I know I should be busy selling tickets for SaaS Connect today (and you should be busy buying them) because SaaS Connect is next week.

But the Cloud Software Association turned 10 years old last week. It deserves recognition of what we have all built.

I admit I struggled writing this.

After 10 years, what are my motivations?

I am in sales mode right now (obviously), and I felt the need to hard sell you all once again, but I think I just want to be me for a minute.

The first line I wrote was “No one invests 10 years into something like the Cloud Software Association for no reason.” And while true, then I thought of all the reasons, but none were true, not for me.

Surely, it’s just business.

It is!

Yes, we all are working hard to build a market for SaaS distribution. Yes, we are all partnership professionals that rely on a strong professional network, and a trade association makes that work.

And yes, there is an economic benefit for all of us to work on it, including me.

It is now my business, too. After years talking about our reseller challenges with others in the CSA, I am now solving the problem of how agency resellers buy and sell SaaS to their clients with AppBind.

But I work on these problems because they really matter to a lot of people.

Why I really do this.

I’ve always done this. You are not my first love. 🙂

24 years ago, I as a kid in a tiny town in the middle of Ontario first discovered that you can meet nearly anyone across the globe through the Internet. It was magical, and it transformed my life. Over and over again.

And I have seen first hand how the Internet has changed lives all over the world. I have returned the favour and helped people and built up the Internet however I can.

As I grew up, I rather boldly stated that my career objective is “To make the Internet a more glorious place.” and to be honest, I still believe in that.

I have had the blessing to interact with and work on projects like Fidonet, C++ language standard, the Artificial Intelligence in Games community, the Jabber/XMPP community, the SVG standard, and my last 10 year project, building up wiki projects including Wikipedia.

That’s my real motivation. It’s just what I do with my life.

So, why the Cloud Software Association?

It’s much simpler than our big vision.

At the heart of the Cloud Software Association is its… heart.

Our association has always been built out of relationships between each other. It has always been the most amazing professional community, genuinely helping each other struggle through the complex problem of partnerships in cloud software.

And yes, we all share the glorious vision that the distribution challenge for Internet software is fixed, allowing hundreds of millions of businesses across the globe to flourish.

But what has sustained the association and continues to motivate me, the board, the volunteers, the advisors, and everyone to invest their time into it has been… you.

So, thank you so much for a glorious 10 years!



I had more hair in 2009. What have you people done to me?!