Episode Details

Bob Moore quit his VC job the day before Lehman Brothers collapsed. He bootstrapped RJ Metrics, sold it to Magento, then spun out the same technology as Stitch and sold it for $60M in 18 months. Now his SaaS partnerships platform Crossbeam serves 19,000 companies at 8-figure ARR.

Learn how to sell the same company twice, why SaaS partnerships require solving the cold start problem with joint onboarding, and how partner-led growth and network effects tipped after 100 companies on the platform.

🔑 Key Lessons

• 🔄 Spin-out exits unlock hidden value in SaaS partnerships: Bob kept RJ Metrics' ETL technology after selling to Magento, relaunched it as Stitch, and sold it to Talend for $60M in 18 months.
• 🤝 Solve the cold start problem by onboarding SaaS partnerships in pairs: Crossbeam created joint jam sessions that onboarded two partner companies simultaneously, because no single company could derive value alone.
• 📉 Monolithic products lose when buyers purchase ecosystem-led growth stacks: RJ Metrics went from rapid growth to flat revenue after Amazon Redshift let buyers assemble a modern data stack.
• 🎯 SaaS partnerships network effects take years before they tip: Crossbeam spent two years reaching 100 companies before the partner-led growth loop kicked in and users invited their own partners.
• 🚀 PLG and freemium accelerate SaaS partnerships adoption: Crossbeam's free tier attracted 19,000 companies and built network effects density, while paid tiers captured revenue from power users.

Chapters

• Introduction
• Bob's favorite quote and Crossbeam overview
• Business size, revenue, and team
• The RJ Metrics origin story (2008)
• Quitting the day Lehman Brothers collapsed
• Challenges acquiring the first customers
• Surviving the emotional rollercoaster of early days
• How Bob learned to code
• Raising $20M in venture capital for RJ Metrics
• How Amazon Redshift disrupted RJ Metrics
• The modern data stack and losing to Looker
• The $2.6 billion mistake
• Spinning out Stitch from RJ Metrics
• Selling Stitch to Talend for $60M in 18 months
• The founding of Crossbeam and SaaS partnerships in 2018
• Solving the cold start problem and data trust
• Joint jam sessions and onboarding SaaS partnerships in pairs
• How network effects tipped after 100 companies
• How long Bob sees himself working on Crossbeam
• Lightning round

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/396
• Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email