How CRO Matt Braley Built a Multi-Million Dollar Alliance Ecosystem at InvoiceCloud
Introducing the VECTOR framework
Most revenue leaders make a critical mistake when pursuing strategic partnerships: they treat alliances as side projects rather than enterprise-level sales motions. This oversight helps explain why, despite initial excitement and perhaps even a very exciting press release, so many partnerships ultimately become what Matt Braley calls "paper partnerships" – all promise, zero results.
I recently sat down with Matt Braley, who scaled InvoiceCloud from $500K to $170M in ARR, culminating in a $4B acquisition by Vista Partners. During his tenure, Matt grew their alliance ecosystem from 15 to 50 partners, which generating over half of the company's bookings. These weren't just referral relationships or marketplace listings – they were true technical alliances with joint go-to-market motions that created significant competitive advantages.
What Matt shared completely transformed how I think about alliances, and it might do the same for you. This episode might be one of the best tactical guides out there for building a partner program.
When Strategic Alliances Make Sense (And When They Don't)
Before diving into execution, Matt emphasized the importance of determining whether alliances are right for your business. Contrary to popular belief, not every company should pursue technical alliances. They tend to work best when:
You have higher ACVs ($40K+): The investment required makes this approach less viable for SMB-focused companies with lower price points.
You're in vertical SaaS or have vertical go-to-market motions: This creates natural partnership opportunities with companies serving the same customer base.
Your product is sufficiently differentiated: Partners need to see clear value in your offering that isn't easily replicable internally.
You have enterprise-length sales cycles: Alliances help accelerate deals by starting you at step three of a seven-step sales process through warm introductions.
Matt notes that SMB-focused vertical SaaS companies often struggle with alliances because "there's less product complexity. There's more of a tendency and ability to create a product or platform that can serve all the needs of that end of the market."
The VECTOR Framework: Running Alliance Opportunities
Matt introduced a powerful framework he developed specifically for this conversation. The VECTOR framework (trademark pending 😉) provides a systematic approach to evaluating and sourcing potential alliances; similar to how MEDDIC helps qualify enterprise sales opportunities:
V - Value
What has to be true to unlock value for you? Define your minimum threshold for success.
What's the value for your partner? Understand their motivations and business objectives.
Why does the market care? Ensure your joint offering creates a "1+1=3" outcome for customers.
E - Economics
Why does each side care at every level of the organization? From executives to frontline employees. This seems to be a common gap.
Frontline alignment is critical: "AEs or CSMs have to be incentivized to do something outside their normal daily motion."
Answer the question: "Why is this going to help you hit quota?"
C - Co-Selling Motion
Define how you'll get into accounts together through regular account mapping.
Establish willingness to commit to marketing activities (user groups, webinars, customer dinners etc.).
Create mechanisms for your teams to communicate regularly.
T - Technical Integration
Determine if a basic API exchange suffices or if you need deep product embedding.
Match the level of integration to the size of the opportunity.
Consider implications if the partner has competing functionality.
O - Organizational Commitment
Identify champions and economic buyers on the partner side.
Test for willingness to commit to QBRs for tracking results.
Verify readiness to train and certify go-to-market teams.
R - Results & Metrics
Establish shared definitions of success with contractual KPIs.
Create a regular cadence for reviewing progress.
Build mechanisms to adjust incentives based on performance.
This framework helps you rigorously evaluate alliance opportunities and avoid the common trap of the sunk cost fallacy, where you continue investing in partnerships that aren't delivering results.
The Most Important Question of All
Perhaps the most valuable insight Matt shared was his approach to evaluating the economic case for alliances:
"What would be the cost of getting this by myself? If there's these 500 customers we want to go get, what would it cost? What would be the resource investment for us to just go it alone? And then what would be the cost and resource investment to do it with the partnership?"
Many companies fail to conduct this analysis thoroughly, leading to partnerships that don't deliver enough incremental value to justify the investment. I’ve seen sunk cost fallacy at work myself here. It’s extremely difficult to walk away from a partnership opportunity after 6 months of exploration and diligence. The decision to walk away from a mediocre partnership is arguably more important than the decision to pursue a good one because bandwidth is so limited for these major relationships.
Walking away takes incredible discipline and courage.
Tapping Into the Partner's Organization
The VECTOR framework emphasizes organizational alignment at all levels. When I asked about pitfalls, Matt highlighted that "a lot of partnerships get stuck at the executive level and die in the field."
To prevent this, you need to:
Engage frontline teams: Understand how they'll be incentivized to help you.
Validate with leadership: Ensure executives will drive accountability.
Create multi-threaded relationships: Build connections across departments, including often-overlooked functions like marketing.
Matt shared a tactical success story: "We had a ton of success going to the user groups around the country of our partners. We would buy lunch for the user group, get a 30-minute speaking spot, and then sign people up for discovery calls while at the meeting. That ended up being a huge driver of top-of-funnel."
Building an Alliance Pipeline
Matt recommends a two-pronged approach to alliance development:
Bottom-up: Have SDRs and AEs target end users of potential partners to generate demand.
Top-down: Have your partner leader engage with executives at potential partner companies.
"In an ideal world, you have customers of that potential partner that are so excited about your product that they're willing to help you go to the executives at the partner and say, 'You guys should work with this company.'"
The Long Game of Alliance Success
One of the most sobering insights was the timeline for alliance success. Unlike direct sales where you see immediate revenue upon closing, alliances often take 12-24 months after signature before delivering meaningful results. 😬
I shared my own experience with a major food distributor partnership that took multiple months after signature to begin implementation, and another few months before seeing material closed-won deals. It’s now a major channel but patience was certainly required.
Matt confirmed this is typical: "I haven't seen any partnerships take off in less time than you just described. They're always the long game."
This long timeline makes the initial business case analysis even more critical. If the choice between going direct or via a partner is close, direct will almost always be faster and more certain.
The Enterprise Sales Mindset
The thread running through our entire conversation was the need to apply enterprise sales discipline to alliance development:
"The best reps are brutally honest with themselves and constantly inspect their own pipeline, only spending time on the deals that have a real chance of closing," Matt noted.
This ruthless qualification mindset is even more important for alliances, where the potential waste of resources can be enormous.
Final Thoughts
Strategic alliances can become a powerful growth engine and competitive moat when executed properly, but they require significant organizational commitment and a long-term view.
As Matt put it: "If it's close between getting there on your own and what you think you can get doing it with a partner, it's probably going to make more sense to do it on your own."
For those who determine alliances are right for them, the VECTOR framework provides a systematic approach to qualifying opportunities and avoiding the all-too-common "paper partnerships" that consume resources without delivering results.