This document provides an overview of an upstream marketing strategy called Upstream 2.0. It discusses the downsides of traditional downstream marketing for cloud/SaaS companies and outlines an alternative upstream approach. The key aspects of this approach are developing a "platformula" by targeting partnerships with major vendors to close gaps and distribute through their customer bases, leveraging alpha vendors' rivalry and ecosystems, and taking a "chief market hacker" role to lead business development and thought leadership efforts. The goal is to reduce marketing spend by piggybacking on partners' existing customers and driving adoption of one's product through partnerships.

1. Upstream 2.0A Primer for Chief Market Hackers
©2013 Joseph Bentzel: All Rights Reserved

2. Upstream 2.0 Overview
1. Downstream Marketing Downside
2. Upstream Marketing Upside
3. Superpower Pattern
4. XaaS Economy Opportunity
5. Partner ‘Distribution @ the Core’
6. Asymmetric Landscapes, Alpha Rivalry
7. Platformula Development
8. BizDevOps Team Process
9. Three Dimensional Thought Leadership
10. CMO vs ‘Chief Market Hacker’

3. 1. Downstream Marketing Downside
 When you sketch out that lean startup business
plan, downstream marketing seems a slam dunk
 But for cloud & ‘anything-as-a-service’ players,
SEM/Display/Video/Email/Social/Mobile customer
acquisition initiatives are costly to execute
 Not to mention the fixed expense of building an
inside sales prospect ‘nurturing’ team
 Or ‘pivoting’ to chase the latest FOMO tactic that’s
the marketing buzz on social media
 FACT: Even post-IPO SaaS ‘marketing
automation’ providers burn 65+% of revenue
on sales & marketing spend & headcount
 So be well-funded, well-staffed and patient, or ...
 Consider an UPSTREAM strategy
Downstream
Markets of 1

4. 2. Upstream Marketing Upside
• Upstream strategists see the marketing
challenge from a different perspective
• Asymmetric Market Landscapes: Upstream
marketers capitalize on alpha vendor dominance
...and rivalry
• Alpha Vendor Roadmap Gaps: Upstream
marketers close them through sticky partnerships
• Alpha Vendor Customer Bases: Upstream
marketers engage them through ‘distribution @ the
core’ of alpha partner offerings
• Alpha Vendor Marketing Spend: Upstream
marketers piggyback on it & coopt it
• Alpha Vendor Ecosystems: Upstream marketers
symbiotically position themselves to co-evolve
Simply put.....Upstream marketers excel at
‘market hacking’ incumbent centers of market
gravity to grow their businessesUpstream Advantage

5. 3. The Superpower Pattern
 Many leading vendors were upstream
marketers in their startup phase---We
call it the ‘Superpower Pattern’
 Microsoft: MS/IBM PC DOS OEM deal
 Google: Google/Yahoo search deal
 RedHat: RHEL/Server Bundling
deals with Compaq, Dell, HP, etc.
 SP is a lifecycle model jump-started
through sticky ‘distribution @ the core’
of alpha partner offerings
 Downstream TALC irrelevant to model
 Pattern spans categories & waves
 Upstream market hacking yields ‘alpha
DNA inheritance’ from Partner 1
 DNA inheritance from alpha Partner 1
attracts more upstream partners

6. 4. XaaS Economy, Upstream Opportunity
• Cloud/mobile distributed architectures are the
new normal & ideal for upstream partnering
• Plug/play functionality as building blocks &
ingredients inside an anywhere stack
• Anything-as-a-service or XaaS is exploding
• XaaS superpowers being born UPSTREAM
• Database-as-a-service
• Monitoring-as-a-service
• Backend-as-a-service
• Analytics-as-a-service
• SSO-as-a-service
• Security-as-a-service
• Integration-as-a-service . . . .
• XaaS innovators can leverage multiple forms of
‘sticky partnering’ to drive upstream traction

7. 5. Partner Distribution @ the Core
 Here are 10 common sticky partnering or upstream Distribution @ the Core approaches
 XaaS innovators mix/match APIs, cloud marketplace add-ons, open source distros, OEM white
label editions & more----Get plugged in & baked in as ‘ingredients’ in the anywhere stack
 When upstream market hackers close functionality gaps in alpha vendor offerings through
sticky partnering, they activate Superpower Pattern effects that drive growth & opportunity

8. 6. Alpha Rivalry & Upstream Opportunity
 Upstream strategists use alpha vendor rival agendas as opportunity GPS for
Distribution @ the Core deal targeting---Think of it as ‘hackscape’ GPS
 Let’s review the public cloud wars as a ‘rival agendas’ reference case
 Catalyze: Amazon ‘market hacks itself’ with inside/out innovation. AWS self-service pay for use computing----
Catalyzes lower cost ‘rogue IT’ developer innovation wave
 Colonize: VMware moving from dominant position in adjacent virtualization category into public cloud & SDN
 Contain: Oracle, Microsoft & others seek to defend installed base against defection to self-service IT
 Combine: HP, RedHat, Rackspace etc. unite in OpenStack corporate alliance for ‘open cloud’
 Gaming alpha vendor rivalry can jumpstart upstream sticky partnering
Rival Alpha AgendasUpstream GPS

9. 7. Platformula
 Code hackers build platforms
 Market hackers build platformulas
 A platformula is a converged product/
partner roadmap for sticky partnering
& upstream market adoption
 Superpower Pattern applied to XaaS
economy startups, i.e. partner
readiness ‘baked in’ to product spec
 Alpha rivalry & alpha gaps drive
partner opportunity targeting and
partner engagement
 Distribution @ the Core focused
 Partner incentive formula critical
 Superset of an MVP approach---
higher adoption standards w/partners

10. 8. Platformula Process & BizDevOps
 Platformula development is NOT a siloed process---Business development, partner
marketing, product management, product marketing converge in a ‘BizDevOps’ team
 BizDevOps team ‘owns’ the 4-step platformula requirements document process
 Product Specification: Gaps in alpha partner offerings drive ‘build/buy’ decisions & serve
as starting point for product management innovation in platform spec
 Partner Targets: Partner marketing scans partner ‘attach surface’ for lowest friction path
to partnering. Leverage alpha landscape rivalry for opportunity detection & engagement
 Packaging: Product marketing determines which sticky Distribution @ the Core options
are right for productizing partner engagement and go-to-market velocity, e.g. API,
marketplace XaaS add-on, OEM white label, etc.
 Partner Incentives/Monetization: BizDev determines what is needed to incent partner
adoption and monetization during engagement process. “Supertail model” optimal (partner
revenue a multiple of your revenue)

11. 9. Three Dimensional Thought Leadership
• Content marketing is different for upstream
marketers
• Upstream marketers rely on thought leadership to
evangelize their XaaS innovations & platformulas
• They craft and creatively promote 3D Value
propositions that show:
• How their partners win
• How their partners’ customers & users win
• How they themselves win through powering
their platformula
• Upstream marketing thought leadership is
operationalized via programs targeting developers
and business leaders inside alpha partners
• 3D thought leadership rejects cloud-washing & spin
in favor of deep content & alpha partner domain
expertise
• Remember: Your first alpha partner deal
instantiates the Superpower Pattern

12. 10. CMO vs. ‘Chief Market Hacker’
• CMOs are downstream marketers
• XaaS innovators need an upstream
‘Chief Market Hacker’ (CMH)
• CMH owns the upstream partner
strategy & XaaS platformula
• Leads the converged BizDevOps team
• Streetsmart in B2D, B2D2C, B2D2B
• Understands the power of Distribution
@ the Core in building market leaders
• Domain knowledge of alpha vendors &
rival strategies drives the 3-D value
prop & thought leadership
• Builds ecosystem measured on
upstream partner adoption
• Reduces sales & marketing spend vs.
downstream modelsChief Market Hacker

13. Upstream 2.0: Self-Assessment Questions
For SaaS, XaaS & Cloud Technology Innovators:
Do you have an upstream marketing strategy, partner platformula, & Chief
Market Hacker to drive sticky partnering ‘@ the core’ of alpha vendor
offerings & ecosystems?
Would you like to reduce your marketing spend on downstream digital
marketing initiatives and programs?
Is your marketing team too siloed? Would you like to converge your team
along the lines of BizDevOps & bake partner-readiness into your organization?
Are you delivering ‘3-dimensional’ thought leadership in your content
marketing programs?

14. About Platformula Group
Upstream strategic market hacking services provider
Founded by Joseph Bentzel, author of ‘Asymmetric Marketing’
For Startups: Upstream Strategy & Partner Market Hacking Advisory
For Growth-Stage Players: Platformula Development & BizDevOps Support
For Content Marketers: 3-Dimensional Thought Leadership Creation
Web: http://platformulagroup.com
Twitter: @Platformula1
Email: joe@platformulagroup.com
©2013 Joseph Bentzel: All Rights Reserved