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💌 How Notion turned product love into a marketing engine

Plus: The end of PLG CRMs, the rise of AI app marketplaces, and what content to gate

Author

Ian Ito
March 22, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

ISSUE #285

B2B SaaS growth plays, right in your inbox

Happy Sunday 👋

Three reads to think about this week:

  • AI app marketplaces are the new distribution layer

  • How Notion turned organic product love into a marketing engine

  • The GTM guide to building SaaS channel partnerships

Let's dive in!

Ian at SaaS Weekly

THIS WEEK IN SAAS
Interesting LinkedIn posts and industry news

Brendan Short put together a recap of the PLG CRM wave: 14 startups, $150M+ in venture funding, and, as of Pocus joining Apollo last week, zero still operating independently in the category.

Every company either pivoted, wound down, or got acquired at a fraction of its raise. Toplyne returned capital to investors. According to Brendan, two founders cited the "PLG CRM" label itself as a dealbreaker with enterprise buyers.

I'll be honest: I haven’t heard of any of these companies (maybe Pocus once, because I came across their blog while sourcing content), and I’m not too familiar with the space.

But I'm curious whether this is a pattern across other categories. I'd love to see someone run a report on how many GTM tools ended up getting absorbed into the platforms they were built around â€“ feels like the stack is quietly consolidating.

AI app marketplaces are the new distribution layer
Adam Schoenfeld, Adam's GTM Report

Thought this was pretty cool: Adam Schoenfeld has been tracking every app listed on the Claude and ChatGPT marketplaces – 445 total as of mid-March, with 84 added in the first two weeks alone!

Claude skews heavily B2B, covering GTM, legal, finance, and dev tools, while ChatGPT leans consumer with Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats leading the way. Only 51 companies have a dual presence on both.

If you're a B2B SaaS company shipping an MCP, you should be listed on these marketplaces. Otherwise, you're building the connector layer without capturing the distribution.

FROM THE TRENCHES
Perspectives from industry operators

Aligning messaging styles to the right audience
Creative messaging | Mike Northfield, Artifacts of Influence

For a long time, I followed the traditional demand-gen philosophy of focusing most of my efforts on buyers at the ‘bottom of the funnel’. Often only thinking about the rational case in my marketing campaigns: features, proof points, ROI arguments, etc.

And it felt pretty logical. Except, I’ve realized now that this approach neglects a giant swath of future buyers (and growth potential). 

At any given moment, 60+% of your potential buyers aren't looking for a solution at all. They’re in what Stein and 6Sense call the Dead Zone.

The research that reshuffled my thinking comes from Kahneman's System 1 & System 2 framework applied to buying behavior.

In-market buyers are searching for evidence and using logic to evaluate (System 2). Rational arguments resonate here because they’re in an attentive state. 

But out-of-market buyers are running on System 1: fast, associative, emotionally driven. They’re not paying attention to your category or product; they’re not ready to receive rational arguments. Instead, they’re passively filing away impressions that will shape their preference when they eventually do come in-market.

These two messaging styles serve different cognitive states. I've started treating them as two separate editorial tracks for content.

Mike Northfield, Artifacts of Influence

HOW COMPANIES GROW
Examples of growth plays and GTM Agent use cases

Growth teams only want one thing, and it's…awesome: users who love the product enough to create content about it without being asked. (That’s the dream!)

Notion has this. So does Clay. The template galleries, the YouTube tutorials, the TikTok walkthroughs – most of it emerged from users, not the marketing team. The question is, how do you get there?

For Notion, the unlock was that template creators could build personal brands and consulting businesses off their builds â€“ making sharing its own incentive (e.g., acting in their own self-interest).

From there, the playbook breaks down into three layers:

Decentralized community: Notion launched an Ambassador program of 300+ enthusiasts who run their own events, groups, and content channels globally. Notion provides grants, early access, and support – but the ambassadors own the programs.

Influencer as controlled word-of-mouth: instead of running influencer from the social team, Notion treats it as its own cross-functional channel. They prioritize relevance over follower count, require demographic data before partnering, and track everything through UTM links.

Activation-focused growth: with millions of free users flooding in, the growth team ignores signup volume and focuses on leading indicators of paid conversion – things like inviting a second user, editing a doc, or signing up with a work email.

ARTICLES TO BOOKMARK
Resources to build your next growth play

The GTM guide to building SaaS channel partnerships
GTM Partnerships | Micah Kasman, Bessemer Venture Partners

Bookmark this for when: You've proven your direct sales motion and need to extend coverage – into new geos, verticals, or deal sizes – without hiring your way there.

Why this matters: Channel partners are a key growth lever as B2B SaaS companies mature their sales org.

But it also has one of the longest lead times of any GTM motion. According to ICONIQ's data, channel revenue begins around $5M-$25M ARR, but doesn't meaningfully scale until ~$100M.

Key takeaway: Start building your partnership motion early.

  • Map your coverage gaps first: list the geos, verticals, and buyer personas where you need reach but don't want to hire – then shortlist partners who already sell to your ICP in those segments.

  • Lead with what you bring to the partner: the "giving to getting" ratio starts lopsided – feed partners leads, service opportunities, or geographic ownership upfront before expecting deal flow back.

  • One partner, one playbook, then scale: test your hypothesis with a single partner, document what converts, then build the internal team – partner-facing managers to work deals and an ops/enablement role to handle the operational infrastructure.

Gated content: Examples and best practices
Lead Generation | Allisa Boulette, Zapier

Bookmark this for when: You're evaluating whether gated content should be part of your lead gen strategy.

Why this matters: Gated content captures top-of-funnel demand. An important distinction: these aren't hand-raisers ready for a sales conversation, but they start the journey from anonymous visitor to nurtured prospect.

Key takeaway: Zapier's framework for deciding what to gate, when to gate it, and how to run it.

  • Gate based on where the reader is in the buying journey, not how much effort you put into the content: a 48-page report thrown at someone who just Googled "what is SEO?" wastes the lead. Save high-friction content for prospects already evaluating solutions further down the funnel.

  • Only gate if you have a live nurture sequence behind it: collecting emails without drip campaigns, segmentation, or follow-up is just building a list that rots. If you don't have the operational infrastructure to act on the lead, keep the content open.

  • Pair gated and ungated as a system: use ungated blog posts and product pages to drive organic traffic and build credibility. Then, embed a gated asset (template, checklist, demo) inside that content as the next step. The ungated piece earns the trust, the gated piece captures the intent

TOP READS FROM LAST WEEK
The most clicked-on links

  1. Clay’s internal memo on pricing [Clay]

  2. The 1st State of GTM report just dropped [Alex Lindahl]

  3. Gong’s LinkedIn takeovers playbook [Hypergrowth Partners]

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