Introducing Aaron Bailey, Co-founder and CEO of Builtfirst
Sara Lindquist:
I'm Sara Lindquist from Fuse. We're an early stage venture firm based right here in the Pacific Northwest. And just like the founders in our portfolio, we are just getting started. We believe that founders deserve more. More urgency, more community, more expertise, more reliability - more of everything. And we aim to deliver. Join me as I introduce each of our portfolio
companies in the Fuse family to date.
Today you'll hear from Aaron Bailey, co-founder and CEO of Builtfirst. Join us as we fire through a few topics about the business, how it's been going and growing and how Builtfirst
is transforming partnership ecosystems, and the way SaaS subscriptions are discovered and purchased.
Let's get started!
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Sara:
It's great to be with you, Aaron!
Aaron:
Thanks for having me.
Sara:
Well, I'm excited for you to share a bit about your story and about the Builtfirst journey. So to kick things off, it would be great if you could just share a quick overview, about what the company is and how it serves its customers.
Aaron:
Builtfirst is transforming how B2B SaaS and services are discovered and purchased. So we serve three user types: buyers, sellers, and partners. And we build a marketplace platform where partners and communities can launch a white-labelled Marketplace of curated vendors for their audience. So you got to think, B2B buyers are relying more than ever now on their
community and network to reach vendor selection. That could be a VC, their lawyer, an accountant, community of industry leaders, et cetera. So 71% reach vendor selection after a digital only journey, 70% are open to buying solutions in excess of $50,000 without talking to a salesperson. That's a big shift in B2B buyer behavior. And these sellers are looking for strategies to respond to that shift and insert themselves natively into that customer journey. So, for mature SaaS companies going to market, 50% to 80% of new business is attributed to the partnership channel.
We fundamentally believe that partners are centers of gravity for buyer intent, and we're building commercial infrastructure to help them leverage that influence. In the future, vendors will be able to programmatically execute a marketplace strategy through our network of community and partner-owned marketplaces. And today we have just over 150
marketplaces live for communities like Endeavor, StartOut, and Operators Guild - and VCs like, Menlo Ventures, Foundry Group and Encore Capital - and service providers like, Company Combo. And my company works in TechNexus. And then 1400+ vendors selling through these marketplaces like: HubSpot, AWS, Salesforce, Stripe, those types, the response from the market has been really awesome.
Sara:
Congrats on that by the way. Talk about some momentum and filling an acute pain point! It's really exciting. And so Aaron, walk me back in time a little bit. Obviously you've had experience in the space, and you've seen it from many different angles; from the investor side, being in the partnership space directly, and now as an entrepreneur. When did you first know that you needed to build Builtfirst?
Aaron:
So a bit of background on me. Before Builtfirst, I ran strategic corporate partnerships at 500 Startups. Part of my role was building out that "perk book" of discounts, that a lot of VCs and Accelerators offer to their portfolio companies. We had about 3000+ companies that we had invested in at that time. I built that perk book from about 40 to about 220 vendors by the
time I left. And at the same time, worked really intimately with these partnership teams at some of the largest SaaS companies in the world. And realized a few things, one, as I mentioned before, it was a huge insight that 50 to 80% of new business is being driven by the partner channel at these top SaaS companies. And two, everyone is building the exact same ecosystem of partners from scratch per industry, per geo. And number three, there's no
existing infrastructure or platform or playbook for these vendor channel teams to plug into.
And you know, the startup ecosystem is where we started out given our background. And we know that it'll soon be our smallest ecosystem that we'll offer access to... There have been so many different communities and vendors in the much larger SMB ecosystem that are onboarding organically. The market opportunity is really enormous for us.
Sara:
Clearly, if there's ever a person to build what you're building, it's you and the team you've assembled around you. So remind me how big is the team right now?
Aaron:
Six down in Uruguay coding, and six up in the US.
Sara:
Got it. That's right. And so Aaron, I'm curious, in your words, how would you articulate - why do you think that your team is uniquely positioned to build what you're building? I'm going to be using the word "build" a lot today, aren't I? Build, built!
Aaron:
Yeah, right!
Aaron:
One of the things we heard over and over from investors when we started to fundraise, was that the founder-market fit or the team-market fit was spot on. I met Michael, my co-founder at 500 Startups, one of the largest VC accelerators in the world. And we both worked closely with founders and vendors, and then played a big role in supporting and accelerating a
procurement process. Michael went on to another VC, that focused on supply chain logistics and E-comm infrastructure. He's also an ex-intelligence specialist from the Marines, so his hustle is unmatched. We brought Jared on recently on the go-to-market side, he's taken two companies, PandaDoc and Drift from zero to double digit millions in revenue. He attributes part of his success to the ecosystem of partners that he built, and has a number one podcast in partnerships, called PartnerUp - so shout out to that! And then our Head of Engineering, Jailen, was a leader in the ERP and E-comm software team at Oracle. The team's background really feels tailor-made to solve this problem, which is awesome.
Sara:
You're not kidding! Yea, that's a stellar team you've assembled there... Ok, it doesn't have to be one word, but if you had to pick one word or a few words to describe your team culture - it's early on, but being the leader at the helm - how would you articulate the culture you want to build? What would be something that defines it?
Aaron:
I'd say it's defined really by resilience. That'd be the word that I'd pick, but a close second would be - we recently codified our mission, vision values, and one of those values was, "fast and world-class." The idea that you can move fast and expect a level of excellence. I really love that about us.
Sara:
I love that. And so Aaron, my next question for you is about the startup journey at large. So being a founder and a leader of a company is hard work and comes with all sorts of challenges and rewards. But I'm curious, what has kept you going along the path? Even at moments where it's perhaps been challenging and others might have thrown in the towel, what really keeps you going?
Aaron:
The thing that kept Michael and I going most in the beginning, was really talking to the buyers on our platform. It was a lot of startups and SMBs of all sizes, really trying to live out the American dream. Our platform was known for providing discounts on SaaS and services, that you couldn't really find anywhere else at that time. We aggregated them and we'd save these companies hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was really energizing. But today I'd say the same word that I'd used, "the team really has a culture of resilience." Who's insane enough to start a company during a pandemic. Michael's background as a Marine with endless hustle has just been amazing for me. My wife has really been my rock. Overall, we feel really lucky to be at the right place at the right time. We just get the sense that the market is begging for a solution - for this ecosystem infrastructure that allows B2B SaaS and services to be discovered and purchased. How buyers today want to discover and purchase them. That really feels like our time.
Sara:
That's really good perspective. It's all about resilience and who you surround yourself with. Right?
Aaron:
Totally.
Sara:
...On the court and off the court, in the business outside of the business. And then just really having that customer obsession and seeing that you can really make a difference and fundamentally change something at a macro macro scale. So that's really cool. Kudos to you for forging on and thank you for building this! Really excited about it. So in closing here, I have one final question for you. What right now, do you need more of? How can any listeners
tuning in help or get involved?
Aaron:
If you have a company or a community or a newsletter or anything like that, and you're regularly making recommendations or endorsements for different SaaS or service providers. We'd love to talk to you aaron@builtfirst.com. Just email me directly a-a-r-o-n @builtfirst.com. So that's the first thing. Second thing is we're hiring, so a head of marketing right now, and then a UX/UI designer at the moment. Or If you have any given RECs, reach out - we're definitely onto something pretty special here.
Sara:
Awesome. I think so too. Well, thank you so much, Aaron. Really appreciate you sharing a bit about the story and that's spending some time hanging out with me and we're just so excited for what you're doing and grateful to be a part of the journey. So, onward my friend!
Aaron:
Thank you, thank you Sara!
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Sara:
If you or anyone, you know has interest in digitizing and automating their business partnership strategy, Builtfirst can help. We at Fuse are happy to get you in touch, or like Aaron said, feel free to reach out to him directly. Also, be sure to check out the company's job postings, which you can find right here on the Fuse website.
Thanks for listening! We'll see you on the next one.