media. You've connected with them and they're saying to you like, Hey man, these are the, this is what I like about the software. And this is what I've seen out there. This is what I recommend. Here's why they're, kind of having an educational conversation with you. Like that's always going to.
be of value and I think the human authentic side of the review and the education piece is only going to be more valuable in AI.
Michael Bernzweig (39:21.968)
Well, I really appreciate the deep dive today, Ty. That was some great, great areas that we covered today on the consulting spotlight. We've had Ty Degrange from Round Barn Labs. We'll leave a link in the show notes for anybody that would like to reach out. And for anyone that has not listened to our other podcasts, we have consulting spotlight.
Tye (39:30.712)
Thanks, Michael.
Michael Bernzweig (39:48.506)
career spotlight and you can keep up on everything going on here at Software Oasis by going to softwareoasis.com backslash subscribe and once again Ty Degrange from Round Barn Labs thanks for joining us on Consulting Spotlight today.
Tye (40:07.834)
Thank you, Michael. Thanks, everyone. Talk soon.