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Why We Left Microsoft
When Dick, Juan-José and I started WeTransact, we did it because we saw first-hand the magnitude marketplace was going to take in our world and we truly felt the approach to market was broken.
This feeling wasn't intuition. It came from delivering 200+ marketplace projects manually as Microsoftees in a team called Fast Track for ISV and Start-Ups. We were the ones getting ISVs live in under two months - something that felt impossible to most.
But here's what really happened:
We built something called Artemis. A cohort-based marketplace onboarding program that got hundreds of ISVs
live in 6 weeks. It covered all technical considerations, GTM nuggets, everything. We had a GitHub community where Dick and I answered every question, solved every roadblock.
Customers loved it. It worked at scale. It was the first real onboarding engine for marketplace.
Then organizational realities caught up with us.
The Marketplace Product Group couldn't ingest it into their roadmap - we weren't part of their direct team, and ownership was unclear across boundaries. What made complete sense for customers got caught in the machinery of a large organization.
That's when I understood something fundamental: In big organizations, even the best ideas need to navigate structures that weren't built for them.
I was 28. Making good money. Had plenty of leisure time. The deal was sweet. But I had stopped trying to be the best at what I did. I just waited for my manager to be happy, and that was enough.
Watching Artemis stall - watching something that brought real value to customers get sidelined by organizational complexity - that woke me up.
A week after my performance review (where everything was "all green"), I walked into my manager Karin's office and said: "I had a great time at Microsoft. I think for me has come the time to move on."
Past the initial shock, I explained I was launching a startup.
It felt relieving.
What We Discovered
We went to Japan in late November 2022, right after I resigned. Juan made a drama about it - "we need to do a bro trip before you disappear into startup land."
We spent the whole trip talking about it. What we'd build. Who we'd serve. How we'd do it differently.
I launched WeTransact in March 2023. Juan joined in May - just 1.5 months later. Dick joined in January 2024.
I started with €1,500 in social capital. The first customer paid €5K. We've been profitable since day one - because we had to be.
Now, at $6M ARR and 450+ customers, built without a single euro of venture capital, we've learned something fundamental about why ISVs struggle with marketplace:
They treat it like a sales channel when it's actually a partnership strategy.
Most ISVs approach marketplace the way they'd approach any distribution channel - list the product, wait for leads, optimize conversion. But Microsoft Marketplace doesn't work that way. It's not Shopify. It's not the App Store.
It's a partnership ecosystem where success depends on co-sell relationships, MACC alignment, Microsoft seller engagement, and positioning within a complex procurement landscape.
Here's the problem: building a platform that addresses all of this would have been impossible inside Microsoft.
Microsoft works in a McKinsey matrix. Each team owns a specific part of the journey. The processes are by design fragmented and scoped. If you were to say "I'm creating a platform that unifies everything and makes it stupid easy" - you'd face such conflicting alignment that the project would break in the egg.
Every team would have a reason why their piece shouldn't be unified with the others. Technical teams, product teams, partnership teams, commercial teams - all operating in their lanes.
But outside? We just built what customers needed.
Six growth engines working together: Marketplace Launchpad to get you live fast. Demand Engine to turn listings into pipeline. Data That Wins Deals for intent signals. Scale Without Chaos for operations. Partnership as-a-Service for Microsoft alignment. And TransactCertified to train your team.
One platform. One vision. Built for the customer, not the org chart.
Action Paralysis
By mid-2025, we completed our initial mission: "Make Microsoft Marketplace as easy as 1-2-3."
Listing and handling operations is something of the past. Our platform does it at scale.
But we discovered the real challenge is elsewhere: the Go-To-Market.
The elephant in the room is that despite the opportunity being humongous, most software companies struggle boxing it in a format that works.
We call it "action paralysis."
It's not about what ISVs do - it's about what they don't do. They skip the fundamentals: clear messaging, value proposition, USP definition, ICP clarity. They won't invest in modern outreach. They fixate on downsides: "Microsoft might take 3%."
They think about what they could lose rather than what they could gain.
Some ISVs churn. Some shift progressively. But here's what we learned:
To benefit from a new opportunity, you need to take the leap of faith, make the activities, and share the benefits.
The ones who move? They're winning. They're closing $500K deals in three weeks through late-stage MACC agreements. They're getting introduced by Microsoft Account Executives who trust them. They're tapping into enterprise budgets that were previously untouchable.
Where This Is Going
Let us paint you a picture of 2030:
An ISV is selling their $500K/year security platform to a Fortune 500 company.
The Microsoft Account Executive spots the opportunity - the customer has a late-stage MACC agreement they need to burn. The ISV is already listed on Microsoft Marketplace, transactable, with clear messaging about their value proposition.
WeTransact captured the enterprise demand signal. We host their solution on marketplace. We connected the dots with the Microsoft AE and provided ready-made messaging.
The deal closes in three weeks.
Not three quarters. Three weeks.
The CFO approves it because it comes from their existing Azure commitment. Procurement loves it because it's one vendor, simplified. The CIO is happy because security is pre-vetted through Microsoft.
The ISV gets paid in 30 days instead of waiting 90-180 days on a traditional enterprise sale.
This isn't the future. This is happening now.
By 2030, every B2B software company selling to enterprise will transact this way. Not because it's trendy. Because buying through Microsoft Marketplace reduces enterprise procurement from 6-12 months to 6-12 hours.
The $200B+ in Azure consumption commitments sitting in enterprise budgets will flow to ISVs who understand how to position themselves in this ecosystem.
The ones who wait? They'll watch their competitors close deals while they're still in procurement review.
Who We Are
We left Microsoft not because we hated it - we're grateful for those years. We left because we wanted to build something without asking permission.
When we met with VCs, they brought signals instead of understanding. They wanted board seats and realignment. I had just left a company to be free to build - not to enter re-alignment mode again.
So we stayed bootstrapped. Profitable from day one. We answer to customers, not investors.
Here's what we believe:
We believe Microsoft Marketplace is the most underutilized growth lever in B2B software. Most ISVs treat it as an afterthought. A checkbox. They're wrong. It's not a channel - it's the channel for enterprise.
We believe in taking the leap. You can fixate on the 3% Microsoft might take, or you can focus on the enterprise deals you couldn't close before. The ones who move are winning. The ones who wait are watching.
We believe in building what makes sense. Not what fits the org chart. Not what gets approval in committee. What actually solves the customer's problem.
We believe expertise compounds. The first 100 marketplace implementations taught us the basics. The next 200 taught us the patterns. At 450+, we see things no one else sees.
We believe in doing one thing exceptionally well. We do Microsoft Marketplace. Only Microsoft Marketplace. We're not generalists trying to cover every cloud. We're specialists who live in this ecosystem.
What Happens Next
The action paralysis ends when you decide it ends.
You can keep debating whether marketplace is the right move. You can keep waiting until your messaging is "perfect." You can keep wondering if Microsoft will take too much or give too little.
Or you can start.
WeTransact exists because we saw hundreds of ISVs succeed when they stopped overthinking and started
moving. We built a complete platform so you don't have to navigate the matrix alone. We became Microsoft Partner of the Year because we help companies do this better than anyone.
But we can't make you take the leap.
That's on you.
The opportunity is massive. The path is clear. The tools exist.
What are you waiting for?
