Ecosystems, Trust Halos, the “Build to Us” Chasm, and why Left Hook is your next ELG Partner
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TL;DR: Ecosystem-led growth (ELG) is the hot thing for software leaders in search of profitable, efficient growth (i.e. post-ZIRP reality).
Yet many companies struggle to attract new tech partners, because building integrations is still too damn painful.
Today Left Hook is announcing free tools to help software companies expand their ecosystems faster.
If you already speak “ELG,” skip to our announcement.
Or read on for the broader context.
Ecosystem-Led Growth Explained
In software-speak, your company’s “ecosystem” is the cast of characters aligned in mutual success.
Make a list of invitees to your annual conference, and there's your "ecosystem:" customers, employees, consultants, affiliates, implementers, trainers, and other software companies/products that integrate to/with you.
Many of these constituencies are also considered partners. (Side commentary: conflate “customer” or “employee” with “partner” at your peril.)
Let’s classify partners into two species: Service Partners and Tech Partners.
Left Hook’s focus (and today’s announcement) is all about tech partnerships.
And as we like to quip: “No Tech, No Partnership.”
Left Hook puts the tech in tech partnerships. We help software companies build a foundational integration, on top of which two GTM teams can create deeper valu via your "trust halos."
Platform Status & Trust Halos
Stubborn facts:
- Enterprise SaaS customers expect good integrations and will pay higher prices for them
- Integrations are expensive and painful to scale
- Long-term maintenance compounds this pain
The keyword here is "integration pain." And because of that pain, most companies are eager to reach “Platform Status."
"Platform Status" is the moment when a company believes it can force most prospective partners to build an integration TO their "platform."
Their message: “Our ecosystem's attention is so valuable, now you have to build to us.”
In the attention economy, enterprise buyers judge software vendors by the company they keep.
As soon as it can, your company will try to claim “platform status." When your ecosystem's attention is so valuable that prospective partners choose to shoulder the integration pain- just to stand next to you in the class picture.
They know (hopefully) that their integration needs to be useful enough to earn your shine.
Unlocking “platform status” should be an inflection moment. The more quality tech partners who “build to you,” the more their collective trust halos shine back on you.
“Platform status” is a fulcrum. It’s “build it and they will come.”
And if done right, you unload integration pain on to them.
But achieving “platform status” is hard and slow.
To begin, casting an attractive trust halo only happens once you have acquired a meaningful customer base- and only if your customers respect your choice of friends.
Partners will want to leverage this trust halo, either directly (i.e. co-selling and referrals), or co-marketing (blogging, emails, conference talks, etc.)
It also requires building platform assets. Well-tested APIs, crisp docs, an integration directory, and probably a partnership manager to cultivate and support prospective partners.
None of these assets are easy or cheap; the minimum quality bar requires a considerable engineering investment.
Left Hook interacts with hundreds of companies that think they’ve reached “platform status. And their trust halos shine bright.
But their API docs and partnership program details scream “painful" and "uncertain ROI ahead."
The "Build to Us" Chasm
Recall why your were in a hurry to unlock “platform status” in the first place:
Integrations are expensive and painful to scale. Long-term maintenance compounds this pain
To unburden your team and to grow more efficiently, you wanted to shift integration pain back onto smaller shoulders.
But if integrations are painful for you now, remember what it was like in the earlier days!
Can your trust halo justify a partner's integration pain? And who makes that judgement?
Behind every excited partner manager is a skeptical engineer. They know that integration pain compounds faster than partnership gain.
Maybe your trust halo is too bright to ignore.
But more likely, the “shine-to-pain” ratio is too risky, especially if you won’t guarantee them some special light.
Your prospective partners stare at the “build to us” chasm and:
Hierarchy of Tech Partner “Needs”
Most “platform status” companies endeavor to satisfy four tech partner “needs:”
- Robust APIs that achieve use cases important to mutual users
- Clear documentation
- A transparent listing process
- Reasonable expectations for if/how your integration will be promoted
In our view, these four “needs” are required but not sufficient.
We frequently interact with platforms boasting bright trust halos but which think they've nailed these first four "needs."
They still fail to convince most promising partners to cross their “build to us” chasm.
Trust halos are inherently reciprocal; tech partnerships are virtuous cycles that compound value over time.
But integration pain compounds faster than partnership gain.
To help promising tech partners cross the "build to us" chasm, your platform needs a strong 1-4.
And then more.
To really accelerate tech partner growth, your platform should fulfill two additional “needs:"
- An off-the-shelf, customizable open source code “starting point”
- Experts ready to support (or perform) the integration pain
Mega-platforms like Salesforce and Google have these nailed, and their ecosystems thrive.
If you’ve read this far, you probably aren’t Google or Salesforce (yet).
To help your promising partners NOW, leverage a different kind of partner.
One who puts the tech in "tech partnerships" for you.
Frigg v1: Unlock Your Tech Partnerships
Announcing the new Create Frigg App!
Frigg jumpstarts integration development.
Its a free and customizable integration framework that reduces integration pain.
Frigg provides a templated backend microservice, an optional frontend, and a library of prebuilt connectors that accelerates integration to major platforms like HubSpot, Asana, Crossbeam, Deel, Salesforce, and more.
Frigg v1 ships with loads of integration features like user authentication, bulk syncing, webhook handling, and in-app UIs.
Frigg is free- zero cost and freely customizable. It's open source code licensed under the permissive MIT License.
Developers start an integration on the fifty yard line after simply running an NPM package.
Today Left Hook is announcing a major upgrade to Create Frigg App (CFA), a dead simple way for engineers to experience Frigg locally within minutes.
Ask your engineers to take CFA for a test drive by simply running an NPM command. (Tutorial here)
Your dev will see Frigg's code running locally with a live connection to HubSpot in 20m or less.
Your platform can refer Frigg as a way to more easily "build to you."
Assuming we agree to a referral partnership, Left Hook will create a branded Frigg package optimized to your specific platform specs- for free.
Contact Tom Elliott to discuss.
An Expert Team on Demand
Frigg itself is free, free, and free- free to you, free to your prospective partners, and freely customizable.
But "starting point" code alone may not be enough to get promising partners across your “build to us" chasm.
Refer Left Hook as an expert guide to your ecosystem. We’ll “go deep” to understand your APIs, your listing process, your priorities and program nuances.
We'll help your potential partners and meet them where they are at. We offer a wide range of Frigg-centric services, from implementation consulting, customization, and full scope builds. We also host integrations. And we build frontend UIs and backend monitoring.
Left Hook wants to maintain and improve their integration as well, to help your partners unlock lasting ecosystem value over the long-term.
We offer creative pricing models to lower upfront dev costs, and we’ll move mountains to get an MVP built in weeks.
Using Frigg v1, we’re ready to partner for a 4-way win:
- Other companies “build to you” faster
- You get well-built integrations and excited partners
- Mutual customers benefit from more/better integration options
- Left Hook gets your referrals
Referrals from platforms like Zapier, HubSpot, Connectwise, and Deel built Left Hook. And with the release of Frigg v1, we're ready to scale.
Contact us today to get a win-win-win-win on your board this fall.
May your "trust halo" shine brighter with Left Hook- better together.
About the Author
Tom Elliott
Tom is the Co-Founder and CEO of Left Hook. Read more about Tom on:
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