When we first researched on the SAP partner website about the SAP reseller channel we thought we had struck gold and found our marketing and sales channel. It was early days and after finishing off our first SAP approval solution, securing a couple of foundation customers plus venture funding we were off. Our grandiose plan was to work to our strengths – focus on building the best possible third party SAP software and then leverage the reseller channel with their close customer connections to sell for us.

The early days were quite idealistic - our foundation customers loved our software and we kept making it better and better. Secondly SAP partners were giving us lots of attention. This start-up business was kinda fun – what a great decision it was to take the leap!

After six months we had finished off another three solutions and after a great deal of time and effort had signed agreements with ten sap partners in key regions around the world. They used words like ‘wow’ and ‘our customers will absolutely love this’ so we were ready for lift-off. We told our investors things could not be any rosier.

A few months later the silence was deafening! What was going on? Status updates from our new SAP friends gave us positive signals but there never was anything concrete. We prayed some great leads would arrive ASAP and we could get back on track but it just wasn’t happening. The future no longer looked quite so rosy and obviously the coffers were running too low.

Finally the penny dropped with our sales problem. “Your software goes against the SAP reseller business model” stated a mentor. “Think about it – how do these guys make money?” One of the great strengths of our software was a huge weakness with our chosen sales channel. Having software priced in the hundreds of dollars that can be installed in minutes without requiring any change to sap didn’t make sense to them. They make money by reselling big 6 figure solutions that require expensive consultants to go on site for months to complete an implementation. The reality was our software could completely blow away that expensive six figure alternative but it simply did not matter.



Fast forward a few years and now all the resellers (bar a couple of forward thinking ones) are long gone. We found success with a direct marketing model that sold our benefits directly to the customer. They are the ones who can really benefits from looking beyond their SAP partner’s recommendations and discovering great alternatives. On the flip side it is our responsibility to make their decision process as risk free as possible with 30 day trials, no contracts, demo accounts and a quick and painless 5 minute installation process.





It has been quite a journey but well worth it. Yes – we did lose a lot of time and money pursuing the wrong sales channel but the end result favoured us with an extremely valuable direct connection and relationship with our customers and control of our own destiny. At the end of the day they didn’t want us and we certainly don’t need them!