Transcript:

Rick Currier (00:00)

Well hey Greg, welcome.

Greg Portnoy (00:02)

Hello, hello.

Rick Currier (00:03)

And this is actually kind of my favorite type of podcast because you and I, we didn't have a prep call. We've never spoke before. This is really kind of the first time where we're speaking. So I get to ask the real questions. It's going to be incredibly authentic. I have no idea where it's going to go. We'll figure it out.

Greg Portnoy (00:18)

Story of every day of my life.

Rick Currier (00:19)

So let's talk about your life. So you run Euler, you founded it. Love to hear about the company. I mean, I just know what I've seen online, but I got the man himself. So why don't you tell me about you and the company.

Greg Portnoy (00:31)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So ⁓ I built partner programs for the last decade and many of those from the ground up and did so in a very kind of elbow grease resource intensive ⁓ inefficient manner. ⁓ And then I was doing some consulting work after that and started to see the partnerships wasn't really getting the let's call it love and attention. ⁓

more specifically resourcing and budgeting that it deserved within most GTM organizations. And I was really just super confused and curious like why that was, because I think if anybody's ever been a part of a successful partnerships organization, they've seen that the results that it drives are just ⁓ undeniably better than any other channel. ⁓

And, we know the typical things, right? Lower acquisition costs, faster sales cycles, higher win rates, higher contract values, better retention, so on and so forth. So as someone that studied economics in college and is very much takes a unit economics mindset to everything, I was like, why aren't more businesses doing this? This is just kind of a gimme. And so I dug a little deeper and I realized that there's a big disconnect ⁓ between partner teams and the people that make the decisions about partner teams.

namely boards, C-suites and such. Specifically the disconnect was that the people making the decision didn't really understand partnerships. If you've never done it, it's a very complex, nuanced motion. ⁓ And so if you've never done it, you don't really understand how it works, right? You just kind of, you don't see how the sausage is made of building a program and a relationship. You just see the output, right? Or lack thereof for that matter. ⁓ So they didn't get it.

And part of that reason was because most partner teams weren't very rigorous in their operating. And even if they were, they couldn't really show their work per se in the form of like process and data. ⁓ and so that's where the disconnect was. And I, I realized you looked at like any other go-to-market team, sales marketing, or any team for that matter within a business, they all had lots of tools to help them operate rigorously, right? They had tools to help them create efficiency in their workflow and remove manual effort. They had things that helped.

measure and track ⁓ everything that they did and help them understand like, why were they being successful or why were they not being successful? And partnerships didn't have anything like that, right? We had traditional like PRMs or partner portals that were built for the traditional channel, you know, but unless you're like Intel or Cisco or Dell, like that doesn't apply to you. That model doesn't really work for you. And those platforms didn't really solve real problems for you. And then you had like these newer platforms that were basically like affiliate.

marketing platforms masquerading as PRMs or portals. ⁓ And yet none of these platforms that ever looked at the fact that like partnerships is the most complex go-to-market workflow. ⁓ There's nothing linear about a a partnership or what you drive from it. Like sales, you've got predictable revenue, right? You've got a sales funnel. Marketing, you've got a marketing funnel. Partnerships goes up, down, left, right, forward, back. There's a lot of things that have to happen to make it successful. And yet those teams have nothing.

nothing to track and measure all of that, nothing to create efficiency in that workflow and nothing to really help them justify the value that they're driving for the business. So we decided to build ⁓ something that would do that, right? Not just like a incrementally better PRM or portal, even though that's who we compete with at the moment, but something that also looked at taking care of partner ops and something that also looked at data and analytics, but was also simultaneously completely synced with the existing source of truth, the CRM.

so that when the partnerships team got up on their soapbox and said, hey, look at all the great stuff we've done, the first response from the board of the C-suite wasn't like, I don't know about these numbers, where did you get these numbers? So I know it's kind of a long-winded story, but that is really exactly how it came to be. And we started it two and a half years ago to build what we now call the Partner Revenue Growth Platform.

Rick Currier (04:36)

That's great. Now, do you feel like we're closer to solving that challenge or is there still a massive disconnect between the people making the decisions and the people in the trenches running partnerships?

Greg Portnoy (04:46)

I mean, certainly for the folks using Euler, they're a step closer for sure. I think generally, albeit slowly, that gap is starting to predominantly because there kind of is no choice now, right? Back when money was falling from the sky in the Zerp era, nobody really cared about the numbers, right? Nobody was looking at efficiency. Everyone was basically just like...

Rick Currier (04:49)

Yeah.

Greg Portnoy (05:12)

throwing ⁓ attribution stake into the yard and it didn't matter which GTM dog like latched onto it or if they fought about it, right? But now everyone's thinking about profitable, efficient growth. And so it's like, well, what is the most profitable and efficient channel? It's partnerships and they want to invest in it. But again, I talked to a lot of C-suites and boards and they're still hesitant because unless they can really understand at least within a relatively ⁓ small ⁓ Delta like

what output am I gonna get for this investment? It's hard to make that investment, right, when resources are limited. So I think we're going in the right direction, but I think there's still a lot longer of a way to go.

Rick Currier (05:51)

Now, I believe I read that you launched Euler Bootstrap. So I'd love to know, what was that journey like? know, have you ever built a software company before? tell me about how you got to here, because, I mean, it looks like you're pretty successful where you are today, but I'm sure there were some challenges along the way.

Greg Portnoy (06:06)

Yeah, Bootstrapping is not for the faint of heart. I have never done it before. ⁓ Technically, I've launched a company before. I launched a vodka company many years ago. Story for another time. ⁓ But no, but this is really like my first major foray into ⁓ entrepreneurship and specifically building a software company. So bootstrapping, I will tell you, is extremely hard. ⁓ I think if we didn't have the luck that I had kind of just building a

Rick Currier (06:17)

Very cool

Greg Portnoy (06:34)

personal brand around my expertise and partnerships ⁓ and doing a very kind of grassroots community led growth strategy for the business and really kind of building with ⁓ the industry of partnerships rather than like just kind of outside as an outsider. I don't know if we would have been able to accomplish what we have. mean, we've very quickly. We've, you we hit a million dollars in ARR within our first year. ⁓ We've got now incredible customers like

Gong, Bamboo HR, SpaceX, like it's pretty cool, honestly, to do so, but it's been an incredible grind, like just a crazy amount of work. ⁓ And bootstrapping really, I think there's a ton of pros and cons. The thing that I think is the biggest pro is the fact that like we didn't have the luxury of just.

making decisions and hoping they work out. Like we had to be very, very strategic about everything we did. We had to be very thoughtful about every dollar we spent. And ultimately like we had to monetize quickly. Like we had to build something that people actually valued, you know, and they always say like, you can build whatever you want, but until someone pays you for it, like it doesn't matter. Right. And so we, started to have people pay us relatively early and then we've gone up market like relatively quickly and started to have like, you know, big six figure deals.

when at the beginning of the year, like, you know, our ACV was in the low five figures, right? ⁓ And so like bootstrapping while extremely difficult, I think really helps you figure out if you've actually got a business.

Rick Currier (08:09)

Yeah, and you

mentioned the community led approach, but I'm curious, did partnerships play into your own go to market strategy in terms of where you are today?

Greg Portnoy (08:16)

It has. And the reason I say it that way is much less so than I would like it to. ⁓ Obviously, I want to be an extremely partner-led business just because of my very deep belief in the model. ⁓ But unfortunately, as we all know, partnerships takes some level of focus on it. And since even though we're a team of 14 now, I am the only go-to-market person still. We're going to change that right now.

but I am sales, am marketing, I am partnerships. ⁓ So we haven't been able to invest as much in building like real strategic partnerships as we would like to. Although there are some, for example, like one of our best partnerships is with a company called Partnership Mastermind. I don't know if you know Chris Lavoie, ⁓ but he basically built what I would say is probably the best partner manager bootcamp that exists right now. And...

Rick Currier (09:02)

Mm-mm.

Greg Portnoy (09:11)

his approach to partnerships has always been very aligned with kind of our ethos, which is again, data-driven and process-oriented. ⁓ And so it's great because I constantly have people coming to me asking like, how do I learn to be, how do I learn partnerships, right? Nobody gets taught partnerships. There's all these like sales methodologies and courses you can take. There's not much for partnerships. And again, it's a harder job than sales, I would argue. So I'm constantly kicking people his way to take his course. So they can up-level their skillset. And he's constantly like,

kicking people our way that are like at that point now, and now they need a system to actually implement the models and playbooks that he teaches them, right? So I think that that's a very nice complimentary better together story. And I will still say like we get probably about a third of our business from referrals, ⁓ but I wouldn't necessarily call that like a fully baked partner program as of yet.

Rick Currier (10:03)

Yeah, but it's completely aligned with your community led approach. So that makes a lot of sense in how you're approaching that. know, so I mostly work with marketers and mostly talk to marketers. So, you know, deal rage, attribution, you know, influence pipeline, a lot of talk around those topics. Like, you know, what are your views around attribution these days? You know, are we any closer to to solving attribution on partner marketing, partner deals? Just what do you think?

Greg Portnoy (10:32)

Again, I think we're getting closer. ⁓ I think the conversation around attribution needs to change. ⁓ I recently spoke to a chief partnerships officer ⁓ named Michaela Davis from Trintech and they basically do what I consider to be the gold standard of kind of partnerships and attribution, ⁓ I guess, reporting.

when she goes into the board meeting with ⁓ her CRO and her CMO, ⁓ they all report together. Meaning like, it's not here's what sales did, here's what marketing did, here's what partnerships did. It's here's what we did across the board and here's how each of us played a role in it. And here's how partnerships, for example, like helped sales and marketing and sourced and influence and all that. And it creates this very cohesive story.

of like, this is how we accomplish the goal to better, faster together versus like, here's what my little kingdom did. Here's what my little kingdom did. Here's what my little kingdom, like it's, I think that approach is flawed and has been pushed down from boards and C-suites and is, is a culturally flawed approach. And I think it's, needs to be much more of a like, Hey, we're just trying to accomplish the goal. And we know that we need all of these instruments playing in harmony.

to achieve that goal in the best way possible. So I think it's going that way, absolutely. That being said, most organizations are not doing that. And so we absolutely are trying to, with the product and just the ethos, say like, hey, you have to have a clean, you have to have clean rules of the road. You have to have a clean attribution model, right? Like you're absolutely just blind to assume that like somebody is buying something from one touch attribution. Like that doesn't exist.

especially in B2B, you're talking about at least like 20 something touches. ⁓ So you have to figure out like, are we doing first touch? Are we doing last touch? Like what qualifies as sourced? What qualifies as influenced? And like, what do we have to show to actually ⁓ determine whether or not this qualifies? ⁓ And that puts both the onus on like the leadership team to set those guidelines, but also on the partnership team to kind of like, at that point, step up to the plate and say like, yeah, this is what we did or partner market or like.

show us how your touch is the one that got this, you know, over the line or actually created the opportunity versus just like finding a lead. ⁓ So I think it's going in the right direction. But again, I think it all always comes back to data and process and having rigor around both of those things.

Rick Currier (13:13)

Yeah, no, I like that. mean, from my experience, that seems very aspirational and glad to hear some organizations are doing it. I know a lot seem to want to go in that direction. They're just not there. You what other, you think about you specifically work with a lot of partner organizations besides being highly siloed, what other challenges are you seeing in terms of how these companies are set up? Or maybe on the flip side, what are some other partner organizations doing really well that people should learn from?

Greg Portnoy (13:41)

God, how much time you have? ⁓ I mean, the challenges are no, there's no like, I think challenges that any of us are going to be surprised by anymore. It's challenges around ⁓ expectation setting. It's challenges around alignment, both executive and cross-functional. ⁓ It's challenges around resourcing, right? Either from a headcount perspective, from a cross-functional ⁓ perspective, or even from like an ops perspective. ⁓ Those are probably the biggest challenges.

Rick Currier (13:54)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Portnoy (14:11)

I think the thing that really is still rather surprising to me, honestly, to this day is that I regularly speak to partner organizations that are driving like a very significant amount of revenue, right? 30, 40, 50, more than 50%. And yet from a headcount perspective, you're looking at like typically maybe one 10th or one fifth best case scenario.

of the size of the sales team or the marketing team, ⁓ which doesn't really make sense, obviously, just from a pure revenue perspective. And they're like, well, the salespeople close the deals. And it's like, yeah, but if you got them to the green and all they had to do was put it in, that's a very different conversation than doing the 300 yard drive that we just took care of for you, right? ⁓ So I think that's the weird thing is that a lot of these executives and boards still

are like, no, no, no, we don't need to hire more people on partnerships. Go ahead, manage 100 partners, manage 150 partners. Hey, one partner marketer, go plan events for the whole year with like 30 different partners. ⁓ And then marketing will still take attribution credit for it because technically you line up to them. It's kind of silly from that perspective. So from a challenges perspective, I would say it's resources, alignment and tooling mostly from a what people are doing well perspective. mean, there's the one example I gave you.

Another example I love to give, just because it is very aspirational, but I think it's super cool, ⁓ is, I don't know if you know Rob Moyer from Gong, but he runs Gong's partner program. ⁓ And they obviously use Gong for everything that they do, but they've got this very interesting use case of it where not only do they use Gong, because Gong, if you get all the bells and whistles, can actually predict pipeline very accurately.

Rick Currier (15:50)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Portnoy (16:06)

⁓ Not only do they use it for that, but when it comes back to your influence question, ⁓ if they get a question of like, how did the partner influence this deal? They can just ask the system, right? Cause they have all the call recordings. They have all the emails, they have all the data. So they can actually show like, these are the three points where the partner influenced the deal flow. And based on the systems analysis, like these were material and moving the deal forward or helping it close or getting this like, you know, the decision maker on board or whatever it is.

So I think that while aspirational is becoming more more realistic for more organizations, because AI is everywhere now, right? You've got all these little AI note takers, you've got all this data, you've got all these ways to crunch it. And so we can't justify the impact that the partner had is going to be less and less of an excuse. ⁓ So I think that's something super cool that people are doing. in general, I think people are just, again, starting to become more rigorous operators. Just like managing a P &L, reporting,

like consistently and clearly, ⁓ and honestly just like asking for the resources that are necessary to be successful.

Rick Currier (17:13)

Yeah, I mean, I going back to your original point in terms of that executive alignment, reporting up into the boards and just being aligned cohesively across these silos, being able to have that data, like you're talking about that Gong example makes that connection so much more powerful to have that connective, know, cohesive story. Probably a good chance to talk about AI. love your thoughts on AI. You know, how are you utilizing it with Euler and has your thoughts changed or evolved over the last?

God, don't know. Stuff's moving so quickly in terms of the technology. I where are you today with AI and Euler?

Greg Portnoy (17:47)

Yeah, do you mean like how we use it as a business or how we implement it into our product? Okay, yeah. I mean, as a business, I'll start there just because I think that that's also super cool. I mean, our development team obviously uses AI every single day. Or I think most of our team actually uses AI every single day. But, you know, for me, I help use it to do account research. I use it to help write my follow-up emails. I use it to like, you know, help give me feedback on my LinkedIn posts when I write them up and everyone thinks that I have a

Rick Currier (17:51)

Neither.

Greg Portnoy (18:17)

a ghostwriter, but I do not say it here on the record. ⁓ I do not have a ghostwriter. Sometimes Claude helps me think through different word choice, but that's it. ⁓ And I mean, there's AI workflows, there's ways to leverage things like N8N to connect different systems. We're using AI to actually establish like ICP and to help filter through the lead flow that comes in to help determine like who we should be actually talking to.

Rick Currier (18:18)

Hehehe

Greg Portnoy (18:44)

And that's just the beginning of it. mean, we're very early with that stuff. ⁓ But how we're implementing it into the product, I'm trying to, this is going to launch next week, this podcast. Okay. So, so I'm just thinking about what I can and cannot say right now.

Rick Currier (18:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, know.

The 12th is what we're shooting for.

Greg Portnoy (19:01)

That's fine.

Okay. There's one thing that I would love to talk about, but we're not going to announce it quite yet ⁓ by the time this launches. But I think that the, you know, where we've already got AI in a product was something called Deal Flow AI, where, for example, if you get a ⁓ referral or a deal registration via email, which as we know, that's how most of them come through, partners hate forms. And I genuinely personally think forms are just an annoying friction point in general.

So you get that email. We were the first platform to launch something where you can just forward it to us or copy us if you're looping in a sales rep and the system just parses it, pulls it out, no structure required, and then just registers the deal registration or the referral automatically. ⁓ So that's one. ⁓ Two, like for example, we have a contracting system in our platform. So we have an AI where like if you just upload your standard agreement, it'll just read it. It'll turn it into an agreement in our system. It'll put all of the...

dynamic fields where they need to be, the signature box, all of it, just like that. ⁓ Three, we're ⁓ launching a marketing hub and the marketing hub is actually going to have like just like a HubSpot or whatever. can send like blast messaging, segmented messaging, triggered campaigns, but you can build the emails inside of the system. Of course, there's an AI where you can literally tell the AI, like you can, can vibe code an email essentially.

Rick Currier (20:21)

Hmm.

Greg Portnoy (20:22)

Hey, can you send an email to my partner, create an email for my partners about this that looks like this with this information pulled from our knowledge base or something I just uploaded and it'll just go build the email, right? ⁓ So I think that, and that's just the beginning, we're building a lot cooler AI stuff. I think the really, really interesting use case for AI in general is around data, right? ⁓ It's not how do I make one little job somewhat faster or easier?

It's how do I figure out, you know, how this is all working, right? It's how do I, how do I improve my partner experience? How do I improve my program? How do I like validate, you know, the ⁓ impact of what we're doing in the way that like, you know, Rob's team at, at Gong is doing. So I think that's the really interesting use case for AI. We're definitely going in a lot of those directions. ⁓ you know, I know that there's other cool AI use cases like.

know, partner fleet has an ability for you to create a partner's directory listing with AI without them having to do it, right? I think that's a great use, it removes friction. I know Crossbeam's leveraging some AI to like actually start to surface the right ⁓ ecosystem touch points into your deals at the right time. So I think that's the really interesting use case for AI is not just like, how do I make my job a little easier? It's like, how do I actually like figure out the connection points that I need to, to make this

business happen without me even having to like know where to look.

Rick Currier (21:52)

Yeah, that's been my kind of point of view on a lot of this is it's funny how it's, you know, autonomous, you know, and technical, but at the same time, I feel like the people that are getting the most out of it are also the most creative because they're seeing those connections and they're innovating very quickly. But the tools, I want to ask you in a personal note, like as a founder, with just the possibilities from productivity to product development, how much faster do you feel like you're moving today than two years ago?

Greg Portnoy (22:20)

I mean, we were already moving very quickly. ⁓ I'm not a developer at all. I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag. So I don't know how much faster our team is moving than they would be without it. Because I didn't even know they were using it every day till like six months after they started. Because again, I don't touch that part of the business at all. My co-founder and I have very separated kind of church and state situations. We're both very good at the things we do and have no interest in the things the other person's doing. ⁓

But that being said, mean, the pace of, like just the pace of acceleration and development of these technologies. I mean, we didn't think, I didn't think when I first started this and we were like working through our roadmap last year, I did not think that we would be adding AI into our product this year. Like if you had asked me, know, six months ago, maybe seven or eight months ago, like when are you guys gonna be adding AI? I'm like, oh yeah, it's gonna be a 2026 thing.

And now like we've been adding AI into our product for a while. And like, now like we're not building anything that doesn't have AI embedded into it in some fashion, let alone like it might just be purely AI. ⁓ so I think just the, the pace with which this is changing is, is super, super cool. But look, let's be honest on the flip side. It's not a complicated technology. ⁓ it's very, it's really leveling the playing field. So it really changes.

⁓ it really removes the majority of moat that you can have from a purely product perspective, which is really, a new and interesting challenge that we didn't anticipate. And now you start having to think of like, so then if you, if you can't have a product mode, because anybody can vibe code your product and, you know, a few months, you know, oversimplified, course, what becomes the moat as a business. And then you have to start thinking about like.

Is it your network? Is it your data? Is it your brand? Like, I don't know the answer to that question, right? We're trying to figure it out. ⁓ So it's simultaneously, it's very much a double-edged sword, the AI. It helps you do a lot more, but it also makes it lot easier for anybody else to do it just as well, or maybe just as quickly.

Rick Currier (24:20)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well,

I know if you're not doing it, you're definitely falling behind. So it's like one of those things you got to do it and then we're just going to figure it out as we go. I'm to switch topics a little bit on thinking about organizational structure. I have a lot of friends and colleagues in the industry who, you know, very senior partner marketers at large organizations. Now, a lot of them are going to startups and they're hoping to build the partner marketing organization from the ground up. And I'm hearing a lot of questions just thinking about

you know, where should partner marketing sit from an org structure standpoint? Should it, should it be in sales and partnerships in corporate marketing? Thinking about that alignment. Just curious if you have a perspective on the marketers supporting partnerships, where that, where that organization should sit within the broader org.

Greg Portnoy (25:15)

Yeah, mean, look, I don't claim to be as much an expert on partner marketing as other areas of partnerships, even though I've done it in all of my roles and I've had partner marketers supporting me. ⁓ All that to say, like, I don't necessarily know where the break points are. And the reason I mention that is like, people ask like, where should partnerships in and of itself sit? And my personal opinion is most of the time until you get to a certain size, it should report to the CEO.

Um, and that's because that's the only way that that cross-functional alignment happens. That's the only way that it gets the kind of like platform that it needs. A lot of people say it should be under the CRO. It should be under the CMO. find that that creates a disconnect, um, and creates a challenge, uh, around communication up and down. Um, so when it comes to partner marketing, I've seen both. I've seen partner marketing successfully report to partnerships when partnerships also had great, like the partner leader had great.

⁓ cross-functional alignment with the marketing leader. ⁓ I will say I, I've had more success with partner marketing reporting dotted line to partnerships, but ultimately reporting up through marketing because it just allowed that, that person to have better alignment with the marketing organization. And again, leverage the resources of that organization. Cause again, like one or two partner marketers, especially if you're at a startup, like you're not going to be doing all the content. You're not going to be creating all the enablement.

You're not gonna be managing all of the events. You're gonna need the other resources on marketing to do that. And if you're coming into them as an outsider from the partnerships team, they're just not gonna be as willing to help as if you're part of their team and you're in all of their meetings and you're viewed as one of them to the extent that you can be.

Rick Currier (27:03)

So I want to bring it back to community as we look to close out here. You you mentioned community. know, leaning into community was a big part of your acceleration as a startup. I saw you recently attended Arcadia leadership experience. Just curious for you, for someone who's two years into this journey, successful startup, how important are community-based events like that for you as a business leader?

Greg Portnoy (27:27)

I mean, think the community is really valuable because we're often on an island as partnerships people or as partner marketers. We're typically parts of a small team, if not, know, kind of on an island by ourselves. And it makes it really hard to one, kind of know if what you're doing is the right way to be doing it, right? It also makes it hard to just kind of...

not have someone to, I don't want to say commiserate with, but like someone to talk through the challenges and not know if like you're the only one experiencing these challenges, which most of the time you're not. ⁓ So I think the community is super helpful because you can learn from them, you can lean on them. ⁓ And honestly, like I find it just, it's helpful to have a good pulse on the industry, right? Like again, you know, I didn't know, I didn't know what I didn't know about, about.

the broader challenges the partner teams experienced until I started doing consulting work. And I zoomed out from the companies that I was in, because when you're in one company, you just kind of laser focus on that business. And yeah, maybe you have your fellow partnership, partner managers or partner marketers or other companies that you're talking to occasionally. But again, it's a pretty small sample size. But if you can zoom out through a community, you actually can get a broader lens, which helps you both solve your problems more effectively, but also again,

Feel better about the challenges that you're experiencing.

Rick Currier (28:56)

Awesome, Greg. Well, this has been a great conversation. know you're busy. I really appreciate your time. Where should people go if they want to learn more information about Euler?

Greg Portnoy (29:04)

Yeah, follow me on LinkedIn, Greg Portnoy, or go to Eulerapp.com, E-U-L-E-R-A-P-P.com. ⁓ And yeah, if scaling partner revenue is something that is important to anybody, we're worth looking up. We'll definitely beat out any other PRMs or portals you've ever seen.

Rick Currier (29:22)

Well, I can vouch your LinkedIn feed is educational in itself. So I highly recommend following that. And Greg, thanks so much for joining. Really appreciate it.

Greg Portnoy (29:29)

Thanks for having me, Rick.