SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Coro Announces $100m Live on the Show, Their Partnership Playbook
28 May 2024
Chapter 1: What announcement did Coro make during this episode?
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We hired him as our CRO. He looked at our plan and he said, you guys are nuts. We expect to end this year at around $100 million, and we're building a billion-dollar ARR company. So first, an announcement. So if you were here during Nathan's session, he mentioned that I have a big announcement to make.
Chapter 2: How is Coro achieving explosive growth through a channel-first strategy?
And because the SAS Open stage is where you break big news, I'm here to tell you that this morning at 6 AM, we announced a $100 million D round led by OnePeak out of London. So I need you to do something for me. I'm going to speak to the camera. This is a shout out to One Peak and David Klein and his team. Thank you for believing in us. Give it up for them. Thank you.
So I am going to talk about something that is a little unusual for most startup founders. And this is all about channel-first strategy. How many of you have a channel program in place?
Chapter 3: What challenges did Coro face in transitioning to a channel-first model?
OK. How many of you have a successful channel program in place? Cool. very much a minority. So the entire storyline today is going to be about how we went from OK growth to explosive growth by leveraging the channel. So first of all, let's start with the session. So one, you can't skip direct. We'll talk about that. Not all channel partners are alike.
And of course, the right channel is what we call a force multiplier.
Chapter 4: What is the significance of a modular cybersecurity platform?
So this is the Coro revenue growth year over year. We've been growing 300% year over year for the last three years straight. This year, we expect anywhere between 200% to 300% growth over last year again. The numbers are becoming very large, so those leaps are becoming very difficult. So we expect to end this year at around $100 million, and we're building a billion-dollar ARR company
in the cybersecurity space. I should have said, Coro is the world's first and only modular cybersecurity platform that is targeting the mid-market. So if you look at cybersecurity in general, the entire industry is either focused, there's about 2,700 vendors. They're either focused on the enterprise market or they're focused on the consumer market.
Chapter 5: How did Coro's product evolve to meet market demands?
And really what they're trying to do is they're trying to shove an enterprise product down a mid-market company's throat or a consumer product down an SMB's throat. And we came to the table and we said, enough of that. We're going to build something that is unique to this market and target this market in a way nobody else has. So we've built a product from scratch.
It's a SaaS product that cover basically all aspects of cybersecurity that a mid-market company might need. So as you can tell, in 2019, we had a very respectable zero revenue. And we've grown since then very aggressively, including during COVID, including during all kinds of conflicts, and so forth and so on. So when we launched the product, it was cybersecurity for SMBs. So we literally
Chapter 6: What are the benefits of building a strong channel partner program?
went into a dark room and built something that we thought they would need. So we built something for the first time that we called an all-in-one. So instead of buying multiple cybersecurity products, we made it very simple for them to consume it. It's one product that covers the user, the endpoint, the network, the cloud, the data, the email, everything in one system.
In 2020, we launched it aggressively into the market with a very much old school direct sales model. So we had a team that basically out of Chicago that cold called into organizations and sold them cybersecurity. And you have to understand that when you look at the small businesses or the mid-market, the deal size is relatively small.
So a cybersecurity company normally sells a deal size of anywhere between $700 to $1.5 million. We are a fraction of that. I'm talking to companies who are 200 employees, 500 employees, not 30,000.
Chapter 7: What metrics should companies track for their partner programs?
So we needed to figure out a really good way to scale this thing and direct sales, while very important, didn't cut it. In comes in 2021 this fine gentleman, Jim Tarantino. We hired him as our CRO. He looked at our plan, and he said, you guys are nuts. You can't sell direct.
You need to sell direct, but you also need to build an aggressive channel program, which means other people are going to sell your stuff. And I don't know how many cybersecurity people you know. We are a very suspicious bunch, because that's our job. And the concept of relinquishing control and letting somebody else run with our product was a very difficult thing for us.
Chapter 8: What lessons did Coro learn from successful and unsuccessful partnerships?
Jim convinced us, and he brought this guy, Tom Turner, who's our, there's actually a thing called channel chief. He's our channel chief. He's been doing it for 20 years. And he very meticulously started building a very aggressive channel program at Coral. In addition to that, what we heard from the channel was that our all-in-one concept was really good, but very hard for them to sell.
because all of their customers basically already had some sort of cybersecurity. So our story of, oh, rip it out and put us instead was a little bit difficult. And in 2023, we reimagined our product as a modular cybersecurity platform. It's basically the same thing, but we allow customers and partners to consume it module by module.
So if they want email security, they can just get email security. If they want endpoint security, Great, they can just take that. And really, the entire approach with us and with our partners is a land and expand. So we go in selling endpoint security, and then we slowly try to displace everything else. And that's the training, and that's what we're doing.
In 2024, we're making a massive investment in channel. This is, how many of you have been to CPE in Las Vegas, Channel Partners Expo in Vegas? Incredible show. It's about 9,000 people that are all channel, that are coming out there to basically do deals, find out what else they can sell. And I'll talk about what I mean by channel in a moment. So we had a massive booth there.
We actually won best of booth in the show. And we brought in a very large team. And basically, it was a statement. We are here. We're serious about the channel. And the channel is very important to us. And we're here to build with you and support you. So here's an interesting graph. This is our direct to channel mix. So we started with pure direct. 2022 was still very much direct.
I'm sorry, 2020, direct. 2021, channel becoming a little bit more prompt, about 20%. Right now, we are at about 70% channel. 2023, we ended at 70%. And in 2024, we expect it to be 85%. Why are we even keeping direct? If channel is so successful, why keep the direct? Two reasons. Direct is our way of testing the market with new products, new concepts.
Our channel partners don't have an appetite for testing or adventures or new stuff. So when we came up with a modular cybersecurity platform, the first people to sell it into the market were our direct people to show that you can actually sell it. And then you go to the channel partners and say, you see this stuff actually sells. You can actually make money on this.
So this is why in the previous slide I said you can't skip direct. You can't go all channel immediately. All the companies that sell predominantly through channel have a direct arm as well. Even Cisco, which I think is about 90% channel, has a direct team. And that's because you need to prove to the channel that this stuff works. And the only way you can prove it to them is if you can sell it.
And you can't just expect them to sell it if you can sell it. So again, we grew our channel program very aggressively. We're at about 300. And actually, this is a little bit old. But we plan to be close to 1,000 channel partners by the end of this year. Now, when I say partners and channel, what do I actually mean? So for us, there are three different types. There is a lead exchange channel.
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