Thanks to everyone who joined the panel at the BlackHat Innovators & Investors Summit — it was a fast, practical session and full of real, repeatable advice. Below I’ve distilled the conversation into the speakers and the most actionable takeaways founders, investors and channel leaders can use.

Who Spoke

• Daniel “DB” Bernard — Chief Business Officer, CrowdStrike
• Matt Berry — Global Field CTO, Cyber, World Wide Technology (WWT)
• Chris Bisnett — Co-founder & CTO, Huntress
• Peter Bryant — Market Analyst, Canalys
• Moderator: Raffael Marty, Operating Advisor

Top-line Thesis

Great product is necessary but not sufficient. If you want scale and durability you must design product, GTM, pricing and operations for the channel — MSPs, VARs, MSSPs, distributors and hyperscaler marketplaces. Get those pieces aligned and the channel becomes your growth engine and a moat.

The Most Important, Actionable Insights

1) Start with real customer evidence — then bring partners in

• Close a first few deals directly and then ask: Who do you buy through? If the customer uses a reseller or integrator, bring that partner into the next conversation.
• A partner introduced by a customer is infinitely more effective than cold outreach.

2) Target, pilot, then scale (regional first)

• Don’t boil the ocean. Pick a geography or vertical where a partner has influence, run an enablement-intensive pilot, close a few joint deals, and let the wins spread organically through the partner organization.
• Grassroots wins (regional proof points) are how startup products get noticed inside large SIs and disti sales orgs.

3) Engineer the product for MSPs and scale

• Some technical must-haves for MSPs: multi-tenancy, frictionless provisioning, usage-based billing, robust reporting, and minimal support overhead (no reboots, simple deployment).
• Build integrations with RMM/PSA tools. Partners won’t adopt tools that don’t fit their stack.

4) Use hyperscaler marketplaces as a growth hack

• AWS/Azure/Google marketplaces are a procurement shortcut — customers can spend cloud credits and close without long vendor approvals. CrowdStrike and others proved this: marketplace adoption accelerated scale dramatically.
• Prioritize marketplace readiness early (billing, security/compliance, packaging).

5) Think of channel margin as external sales / commission

• Yes, margins look worse on paper — but compare to the true CAC of building a direct sales force. That margin buys you reach and reduces acquisition risk (you only pay when a partner sells).
• Measure partner-sourced vs partner-influenced revenue and the CAC of each.

6) Don’t assume distis/VARs will sell without support

• Listing in a distributor catalog is not the finish line. You must: enable, co-market, provide lead flow, run joint sales plays, and sometimes front-end incentives to get sellers focused on your SKU.
• Short-term investment in enablement and marketing is how you get long-term pull-through.

7) Build partner economics and enablement as products

• Provide free (or low-cost) certification, sales playbooks, demo environments, one-click onboarding, and co-branded assets. These reduce time-to-first-deal and lower partner friction.
• Consider usage-based billing to match MSP economics: partners want to align cost with consumed endpoints/services.

8) Decide and double-down on one partner type first

• MSP vs MSSP vs VAR vs SI: each requires a different product shape and GTM. Nail one, then expand. Trying to serve all at once dilutes focus and kills momentum.

9) Invest in partner success and low-touch CSM automation

• With thousands of SMB endpoints, you can’t scale human CSM for every account. Automate onboarding, monitoring, renewal nudges and migration tools — make it easy for MSPs to manage many customers.

10) Metrics you should be tracking from day 1

• Time-to-first-deal with partner (by partner type)
• Partner-sourced pipeline and partner-influenced revenue
• Onboarding time per MSP customer (time-to-live)
• Churn by partner / churn during partner transitions
• Net retention for partner-sourced customers

Practical checklist for founders (do this tomorrow)

1. Pull your top 3 customers and ask: who did you buy through?
2. Pick one partner (regional or niche) and design a 90-day pilot with joint enablement and a measurable close objective.
3. Audit product integration: do you have PSA/RMM connectors? If not, roadmap one.
4. Prepare an AWS/Azure/Google marketplace package (billing, security, description, packaging).
5. Create a partner enablement kit: demo script, short playbook, 1-page technical install guide, and a free certification.
6. Model partner economics as commission vs. CAC — present it to your board/investors as external sales.
7. Instrument partner metrics in your analytics and report them weekly.

Suggested questions to ask a distributor / VAR / SI when exploring partnership

• Who in your organization will sell and who will implement our solution? (names/roles)
• What does success look like in the first 90 days? How many joint opportunities will you target?
• Which 3 vendors do you co-sell with today (and how do we integrate with them)?
• What enablement will you need from us (sales motion, demo environment, pricing, rebates)?
• How will leads/credit/margin be handled if a customer comes direct?

For investors: what to look for in a channel-first startup

• Product designed for the channel: multi-tenancy, RMM/PSA integrations, usage billing.
• Early partner proofs: paying partners or partner-introduced deals, not just distributor listings.
• A go-to-market playbook for partner enablement (documented processes, enablement kits, measurable time-to-first-deal).
• Marketplace strategy and early traction (even if small, momentum matters).

Closing takeaways (what I heard loud and clear)

• The channel is not a shortcut — it’s a discipline. If you commit, build for it, and invest in the partner motion, channel-first companies scale faster and with lower long-term CAC.
• Start with customers, pilot locally with partners, engineer for MSP realities, and use marketplaces to accelerate procurement.
• Win through repeatable partner plays and measurable enablement — wins scale inside partner organizations.

Thanks again to BlackHat for having us and to the panelists to take time out of their busy schedules to impart these very actionable insights.

The post Mastering the Channel Ecosystem — Lessons From our BlackHat Panel first appeared on Future of Tech and Security: Strategy & Innovation with Raffy.