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Ask HN: Pitching cross-promotion partnership

4 points by redgrange ↗ HN
I have a SaaS that's been growing relatively fast over the last 4 months. I have identified another SaaS that's doing something that I could build into my product but do not care to do if others are already doing it. I'd like to pitch to the other SaaS the idea of a cross-promotion in which my paying customers would be recommended to try the SaaS's product to complement mine. Is there a well known process in introductions and pitching such an idea. I really do not want to start on the wrong foot and I think the two cross-promoting would be quite successful to both sides.

EDIT: I'm hoping this will create a broader discussion and not solely about my case. I'm getting into this cross-promotion thing after seeing a video that someone linked to on HN about the ways an under the radar SaaS can further increase users beyond traditional marketing means.

4 comments

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nhebb
> I have identified another SaaS that's doing something that I could build into my product but do not care to do

Is your product doing something they they could build into theirs? It's something to consider before approaching them.

redgrange
They could build it. However, we are currently the dominant player in the field. It took us over a year to build it with a three man team. It's also a data intensive SaaS and it would require that same amount of time to collect the data that's needed to make sales. I think it's 1 or 2 people running other other SaaS.
namenotrequired
I am not aware of a process or best practices in this field, but off the top of my head, here's some ideas:

- Don't talk of cross promotion initially, but offer to meet just to talk about what you can learn from each other, and see where it goes from there (maybe nothing, maybe you'll learn something, maybe cross promotion, maybe you'll hit on an even more mutually beneficial cooperation).

- If you do just want cross promotion and nothing more, make the first move - create your blog / newsletter / integration design / whatever already, before you approach them. Let's be honest - which makes you hungrier, "I sell sausages for $1" or "Look at this sausage, doesn't it smell great"? Even if you don't make them hungry, you'll at least show that you're serious and aren't trying to take advantage of them. That effect will be the greatest if you already release your part of the promotion before approaching them, but if that makes you nervous you could also create it and wait until you have a deal before releasing it.

Good luck! If you don't find the advice you're looking for (again, I'm not aware of any established best practices myself) and you're still nervous about it, perhaps practice it with a smaller SaaS first - they have less to offer, but you have less to lose.

redgrange
Thanks. We are on opposite coasts of the US so meeting up will not be that feasible--at least to start.

I like your latter idea though. Essentially build it and say that just just a commit button away from our side of cross promoting and will be happy if they did x, y, or z for us. I guess our urgency might speed things up. One the other side, would that kind of approach come off as cocky and presumptive?