Crossbeam is a company that acts as a data escrow service that finds overlapping customers and prospects with partners while keeping the rest of your data private and secure. To learn more about the company, Pulse 2.0 interviewed Crossbeam’s VP of Ecosystem, Adam Michalski.
Adam Michalski’s Background
Michalski has been working remotely out of New York with the company for just over a year and a half. And Michalski said:
“I entered Crossbeam through an acquisition of Partnered, a tool for B2B sales teams to share customer introductions, where I was CEO and co-founder. Since acquiring Partnered, the Partnered functionality is now Crossbeam Sales Edge, enabling sales teams to understand which partners can help influence a deal directly from their account dashboards. Through Sales Edge, they can ask for an intro or get intel about their prospects to help accelerate the deal.”
“Before starting Partnered, I worked at Branch.io where I worked on the Partner Growth team and helped expand the company’s presence on the East Coast. Outside of work, I’m involved in other communities like Partnership Leaders where I’m a steering committee member and am the host of the Partnered Podcast.”
“I lead the development of Crossbeam’s partner ecosystem. This involves scoping valuable integrations, tech, and channel partnerships that benefit the 17,000 companies that use Crossbeams. We prioritize three different types of partnerships:
– Technology partners — We’ve built integrations with companies like Salesforce and Slack to help our customers use partner data in their entire go-to-market stack.
– Solutions partners — We work with agencies and consultancies to help customers implement Crossbeam for bespoke needs and advance their co-selling and co-marketing motions
– Cloud and Go-to-market (GTM) partners — think companies like AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Michalski shared:
“My favorite memory of working for Crossbeam has to be attending our Supernode Conference (ELGCon in 2024) in
San Diego this past June. Supernode is Crossbeam’s annual conference where leaders from partnerships, sales, marketing, and more come together to share the latest tactics they’re using to drive revenue, and data around the impact of their partner ecosystems, and to build long-lasting relationships. There were three talk tracks for attendees at different stages of their company’s maturity to learn what’s working (and what’s not) in B2B.”
“It was my first time in San Diego and the first major company event I attended since 2020. The conference brought many of my co-workers and colleagues together, some of whom I was meeting in person for the first time. We spent all three days surrounded by people who are passionate about partner ecosystems. Every session I attended was insightful for understanding how companies use Ecosystem-Led Growth (ELG) to improve each GTM function and drive revenue, even in a down market. Speakers shared their personal successes and led hands-on workshops where attendees learned how to leverage their ecosystems and got face time with hundreds GTM leaders. Some of the speakers included leaders at Okta, Pavilion, and Intercom, and I learned more about our partners and customer relationships than I would have remotely.”
Ecosystem-Led Growth
Could you discuss more about ecosystem-led growth? Michalski explained:
“Ecosystem-led growth (ELG) is a go-to-market motion that focuses on partner ecosystems as the primary way to attract, convert, and grow customer relationships.”
“ELG puts the customer in full focus with the mission of understanding their business needs through partners and direct customer feedback. Using this feedback, customers can invest in the integrations and services that provide their customers with the most value. Sales, marketing, customer success, and partnership teams use ELG to generate high-quality leads, accelerate sales cycles, and create more value throughout the customer lifecycle.”
“For example, a sales organization can engage a prospect faster through a warm intro from a partner, and they can get valuable intel about their prospect from their partner to shape the most compelling sales conversation. ELG positively impacts every part of the customer lifecycle, from improving win rates to driving account growth.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Michalski noted:
“Crossbeam’s core product is its Ecosystem-Led Growth (ELG) platform. The platform acts as a data escrow service that finds overlapping customers and prospects with your partners while keeping the rest of your data private and secure. Crossbeam works with critical parts of a business’s sales and marketing tech stacks and fuels the work of every GTM team.”
“Some of the primary features include real-time account mapping in Crossbeam and swapping warm intros using Crossbeam Sales Edge. On average, Crossbeam users generate high-quality leads with partners that are 53% more likely to close. Deals with partners also close 46% faster.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any specific bottlenecks in your sector of work recently? Michalski acknowledged:
“The past 12 months have been difficult for SaaS companies. The partnerships sector has been hit pretty hard with layoffs, lower budget, and fewer resources to be successful. Navigating how to manage these obstacles has been the most challenging part of the last year. Despite this, many sales leaders are looking for new strategies to drive revenue and the number one strategy sales teams are prioritizing right now is ELG and co-selling with partners. We’re excited to see how this impacts the hiring and growth of partnership teams.”
“We’re starting to see a lot of the tailwinds working in favor of our customers. I’ve noticed a lot more people hiring on the partnerships front recently. While there have been layoffs across other industries, tech companies in particular are compensating for that loss by expanding and advancing how they leverage partnerships. So in essence, a headwind is turning into a tailwind.”
Evolution Of Crossbeam’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Michalski noted:
“Selling into a mature, saturated market requires new strategies. Our newest report, The Future of Revenue, found that 89% of GTM leaders are looking to change their sales strategy. Crossbeam’s technology has evolved to accommodate this by continuously adding and developing features such as Sales Edge, Attribution, and Shared Lists. These features make it easier for GTM teams to co-sell to mutual opportunities and track influenced and sourced revenue.”
“Sales Edge can be compared to the LinkedIn Sales Navigator for ecosystems. Sales Edge is the most efficient way to accelerate deals with partner introductions. Businesses can easily contact partners and loop in anyone who needs to be involved, shortening the sales cycle on average by 46%.”
“The attribution feature allows businesses to mark when a partner has sourced or influenced a deal and pushes the data right to their Salesforce instance. Teams can also get better visibility into the activities that influence a deal with the Activity Timeline in Crossbeam, which pulls in partner mentions from sales calls using Gong, and they can report on their ecosystem’s impact with customizable performance metrics.”
“Through shared lists in Crossbeam, businesses can work collaboratively and securely with a partner on both overlapping and non-overlapping accounts to strategize exactly which accounts to target and when.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Michalski cited:
“Our Series A funding in 2019 was the first big milestone for us. Crossbeam was launched in January 2019, and we closed our Series A seven months later, raising $12.5 million.”
“Our most recent major milestone is our Series C funding of $76 million in 2021, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Crossbeam now has more than 15K customers on our platform and has 4.7 out of 5 stars and 180+ reviews on G2. Crossbeam users have described Crossbeam as a game-changer for revenue attainment, partnership management and saving hours of work a week for customers.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Michalski about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of our quickest customer success stories to date includes Okta Ventures, the Venture Capital arm of Okta. Before using Crossbeam, the Okta Ventures team worked with its portfolio companies to identify their target accounts and assess how Okta’s sales team or partner ecosystem could support deals for its
portfolio companies. At the time, their process relied on too many back-and-forth exchanges, spreadsheets, and recurring meetings. It was both inefficient and laborious.”
“This long process led Okta to use Crossbeam for secure, real-time account mapping with its portfolio companies, starting with one called Datagrail. After only two weeks of using Crossbeam, Okta Ventures had surfaced 60 ecosystem-qualified leads for its portfolio companies.”
“We have more customer success stories on our website.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Michalski pointed out:
“From a product standpoint, Crossbeam is making investments in Sales Edge to help sales teams improve their win rates using less budget and resources. Sales teams are the main beneficiaries of Crossbeam, so we’re focusing on ensuring they have partner data at their fingertips so they can drive growth.”
“From an overall go-to-market standpoint, we’re always looking to educate customers on best practices for leveraging partner data and ELG. We’re constantly publishing content on Crossbeam Insider to help revenue
leaders implement ELG and strengthen their existing strategies.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics to discuss? Michalski concluded:
“Crossbeam recently launched its Future of Revenue report in collaboration with Pavilion, a private membership organization for GTM leaders. Crossbeam asked 426 go-to-market (GTM) leaders about the challenges and opportunities they’re facing as they think about the future of their revenue. The report found that business leaders are struggling to attract new leads, close deals in their current pipeline, and overcome constrained budgets on the buyer side.”
“We found that 89% of companies are looking to change their sales strategy and are turning to relationships to do so. Ecosystem and partner-led sales strategies are the number one strategy leaders have been focusing more on over the past year.”
