They pick one narrow wedge where the giant genuinely cannot serve the customer, and they make sure the giant's individual seller personally wins when the small company shows up. In practice that means registering opportunities properly, arriving with the customer already warm, and never pitching anything that collides with the big company's own roadmap. Kalyan Varma of Almabase calls it a win win win: the customer, the big partner's rep and you all have to come out ahead in the same deal, or the relationship quietly stops returning calls. Keep an exit in mind too, because giants change strategy every few years and your business cannot be a line item in someone else's plan.
5 hand-picked resources, 2 India-specific, 5 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it This is the giant's side of the table talking out loud about what makes a small company worth their internal effort. Ten concrete asks, which is exactly what you need when you are the hundred times smaller party trying not to get crushed.
On SaaStr by Kange Kaneene and Alok Kapur (SAP) 20 min
Why we picked it The Almabase founder on partnering with a billion dollar company as a small Indian startup and the win win win test he uses, which is the honest version of 'punching above your weight'.
On SaaSBoomi by Kalyan Varma with Arvind Parthiban and Varun Shoor 50 min listen
Open saasboomi.org →Why we picked it AWS explaining its own co-sell machinery: business planning in Partner Central, partner matching, multi partner deals that average six times larger, and APIs to pull it into your CRM.
From AWS Partner Network Blog by Priya Bains 9 min read
Open aws.amazon.com →Why we picked it Freshworks' SVP of global channels on why the mid market is only reachable through partners, with a live example: one distribution partner selling through 6,000 plus resellers, growing over 40% year on year.
From SiliconANGLE by Kelly Knight 8 min read
Open siliconangle.com →Why we picked it The actual eligibility bar for co-selling with AWS, in AWS's own words: marketplace listing, ACE eligibility, 5 launched and 15 qualified opportunities in 12 months. Read it before you promise your board a co-sell motion.
From Amazon Web Services 10 min read
Open aws.amazon.com →How partnerships and alliances reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Scale, fund & exit, our D2C track.
