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No role is quite as ambiguous as the CEO’s. When you’re scaling aggressively, and your ship rattles against the counter-pressures of markets, competitors, and economics, you just don’t know what fire you might have to put out when you wake up every day.
Even so, early-stage CEOs are notorious for their adept intuition and the ability to spot growth levers and revenue opportunities before they happen. In fact, 62% of CEOs surveyed by IBM in 2024 expressed that they “will need to rewrite their business playbook to win in the future, rather than play to existing strengths.”
One such pragmatic reimagination of the business playbook is how software businesses like Rootly and Fireflies are leveraging their cloud providers to:
- Extend their sales coverage and executive access to a broader market
- Get access to hidden procurement budgets within their target accounts
- Close deals faster with minimal pressures on legal, finance, and RevOps
In March 2025, CEOs from hypergrowth businesses—Ido Neeman (Fireflies), JJ Tang (Rootly), and Trunal Bhanse (Clazar)—discussed the inflection point in their revenue roadmap and how cloud marketplaces helped drive the deal volume, customer conviction, and velocity that propelled them to their next phase of growth.
The cloud marketplace boom: From a quick fix to a strategic channel
Not long ago, listing on a cloud provider’s marketplace might have seemed like a “nice to have” or a clever hack to win a deal or two. Ido Neeman admits that in Firefly’s early days, “we saw marketplace as a sales hack or shortcut.” They would encourage customers to use leftover cloud budgets to buy their software as a quick way to get the deal done.
This guerilla tactic worked, allowing an early-stage Firefly to land initial deals faster by piggybacking on customers’ pre-committed cloud spend. “As a 3-month-old startup, you just want to get things in... you don’t care how big they are,” Ido recalls of those scrappy first wins.
However, that perspective evolved rapidly as the company grew. What started as a shortcut is now core to Firefly’s strategy. “We now see the marketplace as a much more established way to do business... We prefer to sell on the marketplace,” says Ido, noting that even large enterprise deals are easier when routed through a cloud marketplace. He’s not alone. Many software CEOs have undergone a similar mindset shift. Rather than a last resort, marketplaces have become a primary go-to-market channel – one that scales with the business.
Even Wiz, the world’s most expensive SaaS software acquisition—a recent $32 billion buyout by Google—had 99% of their sellers closing at least one deal through cloud marketplaces.
Industry data backs this strategic pivot. Analysts at Canalys observed the “dizzying speed” of marketplace growth and had to double their pre-pandemic forecasts. They now expect enterprise software sales via cloud marketplaces to exceed $45B by 2025. To accelerate this momentum, major cloud providers have truncated their marketplace fees from 20% to as low as 3% over the last three years.
In short, the cloud giants want you on their marketplaces, and they’re making it even more lucrative for SaaS ISVs to participate. With such momentum, CEOs increasingly view marketplace channels as a strategic growth lever rather than an experiment.
Frictionless point-of-sale through marketplace-enabled transactions
One of the most compelling reasons to invest in marketplaces is the dramaticreduction in sales friction and procurement hassle. Enterprise software deals are notorious for long sales cycles—lengthy legal reviews, vendor approvals, security assessments, and procurement bureaucracy can drag on for months. Cloud marketplaces help streamline these processes and compress timelines.
Marketplace transactions often come with pre-negotiated contract terms and standardized license agreements since the customer’s cloud provider has already vetted the vendor.
“You already have pre-negotiated MSAs, and AWS has vetted your compliance… you just have a big head start,” explains Rootly’s CEO JJ Tang, noting that deals go faster when the basics are pre-approved. There’s no need to start from scratch on legal paperwork for each new vendor; it’s largely handled by the marketplace’s umbrella agreements.
Perhaps most importantly, purchasing through a marketplace eliminates many of the procurement roadblocks that stall deals. Software buyers can simply click to purchase and have the cost show up on their existing cloud bill rather than cutting a separate invoice. This underscores how powerful the marketplace model can be in shrinking sales cycles. It’s no surprise, then, that vendors transacting via marketplaces are observing markedly shorter deal timelines.
“We find that generally, our cycle lengths are significantly shorter [with marketplaces],” says JJ Tang, adding that over time, Rootly saw the promises come true: “shorter lengths, and you get to be part of the [cloud] spend program – all that good stuff.”
Independent industry leaders echo this. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which recently became the first ISV to surpass $1B in AWS Marketplace sales in a single year, reports that “Our deals are four times larger and their cycle times are much faster when we do this [sell via marketplace].”
Customers love it too! Enterprise business CrowdStrike—which has already surpassed $1B in revenue through cloud marketplaces—notes, because it lets them consolidate purchases on their hyperscaler and use committed funds. In other words, everyone wins when deals move through a cloud marketplace: the buyer slashes procurement effort and maximizes their cloud budget, and the seller closes faster with a bigger contract.
This reduction in friction isn’t just about speed – it also translates to real cost savings. Traditional enterprise sales can consume huge internal resources (legal, finance, RevOps) to shepherd a deal from quote to cash. Automating that via marketplace checkout frees your team.
The efficiency gain of marketplaces effectively lets you handle more volume without ballooning your support staff.
“It [cloud marketplace] streamlines the traditional labor- and time-consuming software procurement process, making it more efficient and cost-effective. Employees start working with applications faster instead of waiting for approvals and contracts,” said Kerry Dolan an analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group in a 2020 report.
Tapping into pre-committed cloud budgets to access a larger, low-resistance procurement wallet
Another major advantage of cloud marketplaces is the ability to leverage customers’ pre-committed cloud budgets. Large enterprises often commit to spend millions on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud over a period (through agreements like AWS EDPs or Azure MACCs).
These committed funds are essentially use-it-or-lose-it budgets earmarked for that cloud ecosystem. By listing your software on the marketplace, you enable those customers to draw down their committed cloud credits to purchase your product; a win-win that can unlock much larger deal sizes.
Firefly’s team recognized this early on from personal experience as cloud buyers. Ido recounts, “We knew that once you sign an EDP on AWS or a MACC on Azure, you have a committed budget… If you’re committed to a budget, it’s much better to use this commitment to buy software [through the cloud marketplace].” Otherwise, any unused portion of the cloud commit is wasted value. By positioning their solution as a way to utilize leftover cloud funds, Firefly turned budget constraints into an opportunity.
“Our buyers… all have commitments, so we’d say, ‘Hey, I’ll give you a better price. You can use your EDP commitment... and we’ll be able to do it much faster because it comes with less procurement [overhead],’” Ido explains. This approach not only accelerated deals, it often expanded the deal size since the customer was eager to spend their cloud credits.
JJ Tang observes a similar dynamic: some customers are incentivized (by their finance teams or by the cloud provider) to route purchases through the marketplace because it counts toward their committed spend.
When a vendor can say “Yes, we’re available on AWS Marketplace,” it’s music to a customer’s ears – it means they can green-light a bigger purchase without worrying about unbudgeted spend. In fact, “we were able to convince buyers that deals should only be done over the marketplace, and because it was to their advantage, it was to our advantage as well,” JJ says. This stance helped Rootly secure larger commitments by aligning with the way customers prefer to buy.
The cost of not having a marketplace motion
The absence of a marketplace listing, on the other hand, can be a growth limiter. Ido shares a cautionary tale where Firefly lost a huge upsell opportunity:
An enterprise customer wanted to triple their usage and had the cloud budget to do it, “but it must go off this specific cloud vendor’s commitment,” they insisted. Firefly scrambled to get listed on that cloud marketplace but couldn’t do it in time.
“We left a lot of money – a nice chunk of 6 figures – on the table because we didn’t have the right listing,” Ido said.
The deal proceeded at a much smaller size than it could have. The lesson for CEOs is clear: if you’re not marketplace-enabled, you may be leaving enterprise money on the table. In contrast, being marketplace-ready makes it easy for customers to spend more with you, using funds they’ve already allocated to cloud spend.
“Our deals are four times larger and their cycle times are much faster when we do this [sell via marketplace]… They want to be able to utilize the funding that they have.”
– Daniel Bernard, Chief Business Officer, CrowdStrike
The route to enterprise deals is through trust and credibility
For growing SaaS companies, enterprise buyers are the Holy Grail: big logos, bigger budgets, and possibly longer-term contracts.
Yet breaking into Fortune 500 accounts can be daunting when you’re an emerging player. This is another area where cloud marketplaces even the playing field. Simply being listed on a major cloud marketplace can instantly boost your credibility with large customers.
The logic is simple: if your product is available on AWS, Azure, or GCP’s official marketplace, it’s been through security and compliance vetting. The cloud provider is essentially vouching that you meet a certain bar. That reassures enterprise evaluators that you’re a safe choice
None of these cloud providers are gonna list a product that they haven’t vetted to a certain degree… it’s their reputation on the line,” JJ says.
Trunal Bhanse, CEO, Clazar, has seen this firsthand in his experience working with several hypergrowth ISVs: early-stage companies using marketplace listings to punch above their weight in the enterprise. Buyers tend to “feel like you’re a trusted resource, you’re more vetted than any of the other solutions out there,” just by virtue of that cloud stamp of approval.
In practical terms, a procurement department might waive certain vendor risk assessments if the purchase is through a marketplace, or a CIO might be more willing to champion your tool knowing it’s “official” in AWS Marketplace.
The marketplace can thus act as a door-opener to accounts that might otherwise hesitate to consider a startup.
Being on a marketplace also broadens your reach to new customers who browse these digital catalogs. Many organizations now look to their cloud’s marketplace first when searching for a solution that integrates with their stack. For example, financial services firm GBM discovered several innovative solutions not previously on its radar by browsing AWS Marketplace, eventually managing 16 solutions through that channel.
In Rootly’s case, JJ mentioned that a few great customers arrived almost magically via zero-touch marketplace sign-ups – “if you have a zero-touch motion, marketplaces are a must, because they make it much easier,” he says. In short, listing your software where enterprise buyers are already shopping can connect you with new opportunities without an army of salespeople.
Of course, success isn’t overnight – it takes commitment to build your marketplace presence and awareness. You need to let customers know you’re there and enable your sales team to leverage it.
Rootly, for instance, made sure to train their go-to-market team to ask every prospect, “What cloud are you using? Do you have an EDP spend? Do you prefer to go through the marketplace?” – weaving the marketplace as a procurement option into the start of the sales conversation.
Over time, this positioning paid off. JJ notes that being an early adopter gave Rootly a competitive edge in deals: “We were one of the first in our space to move on it and had a massive competitive advantage.” By the time competitors caught on, Rootly had already ingrained marketplace purchasing with its customer base, making it the path of least resistance for deals.
The future of software sales is driven by cloud marketplaces
As we look to the future, all signs point to even deeper integration of marketplaces into how software is sold. Jay McBain noted that AWS marketplace already ranks among the ‘top 5 global IT distributors’ by volume of sales, alongside the biggest traditional channel players like Ingram Micro, TD Synnex, and others.
When a single ISV like CrowdStrike can transact $1 billion in a year on one marketplace, it’s clear that this model is reaching critical mass.
For CEOs and GTM leaders, the takeaway is that marketplaces are becoming an indispensable channel for reaching customers. Adopting a marketplace-centric strategy now is about skating to where the puck is headed. It offers a chance to streamline sales, tap into enormous cloud-driven budgets, and align with how modern enterprises prefer to buy.
Trunal Bhanse reinforces that succeeding on this channel requires consistent investment and patience.
The next few years will likely bring even more innovation in marketplace offerings – from improved marketplace features (bundling, consumption-based pricing, etc.) to tighter collaboration between cloud providers and ISVs on co-selling.
We may see marketplace channels expanding into new domains and deeper into the enterprise stack. For software companies, riding this wave means positioning your organization to benefit from the new rules of software distribution.
Those who have embraced cloud marketplaces early are already reaping advantages in deal velocity and customer access. Those who ignore the trend risk falling behind more agile competitors. In the words of Warren Buffett (as echoed by Ido Neeman), the best time to start was yesterday – the second best time is now.
CEOs who act decisively to build their marketplace muscle today will be the ones capturing outsized revenue gains tomorrow, as software buying increasingly goes through these faster, friction-free, cloud-connected channels.
