To master the channel model without prior experience, uSecure's team attended MSP-focused educational sessions at industry events, rather than just working the vendor booth. This immersion, combined with monitoring online communities like Reddit, provided deep, firsthand insight into partner pain points and desired vendor behaviors.

To effectively serve SMBs, B2B marketers must evolve their approach from collaboration ('do it with them') to automation ('do it for them'). SMB owners are not marketers and lack the time and staff to manage complex tools. The most valuable service is one that simplifies complexity and leverages technology to execute marketing tasks on their behalf, empowering them to achieve more with minimal direct involvement.

Faced with resource-heavy US competitors in the direct market, uSecure identified the Managed Service Provider (MSP) channel as an underserved green space. They executed a hard pivot, rebuilding their product and licensing specifically for MSPs, which created a key differentiator that fueled their growth.

uSecure initially underestimated how resource-constrained MSPs are. Their breakthrough came when they moved beyond simple PDF guides and built a white-labeled sales prospecting tool. This tool helped partners automatically build a data-driven business case for their own clients, proving uSecure understood their challenges and driving scale.

Huntress succeeded with MSPs by framing its security product as a way to protect their margins. Since MSPs charge a flat fee, a security incident meant lost time and negative profit on a client. Huntress helped them avoid financial losses and become heroes to their customers, ensuring deep partnership alignment.

Huntress discovered that simply finding threats wasn't enough for its MSP customers, who lacked specialized cybersecurity staff for remediation. The product had to evolve into a fully managed, human-powered service that handled the problem end-to-end, moving from alerts to a 'click a button to fix' solution.

Instead of building its program in a vacuum, Lenovo proactively gathered a group of MSPs to act as an advisory council. This allowed them to understand partner needs, identify market gaps, and craft a more relevant and successful program from the outset, which they continue to iterate on.

StatusGator initially targeted developers but found success only after realizing IT directors were the true buyers. The mistake was focusing on users who loved the tool but lacked the authority and budget to purchase it for their company.

While conventional wisdom suggests moving upmarket for growth, Sensei chose the opposite path to scale from $40M to $100M ARR. They partnered with Pax8 to target a vast number of smaller customers downstream, leveraging the channel's reach for a "10x proposition" without the heavy investment required for enterprise sales readiness.