Moving from Product Partnerships to Revenue: Jira Cooley on Owning the Number

Speaker A: Welcome to Between Product and Partnerships, a podcast focused on bringing together product, partnership and engineering leaders to discuss how to build, support and scale SaaS ecosystems. This podcast is presented by Pandium, an integration platform for building native integrations.

Speaker B: Hi everyone, and thanks for listening to our podcast Between Product and Partnerships, where we talk about the challenges and what it takes to build integrations, tech partnerships and SaaS, products, platforms. And today, I am so excited to have my friend Jira Cooley, who is now the Snowflake partner lead at Growth Loop, join us. Jira, give us a little bit of, uh, intro to yourself and your background.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me. M on, Christina. It's, uh, it's, um, been, uh, a long time coming, but happy to be here. And, uh, yeah, so just a quick intro. My name is Jira Cooley and as Christina mentioned, I'm currently the Growth Loop partner manager, um, for Snowflake, um, focusing solely on the stuff like partnership. My background in general has always been more so on the product and technology partnerships across SaaS. So I've worked at companies like Odd, Ah, Zero, Okta, Interval, HubSpot, uh, and now at, uh, Growth Loop. So, uh, mostly living in that fun, messy middle, essentially between product, partnership, sales, engineering, and now revenue.

Speaker B: That is a fun place to be. You get to be like, have your hands in a bunch of different stuff, so we could just dive right in. And this is so super topical, I think, for a lot of folks. I think you just started your new role at Growth Loop. You'll have to tell us, remind me how long it's been. But how did you find the job search more recently? Uh, how did it go? I feel like it's something that's top of mind for a lot of folks.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Happy to share, uh, my journey so far. Yeah. So I've been at the company with Growth Loop now for coming up on two months. So relatively new. The whole job search and everything was interesting. Right. Because it's a funny time that we're in. Um, and I was also, you know, unfortunately, uh, laid off in my last position at HubSpot. So, um, you know, those always come as a surprise, right? No matter. No matter where you are in kind of your journey and career. But, um, for the next step, you know, I was wanting to be really intentional. What I wanted to do next, um, as I kind of made in my intro there, is that I spent a lot of my career in product and technology partnerships, which I love. I like being close to the product, close to integrations, close to the customer. Problems. But I also knew that like, for my next move, I wanted to get closer to revenue, right. To really round out my career. And uh, you know, that's, that's kind of what made the position at Growth Loop interesting for me. I knew that I wanted to be in some sort of position in that way. I just didn't know where quite at the moment. But luckily, you know, the Snowflake partnership that, that was, the position here was, Was just kind of a perfect segue for my career. And that's kind of where I landed and where I started my search. There was definitely a lot of LinkedIn refreshes. Connecting with network connecting, uh, that people that you may have not spoken to in some time. But it was, uh, it was definitely an interesting part of, of reflecting back on past relationships. Past networking.

Speaker B: Yeah. How do you think about that? Cause when I talk to folks, I mean, being like a founder and startuping and all this stuff, like, I feel like that networking is always an important thing, but it is a little bit nebulous and I. Especially for folks where it doesn't come maybe as naturally, like I've known you for a few years, at this point, I feel like you're a very approachable, like, friendly person. But I think for some folks it can be really intimidating. Like what? I guess, how did you attack that networking angle and like rekindling some of those relationships? What advice would you give folks about that if they're heading into that kind of phase in their career?

Speaker C: Yeah, totally. I mean, I try to m. Make networking feel less like networking because networking as a word is kind of terrible, right. It's kind of daunting in a little bit. For me. It's really just saying, staying in touch with people, right. So being curious about what they're building and trying to be useful before I need anything. So. So the worst version I think of networking is when someone disappears for four years, right. And then suddenly comes back and, you know, hey, long time no talk. Can you refer me? You know, nobody loves that message. So I try to stay visible in a, uh, in a smaller, more natural way. So if I see someone made a move, I'll congratulate them. If I come across a company or partner that might be relevant to someone, I'll send it over. If someone is working on something I've seen before, I'll offer a thought or make an intro. And it's also just, you know, being, being truly genuine about, you know, connecting with folks. Right. I mean, you might not think that. I mean, it's Easy to get lost. And like, once you, once you move on from the position and you used to work with someone for, for a time being, you kind of just lose that naturally. Uh, right. But it's, it's also part, I think, of the world that we live in in partnerships is that you are really connecting with folks all the time. You're always looking for new relationships, fostering old relationships. So it's like the best thing to do there is just to, just to keep kind of proactively, you know, being genuinely naturally interested in folks and in general. So that's, that's what I did. Most part think that's what helped me too in, in, in my job search this, this last time around.

Speaker B: Yeah. And the, the software world, like, can feel really big, I think, but it's also so small. Like, when I look at folks like, hopping, you know, to new gigs or kind of getting new positions, there's always at this point in my life, and I'm sure it's like this for you too. I'm like one degree away from almost anybody, I feel like, at this point, like, and I always tell folks, like, it's so important not to burn bridges. And that doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean, like, don't, you know, like, flip a table on your way out, which obviously don't do that. But just like, to your point, being like a naturally curious, like, kind person will go so far. And I think especially in the current landscape, being top of mind and being someone who you're like, I mean, I can't tell you the amount of times I've had someone reach out to me and be like, oh, this person used to work at a customer of yours. Did you work with them? And I could say, like, you know, I don't know that person and like, I don't know their work super well, but I can say that they're like a cool person who was responsive and seemed like a genuinely nice person. And that's like enough, right, sometimes to get that resume a second look. I wonder if, like, the way that you're networking or with your job hunt this time around, if there was anything different about it. Given the current technology landscape with AI and economic uncertainty, and there's obviously a lot of macro kind of economic things at play. Like, do you have any advice that's like, really specific to this time or was anything like, really different for you? Because you've been, I mean, you've been in the space for what, like 15, 20 years at this point? Not to, I don't want to put too much age on you, but I'm just thinking about it.

Speaker C: Yeah, not quite 20 years, but yes, I, I think, yeah, this time around, I think every job opportunity that I came from or every time that I had an interview came from networking, honestly. So if I had any advice to someone younger in their career, someone that's just coming up and just kind of what you said there, it's just like being genuinely honest to people as well. It's like if someone, if someone asks you for a referral, um, it's okay to say no because you're not sure exactly of like the person. But if you do know the person, you can at least give them a little bit of tidbits of like, what the role is, share a little bit of information. I think every interaction that you have in partnership roles in general, it's like there's some sort of value exchange that needs to be happened. Same thing when you go with networking, especially from a business context, it's like there's some sort of value exchange there. Right? Like, um. And a lot of times just being honest with people too. That's what I did was, you know, I reached out to folks that I work with, had good relationships with, knowing if they, seeing if they had uh, kind of any opportunities that might have popped up, but that they're aware, but then also not like making it just like, hey, can you send me this referral? Also tell them why you think they're a good fit, right? Tell them especially like, what this position means to you, Things like that. So have a story of like, you know, what your past is, what, where you want to go and then why you're going to be a good fit for the company makes a total ton of sense. And if it's someone that you worked with in the past and you have a good rapport with, anyways, that's just going to come out and that's just going to be natural for them to say yes, um, or no. You know, if this is not a good fit, and I appreciate the honesty, I mean, I had a few folks that I spoke with and if you're listening to this, you know who you are and I really appreciate the candor of like, hey, this role for you right now, it's not a good fit. And here's XYZ reasons why.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I mean if, if there is an opportunity for referral as a candidate, like, everybody wins, right? Like, just like thinking about partnerships generally, it should be a, ah, win for the candidate. It should be a Win for the referring partner. It should be a win for the company getting the referral. Because as someone who is hired not that long ago and got flooded with like 900 applicants for one role, like, anytime I can filter through some of that, I'm happy. Right? So everyone should, should win if it's a good fit. Just to go back to what you said previously, you mentioned that you wanted to get closer to the kind of revenue generating, maybe m sales side of the house with this next, uh, phase of your career. Why? Why do you want to do that? Why do you think that's important? Why do you think that's the best thing for you right now?

Speaker C: That's funny. I actually had a few folks that I was speaking with, uh, that were my past bosses and peers and were saying the exact same thing. It's like, product partnerships is a great place to be in. Why would you want to go to the sales side?

Speaker B: Yeah, right. Get a quota? What?

Speaker C: Yeah. Why would you put that on yourself? And, uh. Fair enough. Fair question. I think for me, I got to a point where I spent a lot of time building the partnership story and the product connection, and I wanted to get closer to whether it actually worked commercially. Because in partnerships, the story is usually the fun part, at least for me. Everyone gets excited. Companies make sense together. The integration sounds good. The announcement goes out, everyone posts the same LinkedIn post with slightly different wording. Right. But then the real question is, like, what happens after that? Does sales care? Does the partner field teams care? Do customers understand the value? Is it showing up in pipeline? Is it helping moving deals? Is it driving adoption or expansion? And that is why I think revenue responsibility felt like the right next step for me. It forces you to really care about the system and the signal, not just the story. And I still love the product integration side of things. Um, but I really wanted to build a muscle around turning partnerships into repeatable commercial motions. And I think that's where partnerships become really valuable. And it was just, to be honest, it was just an area of my career that I just, I haven't really flexed that muscle. So for me, it was just like, this is a good opportunity for me to really to take the time, reflect, and then go and do something that I haven't done and put myself in uncomfortable situations, which, which is, uh, exactly what I'm doing now, which is great.

Speaker B: It's so funny too, because I feel like that transition is what you're experiencing is the inverse of what a lot of people experience, which is like, they get really stuck in The Revgen side of partnerships, like, they're hired into biz dev, and then they just continue to, like, roll into a CRO or a CMO or maybe strategy, uh, forever, and always want to go or want to fill things out by having a more technical background, which I think is, um, maybe a harder, not harder, from like a skill set transition, but can be a more difficult career change to make, I think. Like, to have someone who has a sales background, then take a job that's more product focused, I imagine. And my sense is that that's actually like, what you're doing is more of like a unicorn type of thing. It's like, hey, I actually have the technical acumen. Like, I understand the tech, I understand how to make the product, and like, the interoperability and the internal alignment work. And now I want to be more on the sales side is less common, I think, than the inverse of that, which is like, hey, I've been doing this on the biz dev side. Like, I'd like to, you know, maybe not have that amount of pressure or like, just bone up on the. On the technical chops. I don't know. I'm just thinking about it now. Like, I don't know if that aligns with what you've seen. I mean, you've obviously had people that report into you and like, you've been in the space for a long time.

Speaker C: I mean, you probably have spoken with more partnership folks than I have. So you probably have, uh, with your role and what you do. I didn't know that, but now I'm kind of learning that it's probably the case. Um, which is cool. It's just this unique. Everyone has their own story, right. Of their background and how they. And how they kind of grow up in the professional role. And I guess this is my route. So.

Speaker B: Yeah. And how did that. For the folks that are listening, that are doing maybe what you did early in your career, which is like, to go from maybe that business development side to a more technical version of that role. Like, how did that happen for you? Did you just decide you wanted to learn? Did you take classes? Like, what did you. How did you make that. That journey happen?

Speaker C: Yeah, so. So my background is definitely not technical. Um, my background has always been actually, uh, started, you know, oddly enough, on the marketing side of things. That's kind of where I got. Tipped my toes and got my feet wet was, um, working at a. At a agency that essentially ran a couple big partner programs for AWS and Microsoft. And that's essentially how I Got started in the partner world. That's how I learned about partners, and I learned how exciting it can be. And then I slowly kind of graduated my way into. Just landed into my first kind of alliance, um, position as a very junior alliance, um, you know, professional. And then it just kind of happened pretty gradually. Right. I will never Forget when the VP of Product Management of that company, K2 Software, told me very quickly that you're going to get technical very quick. And I was like, okay, great. That was very intimidating. But, um, yeah, I mean, I, like I said, you know, I started more on the business development and side of the things, on the marketing of it, really. And then, um, the more I got into the tech partnerships, I realized that you, you cannot just, you're not going to be as useful if you don't understand, you know, the, the how it all works, the plumbing and all that kind of great stuff. So, you know, at some point, you know, customers and partners are going to ask you, like, how does this actually work? Right? What data moves? What system is a source of truth? What happens during implementation? What breaks? Right. And so early on I could explain why the partnership mattered, but I did not always understand the architecture underneath it. Right. And that was, that's a really weird place to be because you can feel useful and also useless at the same time. So because, you know, you know why the customer cares, you know the business problems, um, and you know why the partnership matters. But if someone asks, okay, how does the integration actually work? Suddenly you're, you know, you're tap dancing a little. And eventually I got tired of tap dancing, so I started learning the basics of it and spending more time with, um, different product managers, engineers, solution architects and customers. And then over time, I just got better at connecting the business value to the, to the technical reality.

Speaker B: Curious. You said that, that, that boss said you're going to get technical very quickly or very fast or something like that. What do you think he saw in you that made him say that?

Speaker C: I think he could see into me right away that I can do. Well, when you're in uncomfortable situations and you know how to ask the right questions, right. And I think it's okay when, to be very honest, when you don't know things, right? And be very clear of, like, this is totally over my head, guys, like, just help me bring back down. This is what I know. And then just being very, I think, genuine in that way, I'm trying to find the right word that essentially that you did say to me, but I can't think of it right now, but it was something along those lines. It's just like, you could tell that I would be able to take those questions and just be naturally, just honest and just. It's okay to not know.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. I totally agree with you. And what we talk about here at Pandium is having, like, the confidence and the humility to, like, ask questions. It's like the humility to say, like, I don't know what is going on. Can someone explain it to me? And the confidence to continue that sentence with like, and I think I can figure it out, or I trust you to take care of it, because I'm not going to be able to figure it out. And I think, like, the shorter version of that is never being afraid to ask why and, like, being like, hey, like. I remember the very first time I asked an engineer to explain what an API was like in, like, 2008. I was like, I don't know what that word means. I keep hearing it. I sort of conceptually understand what it's kind of doing, but, like, what is it? I remember exactly where I was standing in an office and who it was that explained that to me. And, like, you know, that, like, changed the trajectory of, uh, my entire career, honestly, like, asking that question and asking it to somebody who would take the five minutes to explain it to me. Right. So, yeah, what your story, what you're saying, like, resonates a lot. That sort of like, hey, like, knowing when you should ask, knowing when. Even currently, like, I'm not an engineer and I work with engineers all day. I know when to be like, you guys got this. I don't need to ask that question. Like, you don't need to explain that to me. Yeah, but there is a, I think, a level of confidence that you have to have, and you could fake that confidence for a period of time until you know enough to be able to ask those questions.

Speaker C: Totally.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's, it's. It's interesting. And it's. You know, this is like, I could nerd out about this all day. This is what I love. Right. Is like, that combination of, uh, the commercial side of the business, the customer value, and the technology part, I think is really. Is really fun. And I personally think it's like a superpower if you can combine those things, like being able to understand what customers actually need, Having enough of the tech mindset to be able to, like, speak competently and know when to bring someone else in, and having the commercial side of it, like, that makes you, like, a real secret Weapon, I think in a, uh, in an organization.

Speaker C: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean that's for, for like my family, my wife, my parents, things like that, that are, that always ask what I do. A lot of times it's confusing already to folks that are already in tech, but it's also think about how confusing it is to someone that's not in our world whatsoever. And they're like, what do you do? Well really I'm just the translator between engineering and sales and in between. Right, you do everything in between. You kind of know enough about everything, but you're not an expert in anything. And so that's where it's like being comfortable with the ambiguity of the role, uh, I think is huge as well. And as you mentioned, like a couple things you said there, I was like, I remember back in the day when I would be in meetings and I would just like have to write down terms because I did not fully understand what they were and then have to look them up afterward. You know, like APIs, totally web hooks, authentication. I was in um, security for a while, cybersecurity while with Octane on zero. So like that whole world is completely different to martech. Right. So it's like even more confusing in a lot of ways. And um, yeah, so there's just a ton of stuff to learn. And I think as long as you're learning, you're always going to be learning. But as long as you're uh, continuously having that mindset, you're always going to do well. You're always going to find new ways to do things different and better.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I think the, the natural curiosity and, and it also helps like you're again, as I said before, like, I think a very kind, like approachable person. And I do think there is something about that sort of demeanor that can also help. Like when you're asking like, hey, senior engineer, you keep saying API and I don't know what that word means. Like, I'm genuinely curious and like I actually want to know is. I think there's a special way to ask these kinds of questions too, to be able to like get that type of information. But I'll say at my, um, at my last company where I met my co founder, this company called Handshake, that was acquired by Shopify, one of my engineers on my services team did like a little API and integration boot camp and asked like the entire company, like sales team cx, like come learn what an API is. And he had a conference room full. He did like a uh, three or Five week session. And it was really cool to see like our, our BDRs, like, you know, because they hear about this stuff all day. They're, they, they know the talk track of what to say about the API, but they don't know what it actually means, you know, and how it works. It was really, it was really cool to see him like, want to help and see the response. We were like, maybe like, it'll be like just three of us, but it was a full room, like probably 15 or 20 people out of a company of 50. So.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's awesome. You're fostering essentially the capability or allowing a space for people to be open to it. Um, I think a lot of times you think about there's two types of people in the room. When someone's teaching, someone's asking something, there's the people that raise their hand right away and admit like they don't know are the people that just kind of hide it and try to fake it. Right. But if you're fostering a, uh, culture at uh, your company that's open to all that, open to learning lunch and learns things like that, that's what I think would really help accelerate all this and then kind of really break those walls down. That's pretty cool.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious what you, what you think about that concept. And I agree with you with like the now, like everyone's an engineer, sort of like vibe coding. Like how do you. I can see it personally in myself, I can see it going like both ways to like it actually fostering a lot more, you know, like, I'm not even gonna say intermart mental, but like interpersonal interest in training and stuff like that. Like what, you know, what you're describing, like raising a hand in a meeting. But I can also see a rift grow potentially between like the real engineers and these like fake engineers. I don't think we're deep enough yet to know for sure, but I'm curious, like, what, what do you think?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's interesting. So at growthopeer, in my second week that I joined the company, we actually had our first team off site. And so I was actually able to join the team in Portland for the week. Uh, and then it's a mix of engineers, sales, very small marketing team, all that great stuff with our co founders all there. But I would say one full day we spent just going through all the different AI tools, all the different systems that engineering teams use now and then have them paired up with folks that are not on the engineering team or not on the product team. So sales, myself and partnerships. Um, and then talk about like day to day, what we want, what we do, and then how we can make things better. So it was like a, uh, I don't know if this answering your question, but it was a very good, like kind of company learning moment where we got together and we could, you know, really kind of solve things and figure out like, different tooling stuff that they can use. Long story short, I was able to build an app, uh, by myself for a very specific problem that I had that I use. And it was fantastic and it was great. And I wouldn't have done that, been able to do that without having some of the team members do it right. Or there with me coaching me through it. Like, sure, you can use Claude to build apps for you now, but it's like, does it need to be deployed on Vercel? Does it need to be deployed, deployed on netlify? Like, how does this actually work? Is it just HTML doc that's going to live on your terminal? Or do you want to actually use this with other folks on your team? Right. How do you do that? And so that was just really cool to have that. And our engineers were super happy just to be able to like walk us through, teach us these things and all that kind of great stuff. And now I feel like I have a very good foundation, even more so in what I already have to be able to do that on my own.

Speaker B: So, yeah, I love, I love that. And I've worked places where they've done like day in the life where you basically like seeing switch roles with somebody. Like someone from the engineering team goes and sits with the bdr and a BDR goes and sits with the engineering team. And that is also, I think, a really cool exercise to like, especially I think for people that have never been in sales or customer support, like going and sitting in those seats, like, hey, I know, and I am a tech person, like, but I know everyone's complaining about the sales team asking for stuff, but like, you know, get on the phone with that guy or that gal that's making 80 calls a day and like, see what that's like. And now you'll understand why, like that blue button, being blue is like really important to them, you know?

Speaker C: Yeah, I feel like that was like empathy. Yeah, I feel like that was definitely a thing. In business school, right? You always learn and talked about like, folks. Maybe you didn't go to business school. I did. But you always learned about like the, the kind of the cross pollination getting into someone else's shoes, learning about that. And it doesn't ha. It hasn't happened for me in real life yet. But so I think like now that just happened. The most recent experience I had that helped work for it. But it's so valuable to have that somebody completely out of their, you know, realm of what they do day to day and put themselves in someone else's shoes. So yeah, totally makes sense. I think we should do that more often.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting too because again with the AI stuff like, and partnerships is a great example of this of like roles kind of blurring a little bit too where it's like now like engineers, like forward deployed engineers are sort of CX people and kind of salespeople and partnerships, you know, can sit in like any part of the org and like, you know, there's obviously like some silos, quote unquote, but there's a lot more of kind of like mushiness like between departments in a way that I hope it brings a, you know, that it brings up that cross pollination more where it's not like everyone is kind of staying in their lane because I think it's value, I think it's valuable for businesses. Right. For humans. It's also fun but like it's great for a business too and I think creates like an open and effective kind of culture. So we are coming up on time. Unfortunately. I could talk to you forever, which you are probably aware of. But I did want to ask in closing one final thought. Because your career has been cool. Can you think back on like what one specific moment or project, like what sticks out in your mind as like something that taught you a very important lesson. And it could be something related, professional, like personally, developmentally. It could be something, you know, for your actual KPIs. But like what pops into mind?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's probably too early right now to talk about my time at Growth Loop and on the sales side of things. So I won't use that as example. But I say one project or chapter. I think that really shaped me was my time at Odd Zero. And then we were acquired by, by Okta. And that's where I got goes really to the ecosystem scale in a real way. So at the time during my tenure there, we launched over 300 integrations with more than 100 partners. And when you're working at that volume, you learn pretty quickly that you can't just manage partnerships through heroics. Right. So early on I think it's tempting to treat every partner, uh, like A special snuffle. But sometimes they are. But in every integration, every launch, every enablement motion, and every partner request is completely custom, and you eventually create chaos. And that's something that we learned. And I think that experience really taught me that a great ecosystem needs a system behind it. You need a way to decide which partners matter. You need a way to understand what customers are actually asking for. And you need patterns for how integrations get built, document, and launch. All the good stuff that a lot of the folks in our world understand, like yourself, because otherwise you just end up with a big marketplace and no real sense of what is driving value.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And that is probably where my thinking around. I think the system that I came up with is like three things like story, system, and signal. Right? The story is, why does this integration matter to customers? The system is how do we reevaluate, build, launch, and support those partnerships? And then the signal is that what tells us this partner integration is actually creating value. So I think my time there, um, at odd zero okta taught me that ecosystems are not just about having a lot of partners. At some point, the question becomes, which ones matter, which ones move the business? And then at the end of it, if a partnership can't survive, you know, 90 days without you babysitting it, then it's. It's not really a partnership. It's more of a campaign. Right.

Speaker B: So, yeah, that is a good point.

Speaker A: It is.

Speaker B: It's a relationship of some sort. Well, this has been super fun. Again, I think I could talk to you about this stuff forever. Uh, really appreciate you taking the time. We'll drop your LinkedIn so folks know where to find you. Uh, for our listeners, if you want to learn more about integrations, partnerships, APIs. What's a webhook? We have a blog about it. Uh, we got worksheets, we got ebooks, we got all kinds of stuff on our website, pandium.com. check out our YouTube channel. We've got great, uh, guests such as Jira. A bunch of shorts. All of our podcasts are recorded. Jira, anything you want to plug before, uh, we hop off here?

Speaker C: I just want to say thank you so much, Christina, for the time. Thanks, uh, for being, you know, providing this, uh, medium essentially, for folks all throughout whatever kind of journey they are on their careers, and learning about partnerships, learning about product, learning about all the great stuff. And you provided an awesome platform to do this. So thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thanks, Jira. Well, thanks again for spending some time with us, uh, audience. I hope you tune into the next one and we will see you out there.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed our content, subscribe to our channel and give us a thumbs up. For more content on tech partnerships, integrations and APIs, check out our articles, ebooks and other resources in the description or visit Pandium's website.