Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest hyperscaler and cloud company with a $74 Billion annualized run rate. Almost every "tech" company in the world is trying to be successful at what I call the "Big Tech Show" which is getting to a successful and lucrative partner relationship with AWS. By "tech" company, I mean every company in the world. As we all know if a company is not digitizing its access to it's product, or creating a faster way to do business, then it is a steam ship in a Star Trek transporter world. There are many ways to partner with AWS, one way is how the NFL is using the massive compute power of AWS to make predictions of plays, or being able to calculate every players value scores based on past and today's game performance. Or the US Navy being able to crunch terabytes of data in seconds to make up-to-date decisions that can help with supply chain issues. On a smaller, but no less important scale, many young start up companies are trying to partner with AWS to be able to woo some of her customers to work together with AWS products and partners that can help make them do things that maybe these companies can not do on their own. These companies are the ones I want to talk about today.
CADy Shack and APG are registered members of the APO
As a founder of a company that helps AWS Start-Up partners understand how to take a 3 year AWS partner journey and speed it up to 6 to 12 months(CADy Shack), I speak with a lot of CEO's, CRO's, VP's and Cloud Directors. The biggest complaint I hear every day from the C level of these companies is that AWS does not give back to them as much as they give to AWS. Many of these folks have done everything they have been requested of them, at least on the surface, and they do not understand why the formula of become a high tier partner of AWS does not mean they are making it big in the AWS tech world. The problem was never that they can't be the greatest partner AWS has ever seen, it is that they won't! Even though their hearts desire is to be the next Crowdstrike, Presidio, Lacework, or Seeq, they refuse to do what it takes to get to that Strategic Partner level. I am going to tell you the concepts you need to understand to get to a Strategic Partner level in 5 incredibly hard steps.
please excuse my crude 5 year old pic
1) A
WS is the Sun: All partners are the planets rotating around the AWS Sun. Most partner C levels I speak with think of it as the opposite. Trying to create a process where the partner is the Sun and AWS is the planet is not going to work. AWS is not in a partners channel, the partner is in the AWS Partner Channel. AWS has a lot of partners and over 200+ products, they can not and will not change to accomodate a single partner. Learning to work with in the system will work more to your advantage than trying to break it and create your own, believe me I have tried.
2)Table Stakes: Getting to premier partner or ISV Accelerate partner status is just the start of the journey, not a place to rest and ask for sales. There are hundreds of thousands of AWS partners around the world, to just sit at the table you need to have these credentials. These credentials and others like them tells AWS you are serious about doing business with them. each credential or competency gets your company closer to AWS. Remember there are thousands of partners in the US that have all these and more. To get even an inch closer to where they are you have to make the effort. Your super awesome product that is going to change the world will not win merrit with AWS simply because of what it does.
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3) Hire a Cloud Alliance Director (CAD): If you get nothing else out of reading this, remember this piece of advice. A CAD is the single most important thing you need to be successful with AWS. A CAD will help you get to the above certifications and competency's faster, they will be able to speak Amazonian to your PDM, AM, ISM, PSM, PSA, and many others. Depending on what sales division you have, your AWS contacts could possibly have hundreds to thousands of other companies they are working with. A CAD to them says you are serious about doing what it takes to be a meaningful partner (EDP, PPA, PBC, on AWS Marketplace, and a clean ACE). CAD's will also identify your super power, and identify the the teams that will be most successful. It takes time to be successful but these guys/gals can make it go faster. You get what you pay for, an experienced CAD gets well over $300k to 500k OTE a year. If you can not afford that price yet, feel free to reach out to APG, our sister company that provides CAD as a Service (CaaS). One of the worst mistakes I see many C levels doing is letting a CAD go at the end of the year because they are not, at first, a revenue generating division. It takes a while to have a CAD get you where you want to be, but everytime you let one go, you start all over.
4) Superpower and Division: Understand that every partner in the world usually says they want to work with Enterprise only. It is a larger deal size, the teams are more dedicated to lower number of accounts, and the names are just sexy to have on your eye chart of customers. However, if you look at your existing book of business and if over 55% of them are not Enterprise, then maybe starting the lane you specialize in is better. Small and Medium business(SMB) or Start up can be very lucrative, and is 65% of AWS ARR. Once you understand your division, know that every division has different non-revenue goals called Management Business Objectives (MBO)'s. Each Leader of Leaders (LOL) will accept a certain number of MBO's for his teams, then each manager below him will accept and assign those MBO's to AWS sales folks that they feel can meet those objectives. These objectives can be:
ISVA deals
Internet of Things (IoT) deals
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning(AI/ML) deals
Marketplace Private Offer (MPPO)
ECT...
This means that every team can have different MBO's outside of revenue to be successful. Finding the teams you want to sell to and understanding what are their MBO's and then tying yourself to one or more is how you get your superpower statement started. Your superpower statement is not what your company does. Your superpower is not endpoint security, or app modernization. Your superpower is that one inch difference between what your company does, and the competitors, including the AWS product that you are competing against. Once you know that difference, tying it to MBO's and then presenting it as a superpower statement to the teams will have a better chance that your product will be pushed at critical times.
5) AWS is not a lead generation engine: Can I get an Amen from the seats in the back please. To put it into easier terms, AWS is like Walmart, your product is on the shelves, the leads you are requesting from all walmarts all around the world is to send their millions of customers to your particular product every time a person walks in the door. This will never happen.
However, if your start up company becomes a strategic partner for AWS that leans in, and your body posture of your company makes it easy to do business with, your customers are not complaining to AWS that it does not do what you claimed, you have a CAD that helps AWS sales folks understand how your product helps them, and you do not complain every month that your not getting leads, you will find out that something extraordinary will happen. If you you truly take to heart all the above concepts you will find that when a customer asks an AWS sales person about a partner that can help them with the exact problem you solve, they will push them in that direction, and that is the best you can ask for.
Nothing in partners or sales is an exact science, and some companies might do better or worse depending on market conditions, but if you follow
these seemingly easy, but incredibly hard five things, I promise you will be successful. Expect it to take 18 to 36 months, but it will happen. If you do not have that kind of time, then you might want to add new revenue streams or direct routes to keep the lights on until you do hit it. You are an athlete training to be in the olympics, you have to put in the work to be successful. Put all your renewals through Marketplace, buy all your vendors through Marketplace, make a real commitment to AWS.
Feel free to reach out anytime- I love answering questions about the AWS Partner Journey. barlas@awsompartners.com
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