Pax8 held its inaugural Beyond event this week in Denver, and the critical announcement was the next generation of its cloud distribution marketplace.
The idea — acquire end-customers via its vendor partners. Quoting Channel E2E.
SaaS vendors typically have contact forms on their websites to capture information from potential direct SMB end-customers. But it’s not normally cost-effective for vendors to work directly with SMBs. Pax8 will work with vendors to replace those fill forms with a “Buy Now” button that will enable Pax8 to collect customer information. Then, an AI-driven matching system on the back end will match customer buyers to MSPs. Both customers and MSPs will have the ability to swipe left or right to choose or reject a potential match.
Chief Technology Officer Scott Chasin said at the event, “The next generation of business owners and born-in-the-cloud entrepreneurs will look to SaaS vendors directly.”
Pax8 CEO John Street said in a press conference on Sunday that there’s a cost to vendors for onboarding and servicing new customers. The MSPs are in a position to consolidate procurement of these products. Pax8 enables vendors to do business with the SMB portion of the market.
Additionally, the marketplace will allow providers to import customer data from their RMM and PSA tools into a new tool called Opportunity Explorer. “This lets you see the data from across your full portfolio of customers in one simple-to-understand view,” said Chasin.
This feels like half the solution and, notably, the second half.
Their premise – SMB customers buy all the SaaS components individually by shopping for them on vendor sites, so Pax8 wiggles in between that to be the buy button. The biggest challenge is that this system adds friction to the buying process. Think Tinder for providers – customers will be swiping right to connect. How often will they swipe left, and is that friction worth it? What happens when that vendor starts analyzing the spending they watch flow through that button, noting the swipe-left behaviors?
What’s the other half? If you believe technology is bought via the technology advisor, as I do, the buy now button could have been placed on providers’ sites first. Eliminate that swipe-left friction, power providers to become e-commerce agents, and have trackable data for the entire channel. A buy now on a provider’s website could auto-provision all of those SaaS solutions – and bring some real value in bundling.
If I were Pax8, I would have started with the one that leans into providers, following today’s buying cycle, not the future buying cycle. Of course, they didn’t ask me. I’ll note that this is likely an AND, not an OR. They can implement both, but order does matter.