Rotessa turns partnerships into a scalable growth channel

The Challenge: Build a new scalable growth channel

Rotessa is a self-funded, profitable SaaS company looking for sustainable growth.

However, as a FinTech solution requiring high trust and high-friction onboarding—including KYB (Know Your Business) compliance, financial verification, and bank integration—their customer acquisition process needed to address significant trust barriers.

The team previously tested various growth channels:

• SEO and Google Ads were effective but had limited search capacity volume for their primary Canadian market.

• Meta Ads helped with brand awareness but did not acquire users in the market to buy efficiently.

To continue scaling, Rotessa needed a sustainable, high-trust growth channel—one that would not only bring in new customers but also increase activation. 

The Solution: Unlocking growth through partnerships

After methodically evaluating potential growth opportunities, we identified that a partnership-led motion had the potential to be a strong, scalable driver for Rotessa. 

Partnerships can be particularly effective for companies that:

• Play the long game and are willing to invest in sustainable growth.

• Have strong LTV and high retention, making partnerships a profitable acquisition channel.

• Require high trust to convert customers, as trusted referrals significantly reduce friction in adoption.

By leveraging high-value and influential partners, we saw an opportunity to drive higher close rates, shorter sales cycles, and a more sustainable customer acquisition cost (CAC). This approach would allow Rotessa to grow efficiently while deepening relationships within their ecosystem, ensuring long-term scalability.

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The Process

While Rotessa had organic traction with partnerships, they lacked a structured approach to leverage this channel effectively. 

Here’s how we worked with their team to build a partnership-driven growth strategy.

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Identifying the right partner profile

We looked at different partner types (e.g. channel partners, tech integration partners, banking partners) and compared the opportunities based on a time and value perspective.

From there, we decided to strategically double down on accountants and bookkeepers. 

Rotessa initially estimated they had 200–300 accountant and bookkeeper customers. Through our joint discovery process, we discovered over 600—tripling the original assumption and growth potential.

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Ideal Customer and Partner Profile research

We interviewed bookkeepers and accountants to understand what they value about Rotessa, how they recommend it, and their partner program needs.

We also spoke with small business owners (the main client base for this accountant and bookkeeper audience) to learn more about the problems Rotessa solved for them and the unique value offered. 

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Developing a scalable partner program

With these insights, we refined Rotessa's existing partner program, preparing them for scale, and provided a 12-month execution roadmap tailored to expanding their accountant and bookkeeper partnerships.

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‍1. Co-marketing experimentation

‍We launched an initial webinar within the existing Rotessa ecosystem to kickstart engagement and activate potential partners. 

The response was overwhelmingly positive: 

• 30% of existing partners registered
• One-third of all registrants were from accountants and bookkeepers that were not yet part of Rotessa’s partner program
• Attendance on the day was nearly 50%—well above industry average.

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‍2. Partner enablement

‍Alongside our activation roadmap, we produced supporting enablement assets for effective partner marketing.

This included relevant email sequences, guides, landing pages, and 1-pagers.

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‍3. Strong data backbone

For Rotessa to understand the impact of their partner program, and the best opportunities to invest, they needed to create their partnerships data backbone.

Through education and help with implementation, Rotessa has established the right reporting to support decision-making.

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4. Building internal capabilities

We provided partnership training, equipping the Rotessa team with key principles and activation strategies to grow and scale a high-value partner program.

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The Impact: Ready for scale

By doubling down on an organic, yet untapped partner base and implementing a structured program, Rotessa is now positioned to scale through partnerships, unlocking new revenue opportunities while strengthening its network of accountants and bookkeepers.

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