Cloud Co-Sell: If You Build It, They *May* Come
Photo: author’s own
The difference between companies that unlock cloud #cosell, and those that stay tactical.
You worked hard to get through the cloud provider’s technical reviews.
You introduced your founders to your account team.
Most importantly, you did what EVERYONE said, and even finally got your products listed on a cloud marketplace, or two.
What happens now? Where is the pot of magic leads?
Don't get me wrong, all these things are absolutely fundamental, but we are here because your interest is in building something beyond that.
First, my creds
I have worked closely with most major cloud providers since 2012, unlocking three-digit revenue growth and very strategic outcomes for several startups in the process.
At Canonical (commercial sponsor of Ubuntu), I elevated global relationships with AWS, GoogleCloud, Microsoft Azure and many others (remember OpenStack!?), and helped secure the future of Ubuntu on the public cloud for users.
At Cloud 66 , I helped bridge relationships with leading cloud providers despite a cloud migration happening.
And the co-sell pièce de résistance: in my last full-time role, hired as VP Business Development into developer security unicorn Snyk , I built, from scratch, a best-in-class global Cloud Alliances practice (devised strategy --> built program --> hired the best team).
This resulted in influenced revenue that consistently out-paced the company’s own dramatic growth, and earned Snyk praise as an industry best practice—including winning two back-to-back ‘ISV partner of the year’ awards from AWS.
How did Snyk do it?
It's like a solar system: center your strategy around the cloud provider
Strategic co-selling with the major public cloud providers is a critical factor of your GTM. In my view, it is often very useful to think of them like suns—each one has its own system, with many important planets, but all revolving around them. Unlocking this part of your alliances strategy will likely make everything else less difficult.
Like all good things, there are three main reasons for their dominance:
They hold a strategic position with customers. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others are likely to be your customers’ dominant IT suppliers. Some sectors can be fragmented, but cloud infrastructure is almost scarily consolidated due mostly to economies of scale. Therefore, compared to your startup, you can safely assume that they have more people covering each of your target accounts, touching more budget decisions, and ultimately exerting their influence on the C-Suite and on its strategic priorities.
They’ve curated rich ecosystems of ISVs and service providers. When an ISV partners with a cloud provider, it gains access to, and credibility with, thousands of super-relevant resellers, services firms, as well as other ISVs. This can be a great short-cut for partner recruitment, super-charge partner enablement, and in the end create much more meaningful outcomes for customers, partners, your startup, and of course the cloud providers. Chances are, most of the partners you want to talk to are already in the room with your cloud provider.
They’ve built sophisticated co-sell flywheels. Many technology companies claim to have a co-sell program, but the truth is that very few of these companies really understand how to build and operate this machine beyond sales rep enablement. As a general rule, the major cloud providers are playing at a whole other level: their lead-sharing platforms, Cloud Marketplaces, structured processes, and sales incentives all create significant commercial velocity for themselves and their partners.
Whatever sales methodology you're using (SPICED, MEDDPICC...), cloud providers should embedded in it at every stage.
It's like a mountain climb: unlock long-term co-sell success
I had the great privilege of climbing the Kilimanjaro last year. Every one of my six days on the way to “The Roof of Africa” brought a new clarity to the importance of planning and pace. (It also reminded me of working with the Cloud Providers!)
Long-term, sustainable success requires a similar approach: you identify your peak, and plan all the camps on the way to it. A camp is a milestone, defined in terms of GIVE + GET—a language the cloud providers are fluent in. You reach a camp when you reach a milestone; you leave a camp when you’re clear on how to get the next milestone.
As I've suggested above, this is about so much more than just listing a product and hoping for leads. And importantly, you need to pack carefully for this multi-phase trip:
Platform choice, product integrations, and joint roadmap.
Partner posture & messaging, and your multidimensional partner strategy & program.
Co-selling playbook, including how this affects and interacts with your overall sales strategy.
Rules of engagement, processes, and incentives that remove friction between GTMs.
The operational stuff of lead-gen, lead sharing, and Marketplace transaction.
A list of things the cloud provider can do for you at each stage! (the GET)
And more.
Best done with an experienced climber ;)
What to do when you compete with the cloud providers
One of the most important words in tech is co-opetition. At its root is the understanding that you can (and often should!) collaborate with the cloud providers even if they have a product that competes with yours (which in itself is very likely).
This can differ across the major players. In my experience, AWS is usually the most adept at this realistic model of engagement: look closely and you may find an interesting correlation between AWS’s most successful ISV partners and AWS having a solid native solution to compete with those partners.
Here are some reasons to collaborate with your competitor on a target account:
Your product may be solving the customer’s problem better than the native one is, and the cloud account team is truly customer-obsessed.
It could very well be that the cloud account team is financially incentivised to help you sell (whether they make more commission, can sell more of something else, or can sell your thing faster and move on).
Co-selling with them enables a deeper collaboration with their Services partners.
If you succeed alongside their product, you could be perceived as an industry player at that level.
Hopefully I’ve managed to tell you things you haven’t thought about before, which means you’ll be much more deliberate, thoughtful, and structured (yes, even at an early stage!) in your approach to unlocking significant revenue growth with and through the major cloud providers.
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How have you unlocked growth—or failed to!—with the cloud providers?
I'm keen to hear your (respectful) thoughts in the comments! If you need help with a similar challenge for your company—feel free to reach out.
