Between Product and Partnerships: Recent Episodes
Kelly Sarabyn & Liz Garcia
Building an ecosystem requires close collaboration between product and partnerships. We're talking to product, partnership, and engineering leaders about how to build, support, and scale SaaS ecosystems that result in happier customers and more revenue. Watch, listen, or read the interviews. If you're interested in networking with others who are working on building integrated tech partnerships, apply to be a member of our free group The SaaS Ecosystem Alliance here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/ We have 1000+ members in our slack community who are all working on this problem. Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG0I_GLiYf2O45b0EzsVENA LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/pandium/
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sits down with Jira Cooley, Snowflake Partner Lead at GrowthLoop, to discuss his journey through product and technology partnerships and his decision to move closer to the revenue side of the business. Along the way, they explore what it takes to build technical fluency without an engineering background, why asking better questions is often more valuable than having all the answers
For years, SaaS pricing was relatively simple. Build the product, sell seats, and scale. AI is changing that equation.
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sits down with Roee Hartuv, Sr. Pricing Advisor & Head of GTM Expertise at Willingness to Pay, to discuss why AI is forcing software companies to rethink pricing from the ground up. As AI introduces real marginal costs, unpredictable usage patterns, and new customer expectations, many of the pricing models that defined SaaS are no longer enough.
AI models let anyone "vibe code" an integration from 0 to 90% overnight, but scaling that final 10% is where most projects hit a wall. In this episode, former Knak VP of Product Rod Moshfeghi joins Cristina Flaschen to break down why the rise of the citizen developer actually makes rigorous systems design and long-term maintenance more critical than ever.
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen talks with Martin Scholz, founder of CEG Consult, about why most partnership initiatives miss the mark, and what actually separates transactional deals from true, strategic relationships. Drawing on more than 20 years of partnership experience across startups, scale-ups, and enterprises, Martin cuts through the noise to explain why partnerships fail when they lack clear alignment, why "giving to get" can create toxic dynamics, and how to identify which partners actually deserve your resources.
For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sits down with Jenn Steele, CEO of SoundGTM, to pull back the curtain on why most SaaS partnerships collapse.
Jenn draws on her experience as a former CMO to explain the internal perspective of leaders asked to support partnership launches without proper lead time. The conversation dives into the common pitfalls of "pre-launching" integrations that aren't ready. It also covers the dangers of concentration risk with large platform partners as traditional outbound sales models struggle.
Throughout the episode, Jenn emphasizes a consistent theme: Partnerships are built on human relationships, but they survive on operational clarity and consistent enablement.
Key topics
- The Resource Gap: Why Marketing and Partners Clash
Partnership teams often operate in a silo and call on marketing for last-minute press releases without providing dedicated budget. Jenn explains why this misalignment leads to internal frustration.
- The Disconnect Between Revenue Goals and Budget
Many companies expect a significant percentage of their pipeline to come from partnerships without allocating a corresponding percentage of their go-to-market budget. Jenn warns against expecting outsized gains from minimal resource investment.
- The 80/20 Rule of Partner Portfolios
Most partner programs are top-heavy. Jenn discusses how to audit a portfolio to find the 20% of partners producing value while moving on from the rest.
- Operationalizing the "Shiny Object"
Partnership leaders are often "people people" who are great at starting relationships but may struggle with the administrative details of ops. Jenn highlights the need for systems that keep partners engaged long after the initial announcement.
- Concentration Risk and "Big Guy" Partnerships
Hitching a small startup’s wagon to a giant like Salesforce or HubSpot is a high-stakes game. Jenn explains why being at the mercy of a larger partner’s API can leave a small company vulnerable to sudden changes.
Episode highlights
00:40 — Jenn’s journey from "Early HubSpot" to CEO
2:19 — The friction between marketing leaders and partner teams
04:02 — Where should partnerships live? (Sales vs. Marketing)
06:35 — The reality of technical dependencies and API downtime
08:40 — The cautionary tale of the two-year "pre-launched" integration
12:15 — Primary failure modes including goals and internal resources
16:23 — Why everyone is focused on partnerships right now
18:36 — Managing expectations for partner-sourced revenue
22:31 — How to keep partners excited through consistent enablement
28:40 — The danger of concentration risk for small companies
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For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sits down with Stephanie Neill, Head of Product at Stripe, to explore what’s actually changing in product development in the age of AI, and what isn’t.
Stephanie draws on experience across government, Twitch, and Stripe to explain why the pressure to “just use AI” often leads teams in the wrong direction. Instead, she makes the case for grounding every decision in the problem to be solved, not the technology being used. The conversation dives into where AI is genuinely useful today, where it still falls short, and how teams can use it to move faster without compromising quality or trust.
They also explore the operational realities behind the hype, from messy, unreliable data to the risks of deploying AI in high-stakes environments like payments and tax. Throughout, Stephanie emphasizes a consistent theme: AI can accelerate good product thinking, but it cannot replace it.
Who we sat down with
Stephanie Neill is Head of Product at Stripe, where she leads teams focused on payments infrastructure and tax-related products. Her career spans e-commerce, public sector innovation with the United States Digital Service, and creator monetization at Twitch.
Stephanie brings expertise in:
- Applying product thinking in high-stakes environments like government and financial systems
- Building platforms that enable businesses and creators to earn revenue
- Scaling product teams across complex, data-dependent domains
- Navigating emerging technologies like AI within regulated, trust-sensitive systems
Key topics
- Why “use AI” is the wrong starting point
Teams are often pushed to adopt AI without a clear problem in mind. The right approach is unchanged: start with the user problem, then evaluate whether AI meaningfully improves the outcome.
- Where AI actually works today
AI is most effective in accelerating discovery and iteration, helping teams research faster, test ideas, and explore solution spaces without heavy upfront investment.
- AI as a tool for reducing product risk
Product development is fundamentally about reducing risk. AI increases the number of iterations teams can run, allowing them to be wrong more often and converge on better solutions faster.
- The reality of data as a limiting factor
Even the most advanced models are constrained by messy, incomplete, or externally controlled data. In domains like tax, poor data quality becomes a major blocker to reliable AI systems.
- Why human judgment still defines production readiness
Despite rapid progress, AI outputs still require careful review. Especially in financial systems, the cost of being wrong is too high to remove humans from the loop.
Episode highlights
11:00 — The industry-wide pressure to “just use AI”
13:30 — AI’s role in product discovery and rapid iteration
16:20 — Automating repetitive work with internal tools at Stripe
19:00 — What happens to entry-level roles in an AI-driven world
22:30 — Why data quality is the biggest limiter for AI systems
25:10 — The gap between AI hype and production reality
32:00 — How Stripe evaluates risk before shipping AI-powered features
35:10 — Staying grounded by continuously redefining the problem
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For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Biljana Pecelj joins Cristina Flaschen to explain how smaller teams successfully ship integrations with larger platform partners. She makes the case that leveraging usage data and performance metrics is the key to proving your integration's value, giving you the necessary influence to move up a major partner's priority list.
Biljana shares lessons from her experience managing integrations at Hootsuite during major platform shifts, including the rise of Instagram Business APIs and the emergence of new features like Stories that didn’t always come with immediate API support. She also details the process of aligning internal stakeholders to ensure integration features actually ship despite shifting external APIs.
The conversation also covers the operational side of integrations, this includes why observability needs to be built early, how teams detect silent failures before customers do, and how to structure internal alignment when integration work touches engineering, legal, partnerships, and revenue.
Who we sat down with
Biljana Pecelj is a Principal Product Manager at Ledgy with deep experience building integrations inside platform-heavy environments. She has worked extensively on partnership-driven product initiatives where execution speed depends on navigating both technical constraints and external partner relationships.
Biljana brings expertise in:
- Building integrations in environments where APIs and features evolve asynchronously
- Designing for observability and proactive monitoring
- Navigating asymmetric partner relationships
- Aligning roadmap priorities across product, partnerships, legal, and engineering
- Managing tradeoffs between beta opportunities and engineering capacity
Key Topics
- Why integration product work is relationship work
Technical execution matters, but alignment with partners determines whether integrations actually ship and scale.
- Building in ecosystems you don’t control
APIs change. Features launch without endpoints. Roadmaps shift. Successful teams anticipate uncertainty rather than assume stability.
- The importance of observability from day one
Silent failures are common in integrations. Without monitoring, teams often learn about outages from customers instead of systems.
- Roadmap tradeoffs when beta opportunities arise
New partner features can require immediate shifts in engineering priorities. Negotiation and resource reallocation become core product skills.
- M&A and integration complexity
Brand consolidation rarely means backend integration. Teams often inherit layered systems that remain technically independent long after acquisition.
Episode Highlights
01:55 – How integration product management differs from core product work
04:40 – Navigating power imbalances with large platform partners
07:15 – Using data to strengthen partner conversations
10:30 – Building observability when resources are limited
13:45 – Handling silent integration failures
17:50 – Managing beta features and roadmap shifts
21:30 – Aligning cross-functional teams around integration priorities
24:45 – Why relationships accelerate integration execution
28:10 – Lessons learned from building inside platform ecosystems
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For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
Integrations look deceptively simple until they become the backbone of your business. In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen sits down with Scott Lavery, Senior Product Manager at Arkestro. They unpack what really happens when integrations shift from a "nice to have" feature to something the company can't function without.
Scott shares hard-earned lessons from a decade in B2B SaaS, covering sectors from martech to procurement. He discusses the headache of inheriting messy stacks and why iPaaS tools often hide long-term costs. The conversation also explores how integration work fundamentally changes what it means to be a product manager. Together, they dig into common failure modes and the tough tradeoffs junior PMs face when they’re "volun-told" to own integrations.
Who we sat down with
Scott Lavery is a Senior Product Manager at Arkestro. With over ten years of experience in B2B SaaS, he has repeatedly found himself responsible for integrations, often without ever intending to specialize in them.
Scott brings expertise in:
- Unwinding complex iPaaS-driven environments.
- Designing integrations built to be "set and forget."
- Managing third-party dependencies alongside specific scale constraints.
- Advocating for pragmatic, cost-aware strategies.
Key Topics
Why integration PM work is fundamentally different
Integration success is defined by invisibility. Unlike standard features, value is found in reliability and trust rather than how often a user clicks a button.
The hidden costs of low-code and iPaaS tools
Teams often end up writing code blocks inside "no-code" tools. We discuss how pricing models can distort architectural decisions and where velocity eventually hits a wall.
What to do when you inherit a messy integration stack
Practical advice for PMs walking into undocumented systems filled with inherited workflows and vendor dependencies they can’t control.
Episode Highlights
- 01:48 - How most PMs “fall into” owning integrations
- 03:58 - Why integration metrics flip traditional product thinking on its head
- 06:31 - Contextual success metrics: Why volume is not the same as value
- 08:21 - Navigating ecosystems without becoming a domain admin
- 11:18 - Why API docs lie and customers ignore your design intent
- 15:37 - Warning signs of an unhealthy iPaaS environment
- 19:05 - Silent failures and the pain of hearing about outages from customers
- 23:45 - The code-block paradox in low-code platforms
- 31:52 - Scott’s playbook for PMs inheriting integrations
Key Takeaways
Great integrations are designed to disappear
Successful integrations are rarely touched after the initial setup. In this space, reliability is a far more important metric than user engagement.
Metrics are contextual, not universal
A monthly sync can be just as vital as one that runs every five minutes. Frequency alone does not signal success.
You can’t abstract away real-world usage
API contracts rarely reflect reality. No tool removes the need to understand how customers actually use systems like NetSuite or Salesforce.
Low-code tools often trade speed for long-term pain
Teams save time early but spend years optimizing around pricing models and managing fragile logic.
Inherited workflows is a scalability risk
If only one person understands the system, it is already brittle. This is a massive liability once customers are live.
Silent failures erode trust fastest
Learning about outages from customers is a major failure. Proactive monitoring and clear communication are bas
How do you turn mission into products that actually work?
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen sits down with product leader Jacqueline Karlin to unpack how mission-driven thinking translates into real-world execution across vastly different scales.
From small business lending at Amazon, to global expansion on Alexa, to early conversational commerce at WhatsApp, Jacqueline shares concrete examples of how anchoring on customer problems shapes better decisions, especially when navigating new technologies like AI and agentic commerce. The conversation goes deep on how product teams move from conviction to action, turning “why” into repeatable, defensible “how.”
Who we sat down with
Jacqueline Karlin is a senior product leader with experience building and scaling products at Amazon (Lending & Alexa), WhatsApp, PayPal, Expedia, and more. Her work spans financial inclusion, commerce, AI-powered interfaces, and international platform expansion.
Across roles, Jacqueline has focused on:
- Working backwards from real customer problems
- Launching and localizing products globally
- Building trust-first experiences in regulated, high-stakes domains like payments and commerce
Today, she’s deeply engaged in the evolution of agentic commerce and how AI agents are changing how consumers discover, decide, and transact.
Key topics
Mission-driven product building and defining “why”
How Jacqueline’s personal mission shaped her career choices, and why understanding what motivates you as a product leader is critical to building products with long-term impact.
Specific use cases Jacqueline has worked on
Real examples from Amazon Lending, Alexa’s international expansion, and WhatsApp’s early commerce tooling, showing how different customer problems emerge at different layers of scale.
Getting from “why” to “how”
How strong teams translate mission into execution through hypotheses, customer conversations, localization, experimentation, and fast feedback (without chasing trends or shipping for novelty’s sake).
Episode highlights
02:20 — Choosing roles based on mission, not momentum
06:36 — Learning from small business sellers and reshaping lending products
11:34 — What it really takes to launch Alexa in new countries
21:36 — Early lessons from conversational commerce on WhatsApp
22:50 — Defining agentic commerce and where it’s already showing up
25:12 — Why explainability matters when AI touches money
29:23 — Using hypotheses to move from intuition to execution
Key takeaways
1. Mission creates clarity when decisions get hard
Mission acts as a decision filter, helping product leaders prioritize the right problems and navigate tradeoffs with confidence.
2. Customer insight beats assumptions at every scale
Direct conversations with users consistently surfaced constraints and opportunities that dashboards alone couldn’t reveal.
3. “Why” must survive contact with reality
Strong teams treat ideas as hypotheses, testing and refining them quickly based on real feedback.
4. Global products are built locally
Successful international launches depend on cultural relevance, local partners, and thoughtful defaults.
5. Trust is foundational in AI-driven commerce
Explainability and transparency become core requirements as agents take on transactional responsibility.
For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen speaks with Mike Gelber, Chief Product Officer at Impiricus, about his career path and the experiences that shaped his approach to product leadership in healthcare. Mike’s background spans finance, ad tech, and healthcare, and his move into product reflects a steady pull toward roles that combine technical depth with proximity to real users. Throughout the conversation, he shares how those experiences influenced the way he approaches product decisions, partnerships, and growth in a regulated environment.
From Finance to Product Thinking
Mike began his career at JP Morgan, where he quickly gravitated toward building tools that made work more efficient. Teaching himself to automate tasks introduced him to software development and revealed the leverage technology could provide. That curiosity led him into ad tech, where working closely with customers helped him connect system design with real usage. Over time, product became the natural intersection between building technology and understanding how people actually work.
Why Founding a Company Accelerated His Growth
Starting a company brought Mike closer to customers and everyday decision-making. Choices carried immediate consequences, which sharpened his sense of focus and sequencing. The experience also exposed him to areas of the business that are often distant from product roles, shaping a broader understanding of how products are built, sold, and sustained over time.
Lessons from Building and Exiting Lasso
Mike reflects on building Lasso and guiding it through growth before its acquisition by IQVIA. A defining lesson from that journey was the importance of validating demand early. Proving value through direct execution helped guide product direction and informed how he now thinks about product-market fit. That experience reinforced the importance of grounding decisions in real usage rather than assumptions.
Joining Impiricus
After the acquisition, Mike joined Impiricus as Chief Product Officer. He initially questioned whether SMS could be an effective channel in healthcare. Spending time with the product in real-world settings changed that perspective, particularly as he observed how clinicians interacted with it during day-to-day work. Those experiences helped clarify the product’s role in supporting healthcare providers.
Defining Success in Healthcare Product
Mike describes success at Impiricus through outcomes and experience. Pharmaceutical partners measure impact through prescribing behavior, while healthcare providers encounter fewer barriers when supporting patients. The most meaningful signals come from moments where the product quietly fits into existing workflows and reduces friction without drawing attention to itself.
Timing, Integration, and Relevance
The conversation returns often to timing. Mike explains how Impiricus uses data and integrations to engage healthcare providers when support is most relevant. This approach allows the product to fit naturally into clinical workflows, which is critical in environments where attention is limited.
Looking Ahead
Mike shares what’s next for Impiricus, including the launch of a new product called Ascend and continued momentum following recognition on Deloitte’s Fast 500 list. As the company grows, the focus remains on staying close to healthcare providers and maintaining the product principles that shaped its early success. Cristina closes the episode by reflecting on how Mike’s journey illustrates how product leadership evolves inside regulated industries.
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sits down with Michael Kowalchik, Founder and CEO of Matterbeam, to unpack why so many companies still feel stuck when working with their data. Drawing on years of experience in machine learning and large-scale product architecture, Michael shares what he learned at Pluralsight when he was asked to help overhaul the company’s data systems during a period of rapid growth.
Cristina and Michael explore why traditional approaches often fall short once a business reaches a certain level of complexity. Pipelines designed for one purpose end up stretched far beyond their limits, and central repositories rarely reflect the day-to-day realities of how different teams actually operate. Michael explains how a shift toward immutable logs and replayable data streams created a more predictable, trustworthy foundation inside Pluralsight, and how that experience eventually led to the formation of Matterbeam.
They also examine the current wave of AI adoption and discuss why many organizations assume AI can cover foundational issues that still need real architectural attention. Michael describes the importance of building systems that make it possible to trace what happened, reproduce it, and understand how data moves through each step. He and Cristina talk about how this clarity becomes even more important as more software depends on automated decision making.
If you’ve struggled with disconnected systems, slow access to information, or constant rework caused by shifting definitions, this conversation offers a grounded perspective on how to rebuild your data layer in a way that actually supports the work your teams are trying to do.
For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
To learn more about Matterbeam, visit www.matterbeam.com
To sign up for Matterbeam's upcoming webinar, visit www.matterbeam.com/webinar
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen speaks with Therese Stowell, VP of Product Launch at Anaplan, about what it takes to design scalable, repeatable product launch systems inside fast-moving SaaS organizations. Therese shares her nonlinear career journey, from Microsoft engineer, to artist, to product leader, and how that diverse background shaped her systems-driven, people-centric approach to orchestrating product launches across a complex enterprise.
A Systems Approach to Product Launch
Earlier in her career, Therese was asked to fix a recurring challenge familiar to many SaaS companies - products that didn’t generate meaningful revenue, features stuck in beta, and launches that left go-to-market teams scrambling. Working with a technical program manager, she developed an Alpha - Beta - GA framework that introduced clear milestones, stronger decision-making, and alignment across product, marketing, sales, enablement, support, and services.
That experience led her to Anaplan, where the sheer volume of innovation required a dedicated function to “tune the revenue engine.” As Therese describes it, product launch isn’t just about getting a feature out the door, it’s about coordinating every part of the organization so the product lands with clarity and customer value.
Cross-Functional Alignment and the Real Work of Launching
Therese outlines two parallel tracks that determine whether a launch succeeds:
- Go-to-market readiness. Translating product insights into pitch decks, messaging, and enablement
- Technical readiness. Ensuring presales, professional services, and support teams understand how the product works under the hood
Because these streams mature at different times, communication and cross-functional orchestration become essential. Therese also shares how introducing a new “production release” milestone (separate from GA) helped set better customer expectations and create a more reliable internal rhythm.
A Framework for Better Launches
Therese breaks down her repeatable approach to designing and improving launch processes:
- Discovery. Understand engineering’s release lifecycle and gather cross-functional requirements
- Design. Translate a long list of tasks into a coherent, sequenced plan with defined decision points
- Build & Iterate. Start small, gather feedback, and refine continuously instead of waiting for a perfect process
Scaling Launch at Anaplan
Anaplan’s rapid innovation pace required Therese to expand the product launch function, adopt proper project management tooling, and build reporting that helped each department manage its workload. With 30+ concurrent launches, her team introduced efficiency practices, such as agenda-based meeting participation, to reduce thrash and ensure alignment without unnecessary meetings.
Looking Ahead
Therese’s advice? While process and tooling matter, at least half of a successful launch comes down to people. Transparent communication, early involvement, collaboration, and guiding teams through behavioral change are what allow launch processes to take root and scale across an organization.
For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems, and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
To learn more about Anaplan and their product innovation, visit www.anaplan.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen talks with Francesca Smedberg, VP of Product at Rillion. Together they explore how product management has changed over the past two decades, what it takes to move from shipping features to achieving outcomes, and how curiosity and collaboration can transform a team.
A Career Built on Curiosity and Experience
Francesca began her career in market research and spent years helping companies test products and pricing strategies. When she joined a startup in 2009, she started as an analyst and quickly became deeply involved in how products were built. She worked alongside engineers to digitize traditional market research processes, replacing surveys and reports with virtual environments and interactive tools.
She was often building tools to solve her own problems, creating workflows that would save time and improve insight for customers. Without realizing it, she was already doing product management. Over time she led analytics, digital production, and eventually the tech and product teams. That broad mix of data, customer, and technical work shaped her leadership style and gave her a deep understanding of how products come together from the inside out.
Seeing Product Management Mature
Francesca and Cristina discuss how product management has become more defined as a discipline. Early in her career, most of the focus was on delivery. Teams worried about whether they could build something, not necessarily whether they should.
Today the focus is different. Good product management connects discovery, delivery, and business context. It asks questions before committing resources and pushes teams to understand problems before defining solutions.
Turning a Feature Factory into an Outcome-Driven Team
When Francesca joined Rillion, the company had a long history and a complex platform shaped by mergers and acquisitions. Teams were busy, but their work often felt reactive. She saw an opportunity to help them move from feature volume to measurable impact.
Her approach was practical. She encouraged clear priorities and learning through action. Instead of asking what to build next, her teams began by asking why. They defined goals tied to company strategy and measured their success by what changed, not by what shipped.
Building Cross Functional Teams
Francesca describes how she and her engineering leaders restructured the organization to support this new mindset. They built smaller, cross functional teams with clear missions and room to make decisions.
This structure encouraged focus and accountability. It reduced the friction of silos and helped people think less about whose job something was and more about what needed to be solved. Mixing people with deep institutional knowledge and those new to the company also brought balance.
Lessons for Aspiring Product Managers
Francesca offers advice for people who want to move into product. She suggests learning from established voices in the product community, studying examples from real companies, and finding mentors who can share their own experiences. She encourages people to start within their current organization if possible. Moving internally allows them to learn the product deeply while building trust across teams.
For more insights on partnerships, integrations, and SaaS ecosystems, visit pandium.com
To learn more about Rillion, go to rillion.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, speaks with Nate Lee, Founder of Cloudsec.ai, about the evolving challenges of security in SaaS ecosystems, AI, and integrations. Their conversation explores lessons from real-world incidents, risk management in fast-moving environments, and the emerging landscape of AI agents.
Nate’s Background and Security Perspective
With over a decade of experience as a Chief Information Security Officer, Nate has helped scale-ups build security programs focused on AI-native startups and cloud environments. His approach is grounded in pragmatism, meaning prevention is important, but effective detection, response, and transparency are what define resilience when incidents occur.
Lessons from Real-World Incidents
Reflecting on recent industry breaches such as the SalesLoft incident, Nate illustrates how small misconfigurations across systems like GitHub or AWS can trigger cascading risks. Even organizations with robust security teams remain vulnerable. He emphasizes the importance of continuous monitoring, anomaly detection, and disciplined response planning as part of a company’s operating DNA.
Mitigation, Communication, and Runbooks
For smaller teams, Nate and Cristina highlight the value of preparation and clarity when managing incidents. Segregating responsibilities allows engineers to focus on resolving issues while communications are handled transparently and calmly by others. Tabletop exercises (simulations of potential breaches) help teams respond confidently when real situations arise. Above all, Nate underscores the need for transparent communication with customers and stakeholders. Clear, factual updates that explain what happened, its impact, and next steps build far more trust than spin or silence. Having ready-made messaging frameworks also helps reduce the stress of decision-making during high-pressure moments.
AI Agents and Emerging Risks
The conversation then turns to the rapidly expanding role of AI agents in modern workflows. Nate explains that while these systems deliver tremendous efficiency gains, they also introduce new and unpredictable risks. Unlike traditional deterministic workflows, AI agents can act in unexpected ways, sometimes interpreting instructions beyond what developers intend. Threats such as prompt injection and the rise of unmonitored AI tools (or “shadow IT”) add layers of complexity. As adoption accelerates, maintaining visibility and control becomes critical.
Despite these challenges, Nate remains optimistic about AI’s potential. He advocates for mindful adoption (understanding the risks, their likelihood, and the potential business impact) while ensuring that innovation and productivity continue to advance responsibly.
Building Trust and Future-Proofing Security
For Nate, trust is the foundation of security. Whether developing integrations, deploying AI tools, or managing internal systems, organizations must design processes that foster transparency, encourage safe experimentation, and promote continuous learning. Building a culture of accountability and openness not only reduces risk but also strengthens long-term relationships with customers and partners.
Looking Ahead
Nate is currently launching Trustmind, a platform that automates security due diligence and streamlines third-party risk management for organizations working with multiple vendors and integrations.
For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
To learn more about Cloudsec., go to https://cloudsec.ai/
In this episode, Cristina Flaschen speaks with Chris Samila, Co-Founder of Partnership Leaders, about what makes ecosystems thrive, how services and partnerships intersect, and how AI is reshaping the partner landscape.
Chris’s Journey to Partnership Leaders
Chris has spent most of his career in partnerships, moving from the clean tech space into SaaS with roles at Optimizely, FullStory and Crossbeam where he built partner programs from the ground up. About four years ago he co-founded Partnership Leaders, a global community dedicated to advancing the partnerships profession. Today he leads events that bring together thousands of partnership professionals worldwide.
What Sets Ecosystem Leaders Apart
Chris emphasizes that the difference between companies that activate their ecosystems well and those that don’t starts with executive support. Too often partnerships are siloed as a “channel” function. Modern ecosystem-driven organizations weave partnerships into product strategy, customer success and services delivery. Success is less about company size and more about clarity. Knowing which partners to prioritize, when to engage them and how to align that with company goals is critical.
Services as a Growth Lever
Historically SaaS companies avoided services, preferring a pure self-serve model. Many leading AI companies are now leaning heavily on services partners to drive adoption. Blending internal services with boutique partners creates a flywheel effect. Partners make money around the product which fuels ecosystem growth. The key is setting guardrails so services enable the ecosystem rather than compete with it.
Compensation and Career Pathways
Chris identifies trends in pay and career growth that reflect the increasing recognition of partnerships as a strategic function. He highlights partner operations as a growing specialization and the rise of Chief Partnerships Officers in mid-market and enterprise companies, signaling a broader shift toward embedding partnerships into core business strategy. Chris also advises job seekers to explore opportunities at high-growth AI companies that have yet to build partner programs, as these can offer significant career impact and growth potential.
Outsourcing Partnerships and AI
A surprising trend is the rise of outsourced partnership teams used by large companies to scale quickly. While relationship depth is always key, some firms have embedded outsourced managers for years blending seamlessly with internal teams. AI is reshaping this space. As AI reduces admin work, partner managers will spend more time on relationships and strategy.
AI Trends in Partnerships
Partnership Leaders recently completed a six-month research project on AI in partnerships developing a maturity model that shows how AI can support individuals, partner programs and company-wide motions. LLMs help partner managers with account planning.
Looking Ahead
Chris and Cristina discuss upcoming Catalyst events in cities worldwide, highlighting the value of both digital and in-person experiences for networking. The conversation underscores the growing importance of building strong connections and leveraging events to strengthen partner ecosystems and professional growth.
For more insights on partnerships, ecosystems and integrations, visit www.pandium.com
To learn more about Partnership Leaders and their global community, go to www.partnershipleaders.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sits down with Arvita Tripati, a seasoned healthcare product leader and advisor. They explore her unique journey from customer service in medical devices to leading product management in high-stakes, regulated environments.
A Career Built on Curiosity and Empathy
Arvita began career working with cosmetic and reconstructive lip implants. Over time, she explored quality, regulatory, privacy, and security roles, gradually noticing a common thread – a product mindset could improve compliance and user experience. By staying curious and saying “yes” to opportunities, she transitioned into formal product management, bringing an empathetic, human-centered perspective to highly regulated work.
She emphasizes that empathy extends beyond patients. Every role, from HR to IT, has internal and external “customers.” Recognizing that and asking why decisions are made can open doors in unexpected ways.
AI in Healthcare
Early projects relied on rules-based statistical models, like algorithms guiding radiofrequency ablation. Today, AI has become more adaptive, processing complex data in real time.
She stresses that adoption is as much about trust and storytelling as it is about accuracy. Clinicians, patients, and regulators all need different levels of detail. For patients, a clear explanation of outcomes is key. Clinicians want actionable insights they can rely on. Regulators, like the FDA, demand evidence and reproducibility. Building confidence in AI requires tailoring communication to each audience and focusing on transparency.
Navigating Regulation and Market Risk
The discussion highlights the tension between speed and compliance. Some companies launch products without FDA approval to move quickly, but this can backfire, creating reputational risk and undermining trust. Arvita argues that embedding validation, equity, and discovery into every stage of product development ensures both safety and long-term success.
She recalls the FDA’s collaborative approach during the COVID crisis, which allowed her team to bring products to market faster than usual while still meeting rigorous standards. Regulatory bodies, she notes, often want innovators to succeed, they just need assurance that claims are safe and evidence-based.
Lessons from Clip Health During COVID
Joining Clip Health in May 2020, Arvita helped pivot from STI diagnostics to COVID testing. The team faced a critical choice, optimize for speed-to-result or clinician workflow. Speed won out, enabling rapid deployment, but revealed the importance of balancing urgency with discovery.
This experience reinforced two key lessons, 1) speed does not equal success, and 2) embedding continuous discovery into product DNA is essential. Arvita notes that even under extreme pressure, pausing to understand workflow and user needs can determine whether a product thrives.
Advice for Aspiring Product Managers
Arvita offers guidance for those entering product roles, particularly in regulated or technical industries:
- Maintain a beginner’s mindset and stay curious.
- Lead with empathy for both internal and external users.
- Consider equity, inclusivity, and the broader business impact of product decisions.
- Balance speed with thoughtful discovery. Sometimes slowing down enables you to go further, faster.
Cristina adds that effective PMs know when to zoom out and reassess the problem at hand. Good product decisions are defensible, ethical, and grounded in real-world impact.
For more insights on partnerships, integrations, and building SaaS ecosystems, visit www.pandium.com
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen speaks with Beth Beese, Director of Partnerships at Loopio, about her unique journey into partnerships, building an ecosystem from the ground up, and why cross-functional relationships are the secret weapon for success.
From Fax Lines to Tech Partnerships
Beth’s path to tech partnerships was anything but traditional. She started her career in sales, including door-to-door telecom services, before a chance meeting with Shawn Doyle of ReleaseTEAM opened the door to tech sales and partnerships. What began as a cold pitch turned into an informal interview and eventually a career-defining opportunity. That early experience taught Beth the power of relationships and the importance of saying “yes” to unexpected opportunities.
Discovering the Power of Partnerships
At Release Team, Beth realized that partnerships weren’t just about closing deals, they were about bridging gaps between enterprise software vendors and customer success. By aligning IBM technology with consulting and training services, she saw firsthand how partnerships fuel customer outcomes. For her, sales provided the adrenaline, but partnerships became the “jet fuel” that scaled impact.
Scaling Partnerships at Loopio
When Loopio raised its Series B in 2021, Beth became the company’s first partnership hire. Her mandate? Build out the alliances function from scratch. Today, Loopio’s ecosystem spans professional services partners, technology integrations, and reseller relationships. By focusing on integrations with core systems like CRMs and working closely with services providers, Beth’s team ensures Loopio’s RFP automation platform connects seamlessly into broader sales workflows.
Prioritizing a Small but Mighty Team
With limited resources, prioritization is critical. Beth’s strategy is to stay tightly aligned with company-level goals, currently expanding top-of-funnel growth. That means leaning into joint go-to-market efforts with partners, while also deepening integration work to meet enterprise customer demands. One standout win, a joint business relationship with PwC, which now includes Loopio as an approved enabling technology.
Partnerships, Product, and CX
Beth emphasizes that partnerships thrive when connected with both product and customer success. Alignment with product ensures integrations enhance (not compete with) the roadmap. Collaboration with CX provides unfiltered insight into customer needs, helping identify when partner solutions can fill gaps. For Beth, partnerships act as the “speakerphone” for both customer and partner voices within the organization.
Advice for First-Time Partnership Leaders
For those stepping into their first partnerships role, Beth’s advice is clear:
1) Connect cross-functionally early. Talk to product, sales, and CX leaders to understand how partnerships can accelerate their goals.
2) Align with executive sponsors. Know who pushed for the alliances function and what they expect.
3) Set achievable milestones. Don’t take on “Google + Microsoft + AWS” all at once, focus on wins that prove value quickly.
4) Build relationships. As Cristina adds, investing in coffee chats (virtual or otherwise) can create the goodwill you’ll need when partnerships depend on other teams’ support.
People Buy from People They Like
Beth closes by reminding listeners that partnerships, like sales, are rooted in human connection. In a remote-first world, building trust and rapport matters more than ever. A strong ecosystem isn’t just about logos, it’s about relationships that make technology adoption easier for customers.
For more conversations on partnerships, integrations, and SaaS ecosystems, visit our site
In this episode, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, sits down with Ben Marks, longtime developer advocate and open source champion, to explore the evolving role of ecosystems and communities in the tech industry. From e-commerce to AI, their discussion spans the forces reshaping how software gets built and how people collaborate across silos.
From Music to Code
Ben shares his unconventional journey from professional musician to technologist, highlighting how creativity and curiosity shaped his path into open source development. His early experiences show that career paths in tech are rarely linear, and diverse backgrounds often bring valuable perspective.
Why Ecosystems Matter
Ecosystems are not just marketing language. They are real, problem-solving networks of developers, vendors, and customers. Ben and Cristina reflect on how communities form around shared challenges and how platforms like Magento created space for growth through openness and extensibility.
Unlocking Silos with Interoperability
In today’s software landscape, interoperability is foundational. Systems need to talk to each other. Ben stresses that unlocking silos is essential for innovation, especially as businesses rely on tools from multiple vendors.
AI, Specialization, and the Shifting Ground of Engineering
The rise of generative AI is changing how developers approach problem solving. But with more tools comes more complexity. Cristina and Ben explore the balance between AI automation and the need for deep specialization. As Ben puts it, the future of engineering is uncertain. That uncertainty creates space for new skills, clearer value propositions, and more authentic human contributions.
Authenticity in the Age of AI
In a world where code can be generated instantly, Ben argues that personal values and intent matter more than ever. Developers and product teams must ask not just can we build something, but why we’re building it and for whom.
For more insights on integrations, identity, and APIs, visit www.pandium.com.
In this episode, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, speaks with Bani Malhotra, a seasoned product leader with experience at Walmart, Shipt, and Narvar. They discuss the complex realities of scaling products, leading through acquisition, and aligning teams around shared goals.
Bani’s Background and Product-Driven Mindset
Bani transitioned from investment banking and venture capital into product management. She has spent over a decade building and leading teams, including serving as the first product manager at Shipt during its $550M acquisition by Target. Her approach combines clear communication, deep context, and a strong focus on solving the right problems with the right metrics.
Acquisition, Alignment, and Long-Term Thinking
At Shipt, Bani led the integration of its same-day delivery platform into Target’s ecosystem. The project involved technical re-architecture, stakeholder alignment, and careful cultural navigation. Bani and her team made early decisions to build a retailer-agnostic infrastructure, allowing for long-term flexibility while preserving the values of Shipt’s marketplace.
Building Trust Across Teams and Cultures
Bani shares her approach to leading cross-functional teams through major change. Her framework—credibility, communication, and context—helped her build trust across both Shipt and Target. From navigating concerns around cannibalization to advocating for shoppers on the ground, she focused on building alignment without compromising core principles.
Using Metrics to Drive Clarity
Bani emphasizes the importance of grounding teams in clear, outcome-focused metrics. She shares lessons on defining success, phasing launches to reduce risk, and staying focused on quality over vanity KPIs. Metrics, she explains, can unify teams and reduce emotional friction in high-stakes environments.
Leading with Precision
This episode offers practical insights for anyone leading through complexity, whether during M&A, product expansion, or organizational change. Bani’s perspective on product leadership is execution-oriented, making this a valuable listen for product and partnership leaders at any stage of growth.
For more insights on product, integrations, and SaaS ecosystems, visit www.pandium.com.
In this discussion, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, speaks with Heather Flanagan, Principal at Spherical Cow Consulting, and Shon Urbas, CTO of Pandium, about the complex realities of building integrations when identity, compliance, and data governance are on the line.
Heather’s Background and Identity-Centric Lens
Heather Flanagan draws on years of experience in identity standards, advising governments, nonprofits, and tech companies on secure identity flows. At Spherical Cow Consulting, she emphasizes that integrations are not just about API connections. They must preserve identity and policy context across systems. This lens shapes how she evaluates long-term integration quality.
Identity is the Data
In many cases, identity itself is the data being transferred. Systems are not just passing files. They are transmitting roles, permissions, and group memberships. A failure in handling identity correctly can result in unauthorized access or users being locked out. This is especially critical in sectors like government and education.
The Hidden Work Behind “It Just Works”
Heather and Shon note that behind every seamless integration is complex logic. Connecting identity systems like SCIM, SAML, and OpenID Connect requires shared understanding across platforms. A major challenge is the assumption that systems interpret identity attributes the same way.
Integration as Infrastructure
Shon sees integrations as core infrastructure, not just product features. At Pandium, his team treats them as reusable, composable flows. Even with modern tools, reliable integrations depend on clear contracts around data formats, identity handling, and error recovery.
MCP: Open Source, Not a Standard
Heather and Shon discuss the growing hype around MCP, the Model Context Protocol, often mislabeled as a standard. Heather explains that MCP is an open source project from Anthropic, not a true standard, since it lacks formal security reviews, governance, and cross-industry consensus. Shon notes that while it may help drive adoption of existing protocols like OAuth 2, it adds little technical innovation and risks moving too fast without proper safeguards.
When Identity Meets Governance
Heather stresses that integration design must align with governance requirements. In regulated environments, even passing a field like email may require approval. Developers must understand what data can be shared and what must stay controlled.
Building Trust Into the Stack
Trust requires more than encryption. It depends on visibility into what moved, when, and why. Heather advocates for logging and traceability as essential for debugging and for building confidence in identity-driven systems.
For more insights on integrations, identity, and APIs, visit www.pandium.com.
Read Heather's blog: https://sphericalcowconsulting.com/
Heather's book recommendation: Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage
In this discussion, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, speaks with Kayleen Standridge, Senior Technical Product Manager at Stellar Cyber, about the unique challenges of building integrations within cybersecurity platforms.
Kayleen’s Background and Approach to Integrations
Kayleen shares her journey from technical support and professional services roles at companies like ClickUp and Podium to leading integration strategy at Stellar Cyber. She highlights how her early customer-facing experience shaped her approach to solving complex integration problems that deliver real value to users.
Integration Challenges in Cybersecurity
Stellar Cyber’s focus is on unifying security data from a wide array of systems, enabling faster threat detection and response. Kayleen explains that one of the biggest hurdles is accessing highly varied and often locked-down customer environments—many of which rely on legacy or on-premise systems. To address this, her team has developed a streamlined intake and testing process, often simulating data based on API documentation when direct access isn’t feasible. This ensures smoother development and troubleshooting, even when working with restricted or inconsistent data sources.
Data Quality, Compliance, and Security
Data variability is a constant challenge, especially when logs and records are generated or entered in different formats. Kayleen describes how Stellar Cyber uses log parsers and regex-based solutions to handle these inconsistencies. She also emphasizes the heightened compliance requirements in cybersecurity, such as strict credential management and the need to support on-premise deployments for customers concerned with data sovereignty.
Learning Curve and Industry Nuances
Transitioning into cybersecurity brought a steep learning curve, particularly with industry-specific terminology and compliance standards. Kayleen notes that company-provided certifications and hands-on experience were key to ramping up quickly. While some integration challenges are unique to security, many - like supporting legacy systems - are common across SaaS industries.
The Future of Integrations: Democratization and AI
Looking ahead, Kayleen sees integrations becoming increasingly democratized and customer-driven, with more plug-and-play options and integration platforms empowering non-technical users. She points to the rise of AI-driven orchestration tools, such as BlinkOps, that enable users to build workflows and integrations with minimal technical knowledge. This shift raises new questions around governance and permissioning, as it becomes easier for non-engineers to connect sensitive systems.
Product Strategy and Partnerships
Kayleen outlines how Stellar Cyber balances customer-driven integration requests with strategic initiatives, such as building bi-directional integrations with cornerstone platforms like ServiceNow. Partnerships play a crucial role in driving mutual value and go-to-market opportunities, especially with large ecosystem players.
Advice for Aspiring Integration PMs
Kayleen encourages aspiring integration product managers to stay curious, focus on customer problems, and prioritize simplicity in integration design—even if it means taking on more complexity internally. She stresses that the most impactful integrations are those that are easy for customers to deploy and manage, ultimately solving real-world challenges.
In this discussion, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, interviews Archna Carlstone, Head of Product at Carputty, about building, scaling, and evolving SaaS platforms, with a focus on Carputty’s journey from an internal finance tool to a white-labeled SaaS product for partners and customers.
Carputty’s Origin and Product Evolution
- Carputty was founded in October 2020, with Carlstone as an early team member, focusing on building both consumer-facing and internal tools.
- The company’s flagship product, the Carputty Flexline, offers a line of credit for car purchases, underwriting consumers rather than vehicles, flipping the traditional dealership financing model.
- Initially, the platform was built to serve Carputty’s own finance operations, but as the product matured, the team recognized broader industry pain points and began offering the platform as a white-labeled SaaS solution for other businesses.
Transition to SaaS and White-Labeling
- The decision to transition into SaaS was driven by market demand and the flexibility of being a startup, allowing Carputty to move quickly and adapt the platform for external partners.
- Early challenges included abstracting out company-specific features to make the platform scalable and universal, such as removing Carputty-specific labels and building a more modular, customizable system.
- The team implemented an abstraction layer for integrations (e.g., different banking providers) and a global design system to balance customization with maintainability for partners.
Product Team Structure and Development Approach
- Carputty’s product and engineering teams operate in lean, cross-functional pods focused on core areas: consumer applications, transactions (asset management), and data.
- This structure supports focus, knowledge sharing, and agility as the company grows and adapts to new partner needs.
Integrations and Partnerships
- Integrations are central to Carputty’s strategy, with an API abstraction layer enabling flexibility in vendor selection and servicing partners.
- Carputty partners with various organizations, including banks and companies like Turo, offering tailored solutions based on partner requirements rather than a one-size-fits-all package.
Core Values and Customer Focus
- Carputty’s core values include being data-driven, tenacious, thinking big, empowerment, and transparency, with transparency being especially central.
- The company emphasizes transparency in financing, aiming to disrupt the traditional, opaque dealership model and empower consumers with clear information about rates and valuations.
Advice for Product Managers
- Carlstone advises product managers transitioning internal tools to external products to continually question scalability and universality, recognize and address internal biases, and be willing to push back on internal requests that do not align with long-term vision.
- She emphasizes the importance of admitting mistakes, iterating on architecture, and balancing speed with building a sustainable, scalable product.
Closing Thoughts
- The discussion highlights the complexities of evolving a fintech product into a SaaS platform, the importance of abstraction and modularity, and the ongoing trade-offs between customization and product stability.
- Carputty’s journey offers valuable lessons for teams considering a similar transition, particularly around organizational structure, integration strategy, and maintaining core values throughout growth.
For more insights on tech partnerships, integrations, and APIs, listeners are encouraged to visit Pandium’s blog and resources.
In this discussion, Cristina sits down with Faria Anzum, Developer Experience Product Design Lead at Canva, to explore her approach to SaaS integrations, developer experience, as well as the impact of AI on building scalable partner ecosystems.
Faria’s Role and Canva’s Ecosystem Approach
Faria leads developer experience within Canva’s ecosystem team, focusing on optimizing the end-to-end journey for developers—from discovery and documentation to app submission and launch. Her work spans both external developers and internal teams, ensuring feedback loops that drive continuous improvement in tooling and processes.
Building for Developers: Key UX Considerations
- Faria highlights the importance of systems thinking in developer experience, noting that every design decision impacts multiple stages of the developer journey.
- Unique challenges include blending Canva’s established design system with the distinct UIs of external apps, ensuring a seamless and intuitive experience for users.
- Developer tools must minimize cognitive load and context switching, so Canva strives for consistency across documentation, tooling, and theming to reduce friction for developers moving between environments.
Best Practices for Scalable Integrations
- Canva empowers partners to build at scale by providing robust building blocks: app templates, design patterns, and a comprehensive Figma UI kit. This approach streamlines development and ensures consistency in user experience.
- The team collaborates closely with partners through workshops and design reviews, fostering high-quality integrations and reducing surprises during app submission.
- Smaller partners particularly benefit from these resources, as they can rely on Canva’s design guidance without needing in-house expertise.
AI’s Transformative Role in Developer Workflows
- AI is lowering barriers to entry, democratizing software development much like Canva did for design. Tools like ChatGPT and Cursor enable even non-coders to build functional integrations using natural language prompts.
- Canva recently launched Dev MCP server, for Canva apps and integrations, leveraging documentation and starter templates to accelerate development.
- While Canva can’t always distinguish how much of an app is AI-generated, the focus remains on functionality and quality, not the origin of the code.
Looking Ahead: Trust, Transparency, and the Future of AI in Integrations
- Faria emphasizes the need for transparency in AI-driven apps—clearly communicating what AI does, how data is used, and allowing users to override AI suggestions to build trust.
- She predicts a future where AI agents handle more of the integration lifecycle, spinning up apps from natural language descriptions, while human developers refine and innovate at the edges.
- The conversation closes with a call to embrace these changes, as AI and automation free up developers to focus on more creative and high-impact work.
Key Takeaways
- Canva’s approach to developer experience centers on holistic design, strong building blocks, and close collaboration with partners.
- AI is fundamentally changing how integrations are built, making development more accessible and efficient.
- Trust, transparency, and adaptability will be crucial as AI-driven workflows become the norm in SaaS ecosystems.
For more insights on tech partnerships, integrations, and APIs, listeners are encouraged to visit Pandium’s blog and resources.
https://www.pandium.com/blog
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sat down with Shrijit Patel, Technical Product Manager at Chronograph, to talk about building integration infrastructure, developing anti-fragile systems, and bridging the technical gap as a backend-focused PM.
Drawing from his experience at Accenture, FIS, Amazon, and now Chronograph, Shrijit broke down what most PMs miss when thinking about integrations and backend product strategy.
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To access more resources and content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, check out our blog and resources page below
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, we sit down with Indy Sen, Product Marketing Manager for Ecosystem at Canva, to explore what it really takes to build a thriving SaaS platform and developer ecosystem.
Indy shares hard-earned lessons from his career shaping ecosystems at Salesforce, Box, MuleSoft, Google, and now Canva. From launching on the early Salesforce AppExchange to scaling developer engagement at global companies, Indy dives into what’s changed (and what hasn’t) when it comes to partnerships, platform strategy, and developer marketing.
By the way, Indy is running the London Marathon and raising funds for cancer research. Support the cause here:
https://secure.acsevents.org/site/STR?fr_id=109250&pg=personal&px=59788306
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To access more resources and content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, check out our blog and resources page below
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
As SaaS companies navigate 2025, building integration strategies that drive growth, retain customers, and adapt to evolving partner ecosystems is essential.
In this conversation, we spoke with Product Managers and Technology Partnerships Leaders at Justuno, Triple Whale, and Gorgias who’ve successfully tackled integration challenges.
Our panelists share:
- Why a robust integration strategy important in 2025 including trends to look out for
- Frameworks for prioritizing integrations that deliver the greatest impact.
- Aligning GTM goals with integration planning
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This podcast is hosted by Pandium, the only embedded integration platform that facilitates faster code-first development of integrations, allowing B2B SaaS companies to launch integrations at scale without sacrificing customization and control.
Learn more about Pandium here: https://www.pandium.com/
To access more resources and content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, check out our blog and resources page below
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Resources on Technology Partnerships, Integrations, and APIs: https://www.pandium.com/ebooks
In this episode, we’re joined by integration experts Venkat Iyer (Talkdesk), Shon Urbas (Pandium), and Trevor Schueren (Workable) for a deep dive into the strategies behind successfully scaling SaaS integration efforts.
Moderated by Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen, this conversation highlights real-world experiences and offers insights on building scalable, reliable integration infrastructures that run smoothly while offering customers valuable solutions.
You’ll hear about the most common mistakes companies make, strategic decisions that impact long-term scalability, and ways to effectively manage API changes and dependencies. Tune in for expert advice on how to avoid integration pains as your product scales.
Pandium is the only embedded integration platform that facilitates faster code-first development of integrations, allowing B2B SaaS development teams to launch integrations at scale without sacrificing customization and control.
Learn more about Pandium here: https://www.pandium.com/
To access more resources and content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, check out our blog and resources page below:
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Resources on Technology Partnerships, Integrations, and APIs: https://www.pandium.com/ebooks
Justuno is a website marketing automation platform that's tried a lot of different strategies for speeding up the development of integrations their customers need.
From building integrations in-house to outsourcing to different varieties of embedded integration platforms, Justuno has tried a variety of integration strategies.
Their CTO and Director of Partnerships share the pros and cons of each strategy, and what B2B SaaS companies should consider when choosing the best way to scale your integration efforts.
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Launch integrations for customers in days instead of months with Pandium's integration deployment platform. Learn more about Pandium here: https://www.pandium.com/
Pandium is the only embedded integration platform that facilitates faster code-first development of integrations, allowing B2B SaaS companies to launch integrations at scale without sacrificing customization and control.
In this podcast interview we sat down with Marco De Paulis, Director, Ecommerce Partnerships at Ryder.
Marco stresses the importance of being prescriptive and detailed in integration proposals. By engaging with customers early on, gathering feedback, and incorporating their ideas, the partnership team ensures a more successful integration development.
He also shared the long-term impact on customer retention, emphasizing that its not just about a great launch - it's about making your product stickier, keeping those users around for the long haul.
Keep up with Marco here!
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To access more resources and insightful content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, explore our blog and resource center:
📚 Blog
🚀 Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources
We interviewed Lindsey Traub, the Sr. Director and Head of Partner Programs and Operations @ Simpro Software.
Hear her take on:
- Making the pitch for resources: How to effectively advocate for the resources your team needs, using data-driven insights and strategic communication.
- Advocating for partner operations: Why the role of Partner Operations is pivotal from the start to build scalable, robust programs.
- The state of partner operations tools: The shift from DIY solutions to sophisticated, ready-to-deploy technologies.
- ROI in partner operations: How to capture and demonstrate the real value of partnerships and partner operations.
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To access more resources and content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, check out our blog and resources page below
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
On this episode of our podcast Between Product and Partnerships we interviewed Swetha Kolli, Head of Integrations Engineering and Technical Services at Bolt. In this interview she shared:
- Frequently neglected parts of the integration and technology partnerships building process.
- Her perspective on the partner technology landscape and pain points that remain unaddressed.
- What to include in an integration proposal for technical teams.
Connect with Swetha here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swethakolli/
To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
We interviewed Gary Ballabio, the VP of Technology Partnerships at Cloudinary. In this interview he shared:
A framework for choosing strategic partnerships optimized for joint value.
Where he believes tech partnerships bring the most business value.
*Advice for managing expectations around ROI.
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To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Download Our Analysis of the top 50 Tech Partner Programs: https://www.pandium.com/resources/an-analysis-of-fifty-top-technology-partnership-programs
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
Richard O'Connell is the Head of Partner Growth at Atlassian, and has been working on product partnerships at Atlassian for a little over a decade.
In this interview Richard shares:
- How he suggests partner managers and leaders objectively assess new partnerships to get ahead of potential problems.
- What to keep in mind when partnering with competitors and how to structure those partnerships.
- Why lack of executive alignment shouldn't be a deal breaker for new partnerships.
- Where partner relationships tend to struggle the most.
- How to communicate with executives when a partnership needs help.
- What partner managers should think about as they're working with partners.
In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, we spoke with Katherine Tooley, a Technology Partnerships Manager at LogicGate, a modern risk management platform.
An an engineer turned technology partner manager, she now serves as a liaison between sales, CX, and product teams to collaboratively identify integration solutions that provide value to their market base.
In his interview Katherine shares:
- What drove her transition from engineering to tech partnerships
- The technical understanding she recommends for tech partner managers
- Best practices and processes for collaborating with and enabling sales & CX regarding integrations and partners
- Partner API documentation red and green flags
- The benefits and drawbacks of reporting under product vs sales
Learn more about LogicGate here: https://www.logicgate.com/
Read the transcript here: https://www.pandium.com/blogs/the-benefits-of-reporting-to-sales-best-practices-for-cross-functional-collaboration
To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below:
Download the 2022 Guide to Launching an In-App Marketplace: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-2022-guide-to-launching-an-integration-marketplace
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
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In this episode we spoke with Caitlin Teed, an integration partner manager at Ryder Ecommerce by Whiplash, a 3rd party logistics provider for enterprise and fast growing Ecommerce brands.
In this episodes Caitlin shares:
- Skills from her time in customer success that helped set her up for success in as a tech partner manager
- Skills that new partnership managers should focus on developing early on
- How she aligns on, decides, and creates metrics and goals with partners
- Tools that have been helpful in managing relationships with her partner - including a partner health audit & mutual success plan framework
Read the transcript and access the partner health and mutual success templates here: https://www.pandium.com/blogs/auditing-the-health-and-mutual-success-of-tech-partnerships
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To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below:
Download the 2022 Guide to Launching an In-App Marketplace: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-2022-guide-to-launching-an-integration-marketplace
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Tech Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Sonal Uban is the Director of Marketing for Technology Alliances at Fortinet, a global leader for cybersecurity services. In this interview she shares:
- How smaller companies can get the attention of larger partners
- Underutilized methods for co-marketing
- How she’s scaled co-marketing & attribution tracking
- What to do before taking joint-solutions to market
- A framework for assessing the compatibility of a tech partnership
Read the transcript here:
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To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Download the 2022 Guide to Launching an In-App Marketplace: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-2022-guide-to-launching-an-integration-marketplace
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Rachel Collie is the Director of Technology Partnerships and App Marketplace at Unanet. When Rachel initially joined Unanet, she realized that there were a lot of barriers to entry for tech partners, specifically when it came to building, accessing, and deploying integrations. In this interview Rachel shares:
- Barriers to entry that negatively impact technology partners engagement.
- Advice for working with the product org and technology partners to identify and build high value integrations.
- Tools and processes for scaling collaboration with internal product teams & technology partners.
Read the transcript here: https://www.pandium.com/blogs/processes-for-improving-tech-partner-engagement-and-enablement
To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Download the 2022 Guide to Launching an In-App Marketplace: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-2022-guide-to-launching-an-integration-marketplace
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Kalen Kim is currently launching the partnerships program as the Strategic Partnerships Director at Jebbit, the leading software to capture zero-party data. Kalen has worked in SaaS partnerships and sales for the past 10 years, and shares his thoughts on:
- Why sales teams should be leveraging second-party/partner data
- Best practices and pitfalls for enabling sales teams to leverage partner data
- Processes, systems, and technologies he has used in the past to help with tracking partner influence and attribution within the sales pipeline
- Advice for quantifying the value of partner influence within a burgeoning partner program
Read the transcript here:
To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Rish (Rishabh) Bhandari is the Founder and CEO of Content Beta, a content studio for B2B SaaS companies. In this episode Rish shares:
- Why B2B SaaS companies should be investing in video marketing in particular.
- How SaaS companies can ensure that their content and video marketing not only educates potential customers, but translates into more conversions, sales, and higher product adoption.
- Types of content and video marketing for technology partnerships, whether you're marketing your ecosystem platform or your relationship with other platforms.
- Where B2B SaaS companies can start with their content and video marketing strategy.
Read the transcript here:
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To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Ian Cugniere is the Program Manager for the App Marketplace at Aircall, a cloud-based call center and phone system that integrates seamlessly with popular productivity and helpdesk tools.
In this interview, Ian talks about his transition into technology partnerships and shares:
- Features of app marketplaces that are attractive to customers and partners.
- How app marketplaces and other processes can aid in identifying deals that are sourced or influenced through partnerships.
- Ways to provide a good partner experience at scale for longtail partners and partner developers who are building integrations.
- The importance of having flexibility with partner program tiers.
Read the transcript here: https://www.pandium.com/blogs/app-marketplace-benefits-and-managing-the-long-tail-partner-experience
To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page below
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Steve Rodda is the CEO of Stoplight, a global API design and documentation platform that helps SaaS companies design, test, mock, & document APIs.
For several years he has held various leadership roles in engineering and product management, leading large organizations like SolarWinds and Cherwell.
Along with discussing trends in how companies are designing and documenting their APIs, in this interview Steve shares:
- What it means to be an API-first company, and what API first means today.
- What “Design-First" means when it comes to APIs, and processes and tooling to use in the design phase of building an API.
- Best practices for security, building a developer experience, and maintaining and supporting API design and documentation over time.
- Advice for getting buy-in internally to invest in developer experience.
You can also read the transcript here:
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To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources page here:
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Links&utm_source=Podcast%20providers
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Links&utm_source=Podcast%20Providers
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Krishanth Thangarajah is the Senior Director & Head of EMEA and LATAM Partnerships at Yellow.ai working with Channel and Tech Partners.
Before Yellow.ai, he spent 3 years at Freshworks where his team vetted use cases and added 600integrations in his first year there. Eventually becoming the Head of Partnerships, he worked with this team to decide what partners to prioritize and how they could add value to their long-tail of partners.
In this interview, Krishanth shares advice on:
- How product and partnership teams can invest in scoping use cases.
- Measuring tech partnership's impact on retention and upsells.
- Setting up the partner experience for strategic and long-tail partners.
- How smaller companies can get larger companies to invest in partnerships.
You can also read the transcript here: https://www.pandium.com/blogs/strategies-for-prioritizing-technology-partners-and-refining-the-partner-experience
Want to access more content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs? Check out our blog and resources page here:
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Chris Lavoie leads Gorgias' technology partner program as their Technology Partnerships Lead. About 2 years ago he was their only Technology Partnerships Manager. Since then, Gorgias' technology partner program has grown to a team of 6, become a million-dollar ARR channel, and launched an app marketplace with 75+ integrations.
In this interview, he shares advice for growing a partnerships team, what he looks for when hiring tech partner managers, advice for the interview process, metrics and tools for measuring the success of tech partnerships, and how he decides and audits his investment in new and existing partners.
Gorgias is an end-customer engagement help desk SaaS platform for direct-to-consumer brands to power their customer communications both pre- and post-purchase. Learn more at: https://www.gorgias.com/
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Want to access more content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs? Check out our blog and resources page here:
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
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To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Priya Sukumar, the Director of Product Management at RingCentral, defines a user-centric approach to building integrations, and shares processes she has used to implement this approach in her day-to-day. She also provides tactical advice for collecting user data and keeping up to date with integration changes.
Want to access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships? Check out our blog and resources page here:
Download the Report on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies: https://www.pandium.com/resources/download-the-report-on-the-state-of-integrations-and-apis-at-400-saas-companies
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Partnerships & Product Management Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Arpit Choudhury, the Founder of astorik, first started working in the data space at Integromat where he grew their community of automation enthusiasts and contributed to building their data infrastructure and partner ecosystem.
The experienced data leader and educator talks about the biggest challenges to offering and managing product integrations, how to assess the internal data landscape of b2b customers when building integrations, how customers are currently evaluating integrations, and more.
Want to access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships? Check out our blog and resources page here:
Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog
Resources: https://www.pandium.com/resource-center
To network with others working on building integrated SaaS tech partnerships apply to join our 1100+ member group here: https://www.saasecosystemalliance.com/
Sid Maestre, The Director of Developer Relations and Advocacy at Lob, talks about customer vs partner DX, trends in developer relations and API standards, and creating a developer community.
If you're interested in networking with others working on building integrated product partnerships, we invite you to apply to be a member of the SaaS Ecosystem Alliance at SaaSEcosystemAlliance.com
Interested in reading more content like this? Check out our blog for more actionable content and interviews with product, partnerships, engineering, and business professionals working on this problem: https://www.pandium.com/blog
**We Interviewed Francois Grenier, the Head of Technology Partnerships at Sendoso and former Head of Platform Partnerships at Typeform about the importance of product thinking for technology partnerships, building Integrations for customer retention vs acquisition, advice for gathering information on ICP tech stack and customer feedback, and more.
If you're interested in networking with others working on building integrated product partnerships, we invite you to apply to be a member of the SaaS Ecosystem Alliance at SaaSEcosystemAlliance.com**