Pax8 Evolves Marketplace Into ‘Customer Acquisition Engine’ For MSPs

‘Simply put, Pax8 is going to acquire and convert these direct customers, bringing them into the marketplace so we can introduce them to all of you,’ Scott Chasin, Pax8 CTO, tells MSPs at the company’s Beyond event. ‘We want to minimize the threat of product-led growth without the MSP.’

Cloud distributor Pax8 unveiled its enhanced cloud marketplace, using the power of data and AI to act as a customer acquisition engine for its partners, at its inaugural Beyond event.

The revamp of the cloud marketplace enables Pax8 to help MSPs get matched up with end customers who are looking to buy direct through Pax8’s vendor partners.

Through a “buy now” button that most Pax8 vendor partners will have on their websites, end customers will be rerouted to Pax8’s marketplace and prompted to answer questions that will match them with an MSP if they don’t have one already.

MSPs must opt into the feature and also answer questions on what type of customers they’re looking for. If an MSP and an end customer’s criteria match up, they then get connected through Pax8’s matchmaking capability.

“Hopefully you can see how the data-driven, customer-centric marketplace will impact all of your businesses and provide amazing key insights for growth,” said Scott Chasin, CTO of Denver-based Pax8.

[Related: Pax8’s Nick Heddy: ‘We Have A Vision On The Path Forward On This Rapidly-Evolving Channel’]

“The next generation of business owners and born-in-the-cloud entrepreneurs will look to SaaS vendors directly,” Chasin said at the event, which hosted more than 1,000 MSPs. “At Pax8, we tend to look at things a little differently. We’re known for our disruption and I’m excited to [say] you may see a future where marketplace-led growth will become the norm and Pax8 will become your customer acquisition engine,” he said.

“Simply put, Pax8 is going to acquire and convert these direct customers, bringing them into the marketplace, so we can introduce them to all of you,” he told MSPs. “We want to minimize the threat of product-led growth without the MSP.”

He said product-led growth comes directly into the prospect marketplace, giving MSPs the ability to “swipe right” and claim that prospect. From there, Pax8 will make the introduction.

“When we tether a customer to you, that customer’s lifetime value to the SaaS vendor increases by at least five times,” he said. “So it’s a big win for the vendors and it’s a massive opportunity for all [MSPs].”

The future of cloud marketplaces will be more about the end customers, and they will be defined by the data that describes their existing solution stacks, he said. Then MSPs can layer on products and solutions using AI insight generated from the data.

“We think the data that defines your customers existing’ solutions can define what your customers need,” he said.

Pax8 partners who opt in will sync their data through their PSA and RMM tools, “which will unlock a complete view across all of your customers,” said Elizabeth McIlhany, senior vice president of product for Pax8.

Roddy Bergeron, CISO at Lafayette, La.-based MSP Enterprise Data Concepts, said the marketplace will help him better service his co-managed IT customers.

“I think a lot of MSPs struggle with sales,” he told CRN. “Having a tool that will help us get that data a little bit [more easily] and know where the next opportunity is is going to help our sales. Any kind of tool that we can have that helps empower our salespeople or just puts it in their faces like ,‘Hey, here you go guys. Go make some money,’ just makes it better for us.”

Marc Menzies, president and CTO of New York-based MSP Overview Technology Solutions, hopes to see smaller partners who “normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to transact in an environment like that, but have a high operational maturity level, will be able to participate in a way that maybe they wouldn’t with a similar ecosystem.”

“This gives Pax8 an opportunity to help the smaller MSPs grow their business while still making sure that the customers that they’re bringing in directly are going with those that can best provide for them,” he said.