Every good brand refresh starts with a desire for more.
Five years ago, we set out to change the way the world sells software. 2021 was an amazing year for the partnerships market, and when we looked around, we found that we were leading the charge.
In the past year alone we:
- Made a lot of partnerships and drove $172 million in sales through our network
- Gained a lot of customers. In total, we helped 400+ companies scale their programs on PartnerStack
- Doubled the size of our team to over 200 employees (and counting)
There’s been a lot of growth, and we wanted to set ourselves up for what’s coming next by refreshing our brand.
Our company’s vision hasn’t changed, but it’s important we take this moment in our company’s journey to be more polished and consistent in the way we present ourselves (and go beyond reviews for brand-building).
Growing Pains
As more customers, employees and partners join us on our mission, we needed to ensure that we were able to guide our brand through our communications and product.
Our rapid growth had introduced some inconsistencies into our processes. Some were simple enough, like colors and fonts, while others were more nuanced, like our voice and tone across our marketing channels.
It’s understandable that a company at this stage will have some growing pains, and it became clear that we needed to take a step back, take a look at all of the ways we were presenting ourselves to the market, and ultimately create a better system that we could nurture and build upon over time. We were ready for the challenge.
Customer Clarity
We spoke with a lot of our customers, partners, industry experts, and especially our internal folks. We gained a lot of interesting insights, like what our customers perceived as our strengths and weaknesses, what companies and partners were looking for in the space, and how we could contribute our own expertise.
As we unpacked what made us standout in the market, a clear direction began to emerge.
Branding tends to work the “art” part of the marketing brain (as opposed to the science), because a company must confront its human qualities that help connect it to the hearts and minds of its customers, which isn’t easily measured.
For us, taking a hard look at ourselves also allowed us to reflect on some of our company’s accolades. Such as why we’re recognized as one of Canada’s Best Place to Work and listed on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50.
Above all, our customers trust us, and we want to maintain the positive, consistent, and ultimately human relationships that we’ve built over the years.
Here are some of the components we’re proud of.
Our Refined Logo
Our new one isn’t intended to be a departure, because it still visually represents the connections between companies and their partners; an association that's recognizable to our customers and worth preserving.
Our Own Illustration Style
A lot of startups leverage open source libraries to create their assets, since speed of production is so critical in the scrappy years. We were no different, but as our business grew, we became more confident with how we were communicating to the market, and it was time to create a visual expression of our brand that was uniquely and authentically us, and that we could own.
Our People
We’re incredibly proud of the great people working at PartnerStack who connect our customers and their partners in real and meaningful ways.
It was important for us to showcase the real people behind partnerships (both at PartnerStack and SaaS in general), and recognize the growing skill sets that come from everyone building a career in this new and growing space.
Looking forward
SaaS companies are increasingly looking for ways to reach new customers, and as marketers of those connections, we understand how a consistent brand also makes for effective messaging. After all, partners are brand ambassadors and extensions of the companies they sell for.
As we continue to build out our brand, we'll be thinking about those connections and the people behind the partnerships. We'll hope you'll come along with us.
Thank you for reading! We're also actively hiring, so check out our available career opportunities.
