Partnerships for SaaS Startups

Full Circle Insights is a B2B SaaS company founded by Bonnie Crater and three co-founders in 2012 that helps marketing teams measure and track campaign impact on pipeline and revenue. Built on the Salesforce platform with just $22,000 in initial capital and sweat equity, the company has grown to $4M ARR with 150 enterprise customers, achieving a 90% renewal rate and a six-month CAC payback period through event-driven sales and partnerships.

Matchcraft is a 20-year-old ad tech platform that helps businesses run programmatic search, display, and social campaigns across multiple channels. Operating as both a managed service (70% of revenue) and SaaS model, the company charges between 12-17% of media spend for managed services and up to 7% for SaaS. Under CEO Sandy Lowe since 2016, Matchcraft has grown to ~100 employees across 43 countries and processes over $100M in annual media spend, consistently growing at 2x the industry rate.

Christoph Jentzsch, a theoretical physicist and early Ethereum contributor, co-founded Sloc.it in 2015 to enable decentralized sharing economy through blockchain and IoT integration. After learning hard lessons from the failed DAO project, he pivoted to building software that sits on top of IoT devices (like smart locks and EV charging stations), allowing asset owners to receive payments via smart contracts. The company raised $2M in seed funding in early 2017 and deployed its solution on over 1,000 EV charging stations.

Shoppable is a SaaS platform that enables purchases from anywhere consumers discover products online by bringing checkout experiences to social media, blogs, videos, and other digital channels. Founded by Heather Marie in 2011 and officially launched in 2012, the company has grown to 20 employees in New York, 438 merchants, 2,000+ brands, and generates well over $500k per month in revenue with customers paying $10k-$90k annually.

Truebill is a free subscription management tool launched in January 2016 that helps users track, manage, and cancel recurring payments by connecting to their bank accounts. The company monetizes through affiliate partnerships and commission deals with companies like Spotify and Plated, earning money when users click recommendations or sign up for offers. By the time of this interview, Truebill had reached 50,000 total users with 10-15,000 new signups monthly, raised $1.75M in funding, and grew from $500 in first-month revenue to $4,000 in the second month.

Pear 3D is an augmented reality app that lets consumers visualize home furnishings in their actual spaces before purchasing. Founded by Andrew Commendoni in 2015, the company pivoted from a B2B architecture model to a B2C consumer model with manufacturer partnerships, generating revenue through CPM and CPC advertising. With over 2,000 products in their catalog from 15 major manufacturers and ~20,000 monthly object placements, they project $1.5M in annual revenue.

Mojio is a connected car platform launched in 2012 and backed by Deutsche Telekom and Amazon that enables existing cars to connect to the internet. Kenny Hawke, who previously took iGo public in 1999, took over as CEO in fall 2015 and has landed major contracts including rollouts with Deutsche Telekom in Europe and a North American carrier. The company operates on a revenue-share model with telecom operators and projects to have millions of units installed within 2-3 years.

Yo Shirt is a mobile app enabling users to design and order custom on-demand apparel directly from their iOS device. Founded in 2014 by Ben Williamson (former senior-level Apple engineer), the company raised $1.1M in a priced equity round in early 2015 and reached $3M in revenue by end of 2015, with projections to hit $10M in 2016. Growth was driven primarily through strategic brand partnerships (notably Fallout Boy, which generated over 1,000 units in a single tour activation) and organic marketing including Apple App Store features.

Pixie is an image optimization SaaS platform launched in 2014 by Holly Cardew that helps e-commerce merchants automatically edit and optimize product photos for multiple platforms within 24 hours. The company is self-funded with $150k in angel investment, operates with a distributed team of 16 (plus 100+ freelance designers), and is processing hundreds of thousands of images with over 7,000 customers. Holly grew the company to breakeven by 2015 and found the most explosive growth through an affiliate program that generated 1,000 signups and 70 paying customers in just three weeks.

iMoji is a sticker platform that enables users to create and share custom emojis across messaging apps. Founded by Daniel Gruselowski and Jason Stein with four other co-founders, the company raised $2M in seed funding and grew to over 1 billion impressions per month by December 2015. They monetize through partnerships with messaging apps and plan native advertising as their primary revenue model.

Cellbreaker was a venture-backed startup co-founded by Jules Hill, who joined the company as COO after graduating from a top-5 business school. The company raised approximately $50K initially and was accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator program in California, which brought an additional $100K investment. Jules eventually left the company after 2 years due to slowed growth caused by legal negotiations with cell phone carriers and potential acquisition talks, though he retains about 1% equity on a vesting schedule.

Jay Bean founded FreshLine in 2014 after leaving his Chief Strategy Officer role at Deluxe Corporation. FreshLine helps local service-based businesses attribute marketing spend to actual transactions and automatically re-engage past customers. With a couple hundred direct customers paying $150-400/month, FreshLine is projected to hit $250K in the first full year, with plans to scale to $4-5M through partner relationships.

Syed Balkhi bootstrapped a billion-dollar portfolio empire centered on WordPress and related SaaS products without raising external capital. His strategy leverages what Andrew Wilkinson calls 'barnacle on the whale'—becoming deeply embedded in growing ecosystems like WordPress, QuickBooks, and Xero. His portfolio now generates over $100M in annual revenue and includes investments in companies like Seahawk Media (productized WordPress development services) and positions in open-source projects.

Sam Ratner dropped out of University of Missouri at 18 to build a mobile-first sports betting platform, recognizing that legalization would transform the U.S. gaming market. He built the company from credit cards and savings from a high school snow removal business, secured partnerships with the NBA and MLB as an authorized gaming operator, and sold the platform to Fubo TV for $40 million at age 23—before it even launched. Since then, he's explored numerous unconventional investments including purchasing a decommissioned riverboat casino and deeply analyzing a vending machine business.

Cherry is a browser extension that helps accommodation businesses get direct bookings by showing customers better deals when they search on travel sites like Expedia and Booking.com. In four months, they onboarded nearly 1,000 partner properties across Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, with plans to launch in the US with 20,000 properties by November. They charge hotels a performance fee of $10/month plus $0.79 per click, significantly cheaper than the 30% commissions charged by major OTAs.

Corebook is a collaborative online brand guidelines platform founded by Janis Verzemnieks to replace static PDF brand guidelines. The company achieved traction through design award recognition, direct personal outreach, and strategic partnerships—notably with The Futur, which drove 30% revenue growth in one week and generated 29K YouTube views. Corebook now serves unicorn brands like Miro and GoPuff, growing 20% month-over-month.

Crabi is Mexico's first full-stack auto insurance startup, founded in 2017 by Javier Orozco, Arnoldo de la Torre, and Cristina Carvallo. After grinding for 2+ years to obtain their government insurance license, they launched in May 2019 and grew to over 10,000 policy holders through partnerships with online aggregators and organic SEO, achieving 110% year-over-year revenue growth. The company has raised over $8M in funding (including a $4M Series A from Kaszek Ventures, Tuesday Capital, and Redwood Ventures) and now operates with 50+ team members.

CuriousCheck is a software finder platform for small businesses that aggregates reviews from multiple sources and uses an interactive advisor tool to recommend the best business software based on company size, industry, and expert questions. Launched in January 2020, Carlos faced significant technical challenges with React SEO optimization but pivoted to WordPress, gaining 80+ partner businesses in the first 3 months through direct outreach and strategic partnerships. The platform offers free listings with premium features like national SEO and video ads, requiring a 3.5+ online reputation score for inclusion.

Bluetik.io is a cold and warm email follow-up SaaS tool built by Mike Taber, a former co-host of Startup for the Rest of Us. After nearly a year of working behind the scenes on a potential partnership with a complementary field sales CRM product, Mike is now exploring a 3-4 month trial partnership that could lead to merger, tight integration, or a "done for you" service offering Bluetik to the CRM's existing customer base. The company operates on a $50-$500/month subscription model and is currently evaluating an AppSumo deal while managing recurring annual Google security audits.