(bright music) >> Okay, welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE's coverage here in San Francisco, California. We're live on the show floor of AWS Summit 2022. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. And remember AWS Summit in New York city coming up this summer. We'll be there as well. And of course, re:Invent at the end of the year for all theCUBE coverage on cloud computing and AWS. The two great guests here from the APN, Global APN, Serge Shevchenko and Jeff Grimes Partner Leader. Jeff and Serge is doing partnerships. Global APN >> AWS Global Startup Program. >> Okay, say that again. >> AWS Global Startup Program. >> That's the official name. >> I love it >> Too long for me. Thanks for coming on. >> Yeah, of course. >> Yeah, appreciate it. >> Tell us about what's going on with you guys? How was you guys organized? You guys, we're obviously we're in San Francisco bay area, Silicon Valley, zillions of startups here. New York has got another one we're going to be at. Tons of startups, a lot of them getting funded, big growth in cloud, big growth in data, security, hot in all sectors. >> Jeff: Absolutely. >> So maybe we could just start with the global startup program. It's essentially a white glove service that we provide to startups that are built on AWS. And the intention there is to help identify use cases that are being built on top of AWS. And for these startups, we want to provide white glove support in co building products together, co-marketing and co-selling. Essentially, the use cases that our customers need solved that either they don't want to build themselves or perhaps more innovative. So the AWS Global Startup Program provides white glove support, dedicated headcount for each one of those pillars. And within our program, we've also provided incentives, programs, go to market activities like the AWS Startup Showcase that we've built for these startups. >> Yeah, by the way, awsstartups.com is the URL. Check it out. Okay, so your partnerships are key. Jeff, what's your role? >> So I'm responsible for leading the overall effort for the AWS Global Startup Program. So I've got a team of partner managers that are located throughout the US managing a few hundred startup ISVs right now. >> Yeah, you got a lot. >> We've got a lot. There's a lot. >> I got to ask a tough question. I'm a startup founder. I got a team. I just got my series A. We're grown and I'm trying to hire people. I'm super busy. What's in it for me? What do you guys bring to the table? I love the white glove service but translate that. What's in it for me? What do I get out of it? What's the story? >> That's a good question. Focus, I think. >> Jeff: Yeah. >> Because we get to see a lot of partners building their businesses on AWS. So from our perspective, helping these partners focus on what do we truly need to build by working backwards from customer feedback. How do we effectively go to market? Because we've seen startups do various things through trial and error and also just messaging. Because oftentimes partners or rather startups try to boil the ocean with many different use cases. So we really help them sort of laser focus on what are you really good at and how can we bring that to the customer as quickly as possible? >> Yeah, it's truly about helping that founder accelerate the growth of their company. And there's a lot that you can do with AWS but focus is truly the key word there because they're going to be able to find their little piece of real estate and absolutely deliver incredible outcomes for our customers and then they can start their growth curve there. >> What are some of the coolest things you've seen with the APN that you can share publicly? I know you got a lot going on there, a lot of confidentiality, but we're here, a lot of great partners on the floor here. I'm glad we're back at events, a lot of stuff going on, digitally with virtual stuff and hybrid. What are some of the cool things you guys have seen in the APN that you can point to? >> Yeah, absolutely. I can point to few, you can take them. So I think what's been fun over the years for me personally, I came from a startup, ran sales at an early stage startup and I went through the whole thing. So I have a deep appreciation for what these guys are going through. And what's been interesting to see for me is taking some of these early stage guys, watching them progress, go public, get acquired, and see that big day. And being able to point to very specific items that we help them to get to that point. And it's just a really fun journey to watch. >> Yeah, and part of the reason why I really love working at the AWS Global Startup Program is working with passionate founders. I just met with a founder today, he's going to build a very big business one day and watching them grow through these stages and supporting that growth, I like to think of our program as a catalyst for enterprise sort of scale. And through that we provide visibility, credibility and growth opportunities. >> A lot of partners too, what I found, talking to staff founders is when they have that milestone, they worked so hard for it. whether it's a B round, C round, or public or get bought. Then they take a deep breath and they look back at, wow what a journey it's been. So it's kind of emotional for sure, but still it's a grind. When you get funding, it's still day one. You don't stop. It's no celebrate, you got a big round or valuation. You still got to execute. >> And look it's hypercompetitive and it's brutally difficult. And our job is to try to make that a little less difficult and navigate those waters where everyone's going after similar things. >> Yeah, and I think as a group element too. I observe that startups that I meet through the APN has been interesting because they feel part of AWS. >> Serge: Totally. >> As a group of community, as a vibe there. I know they're hustling. They're trying to make things happen. But at the same time, Amazon throws a huge halo effect. That's a huge factor. You guys are the number one cloud in the business. The growth and every sector is booming. And if you're a startup, you don't have that luxury yet. And look at companies like Snowflake that built on top of AWS. People are winning by building on AWS. >> Our program really validates their technology first. So we have what's called a foundation's technical review that we put all of our startups through before we go to market. So that when enterprise customers are looking at startup technology, they know that it's already been vetted. And to take that a step further and help these partners differentiate, we use programs like the competency programs, the DevOps competency, the security competency which continues to help provide a platform for these startups, help them differentiate, and also there's go to market benefits that are associated with that. >> So let me ask the question that's probably on everyone's mind who's watching us. Actually, I asked this a lot. There's a lot of companies startups out there. Who makes the cut? Is there a criteria? God, that's not like it's sports team or anything. >> Sure. >> There's activate program, which is like there's hundreds of thousands of startups out there. Not everyone is at the APN. >> Serge: Correct. >> So ISVs, again, that's a whole nother. That's a more mature partner that might have huge market cap or growth. How do you guys focus? How do you guys focus? >> Serge: Good question. >> A thousand flowers blooming all the time. Is there a new way you guys are looking at it? I know there's been some talk about restructure or new focus. What's the focus? >> It's definitely not an easy task by any means but I recently took over this role and we're really trying to establish focus areas. So obviously a lot of the ISVs that we look after are infrastructure ISVs. That's what we do and so we have very specific pods that look after different type of partners. So we've got a security pod, we've got a DevOps pod, we've got core infrastructure, et cetera. And really we're trying to find these ISVs that can solve really interesting AWS customer challenges. >> Do you guys have a deliberate focus on these pillars? So one, infrastructure. >> Security, DevOps and data and analytics and then line of business. >> Line of business, like web marketing solutions. (group chattering) >> Yeah, exactly. >> So solutions there. >> Yeah. More solutions and the other ones are like hardcore. So infrastructure as well like storage, backup, ransomware, kind of stuff. >> Storage, networking. >> Okay, yeah, the classic. >> Database, et cetera. >> And so there's teams on each pillar. >> Yep. So I think what's fascinating for the startups that we cover is that they truly have support from a build market sell perspective. So you've got someone who's technical to really help them get the technology figured out, someone to help them get the marketing message dialed and spread, and then someone to actually do the co-sell day to day activities to help them get in front of customers. >> Probably the number one request that we always ask for Amazon is can we wish that SOC report, oh download it on the console, which we use all the time. >> Exactly. >> But security's a big deal. SREs are evolve in that role of DevOps is taking on DevSecOps. I could see a lot of customers having that need for a relationship to move things faster. Do you guys provide like escalation or is that a part of a service or not part of? >> So the partner development manager can be an escalation point, absolutely. Think of them as an extension of your business inside of AWS. >> Great and you guys, how is that partner managers measured? >> On those three pillars. >> Got it, okay. >> Are we building valuable use cases? So product development. Go to market, so go to market activities. Think blog posts, webinars, case studies, so on and so forth. And then co-sell. Not only are we helping these partners win their current opportunities that they are sourcing, but can we also help them source net new deals? >> Jeff: Yeah. >> That's very important. Top ask from the partners is get me in front of customers. Not an easy task, but that's a huge goal of ours to help them grow their top line. >> In fact, we have some interviews here on theCUBE earlier talking about that dynamic of how enterprise customers are buying. And it's interesting, a lot more POCs. I have one partner here that you guys work with on observability. They got a huge POC with Capital One and the enterprises are engaging the startups and bringing them in. So the combination of open source software, enterprises are leaning into that hard and bringing young growing startups in. So I could see that as a huge service that you guys can bring people in. >> Right and they're bringing massively differentiated technology to the table. The challenge is they just might not have the brand recognition that the big guys have. And so that's our job is how do you get that great tech in front of the right situations. >> So my next question is about the show here and then we'll talk globally. So here in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, bay area, San Francisco bay area, a lot of startups, a lot of VCs, a lot of action. So probably a big marker for you guys. So what's exciting here in SF? And then outside of SF, you guys have a global program. You see any trends that are geography-based or is it areas more mature? There's certain regions that are better. And I just interviewed a company here that's doing AWS Edge really well. It's interesting that the partners are filling a lot of holes and gaps in the opportunities with AWS. So what's exciting here, and then what's the global perspective? >> Yeah, totally. So obviously, a ton of partners from the bay area that we support, but we're seeing a lot of really interesting technology coming out of EMEA specifically. And making a lot of noise here in the United States, which is great. And so we definitely have that global presence and starting to see super differentiated technology come out of those regions. >> Yeah, especially Tel Aviv. >> Yeah. >> EMEA real quick before you get into surge. It's interesting. The VC market in Europe is hot. They've got a lot of unicorns coming in. We've seen a lot of companies coming in. They're kind of rattling their own cage right now. Hey, look at us. Let's see if they crash, but we don't see that happening. I mean, people have been predicting a crash now in the startup ecosystem for at least a year. It's not crashing. In fact, funding's up. >> The pandemic was hard on a lot of startups for sure. >> Jeff: Yeah. >> But what we've seen is many of these startups, as quickly as they can grow, they can also pivot as well. And so I've actually seen many of our startups grow through the pandemic because their use cases are helping customers either save money, become more operationally efficient, and provide value to leadership teams that need more visibility into their infrastructure during a pandemic. >> It's an interesting point. I talked to Andy Jassy and Adam Selipsky both say the same thing during the pandemic. Necessity is the mother of all invention. And startups can move fast. So with that, you guys are there to assist. If I'm a startup and I got to pivot, 'cause remember iterate and pivot, iterate and pivot so you get your economics. That's the playbook of the ventures and the models. >> Yeah, exactly. >> How do you guys help me do that? Give an example, walk me through. Pretend me I'm a startup. Hey, I am on the cloud. Oh my God, pandemic. They need video conferencing. Hey CUBE, what do I need? Serge, what do I do? >> That's a good question. First thing is just listen. I think what we have to do is a really good job of listening to the partner. What are their needs? What is their problem statement and where do they want to go at the end of the day? And oftentimes because we've worked with so many successful startups that have come out of our program, we of either through intuition or a playbook determine what is going to be the best path forward and how do we get these partners to stop focusing on things that will eventually just be a waste of time and or not provide or bring any fruit to the table, which essentially revenue. >> Well, we love startups here in theCUBE because one, they have good stories, they're on cutting edge, always pushing the envelope, and they're kind of disrupting someone else. And so they usually have an opinion they don't mind sharing on camera. So love talking to startups. We love working with you guys on our Startup Showcase, awsstartups.com. Check out awsstartups.com and check out the showcases. Final word, I'll give you guys the last word. What's the bottom line, bumper sticker for the global APN program? Summarize the opportunity for startups, what you guys bring to the table and we'll close it out. Jeff, we'll start with you. >> Totally, yeah. I think the AWS Global Startup Program's here to help companies truly accelerate their business, full stop. And that's what we're here for. >> I love it. It's a good way to put it. >> Ditto? >> Yeah. >> All right. Serge, Jeff, thanks for coming on. >> Thanks John. >> Great to see you. Love working with you guys. Hey, startups need help and the growing and huge market opportunities, the shift cloud scale, data engineering, security, infrastructure, all the markets are exploding in growth because of the digital transformation of realities here, open source and cloud. All making it happen here in theCUBE in San Francisco, California. I'm John Furrier your host. Thanks for watching. >> Let's go, John. (soft music)

>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's the CUBE with digital coverage of AWS re:Invent 2020 special coverage sponsored by AWS Global Partner Network. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's virtual coverage of AWS re:invent 2020, it's virtual this year, we're usually in person this year we have to do remote interviews because of the pandemic, but it's been a great run, a lot of great content happening here in these next three weeks of re:Invent. We've got two great guests here as part of our coverage of the APN Partner Experience. I'm your host, John Furrier. Barbara Kessler, Global APN Programs Leader, and Ryan Broadwell, Global Director of ISVs for AWS. Thanks for coming on the CUBE, Thanks for joining me. >> Hey, thanks for having us, it's great to be here. >> You know we heard of-- >> Yeah thanks for having us John. >> Thanks for coming on. Sorry we're not in person, but tons of content. I mean, there's a lot of the VODs, the main stages, but the news hitting this morning around Doug's comments from strong focus of ISVs is just a continuation. We heard that last year, but this year more focus investments there, new announcements take us through what we just heard and what it means. >> Yeah John, I'll jump in first and then let Barbara add some additional color and commentary, but I think it is a continuation for us as we look at continuing to build a momentum with our ISVs they're mission critical for us, and we hear that loud and clear from our customers. So as you think about building off what Doug was talking about, I think it's first important for us to start with, we look to help our partners build and build well-designed solutions on AWS, supporting their innovation and transformation and working together to deliver scalable, reliable, secure solutions for our customers. To facilitate this, we offer programs such as AWS SaaS Factory, that provide enablement to our ISVs to build new products, migrate single tenent environments or optimize existing SaaS Solutions on AWS. And we do this through mechanisms like Webinars, Bootcamps, Workshops and even one-on-one engagements. You know, as you talked about, we just heard from Doug announce AWS SaaS Boost, which is a ready to use open source implementation of SaaS tooling and best practices to accelerate ISV SaaS Path. Through SaaS Factory which we've worked on with many ISVs in the last few years and you're well aware of, we have lots of learnings and we've helped a lot of partners make that journey towards SaaS. Partners like BMC, CloudZero, Nasdaq, Cohesity, or F5 transform their delivery and business models to SaaS. We've had a lot of demand for this type of engagement. And we knew it was important that we come up with a scalable way to help partners accelerate their transformation. SaaS Boost provides prescriptive experience to transform applications through an intuitive tool with many core services needed to develop and operate on the AWS Cloud. In addition to that, we look to use the well-architected framework, which is proven to set the architectural best practices for designing in operating systems in the Cloud, to help ISVs build their solutions on AWS. We just launched two additional lenses in well-architected tool, to enable ISVs to conduct these reviews from within the AWS console, one SaaS environment, and one aligned with foundational technical reviews, which helps partners prepare for the technical validation in AWS Partner Programs. >> You know, the SaaS Boost, I love that I was joking on Twitter, it sounds like an energy drink. Give me some of that SaaS Boost, don't drink too many of them you get immune to two to strong out, but this is what people want Barbara. This is about the Partner Network. You guys are providing more stuff, more successful programs and capabilities. This is what the demand is for. Help me get there faster path to SaaS. Can you explain what this means for partners? What's in it for them, can you share your thoughts? >> Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Ryan talked about some of the things that we do to help partners build their ISVs and software or SaaS products. But in addition to that, we provide a number of programs and resources to help partners also grow their business through marketing and sales focused programs. That's an area that we are focused on investing deeply with our partner community. For example, we offer APN Marketing Central through which partners can find and launch free customizable marketing campaigns, or even find a marketing agency to work with that has experienced messaging AWS, it also offers APN marketing activity. We recognize that not all partners, especially if they're in their startup stages, have those investments and skill sets yet around marketing. So Marketing Academy offers self service content to teach partners who don't have that capability in house today, to how to drive awareness campaigns and build demand for their offerings. We also offer a broad set of funding benefits to help partners starting from the build stage that Ryan talks about through Sandbox Credits to support their development, all the way through marketing with Market Development Funds as they're selling with what we call our partner Opportunity Acceleration Program, which is how we fund POC to support our partners and winning new customers. We also heard Doug announce in the keynote that we are launching the ISV Accelerate Program. This is our new co-selling program for ISVs that offer compensation incentives for AWS account managers, access to co-sale specialists and reduced marketplace listing fees to help our partners continue to grow their business with us. >> You know, successful selling is amazing. You want to make money. I mean, come on, you bring it a lot to the table. Co-selling I think that's a huge point. Nice call out there. Ryan, can you give some examples of partners that have been successful with these resources? >> Hey John, thank you. Yeah, it'd be great to kind of walk through with one good example and a little bit of detail. And what we've seen with Sisense is a great example of a partner that leveraged these resources and the work that they've done with Luma Health. So Luma Health serves millions of patients, provides a Cloud-hosted patient engagement platform that connects patients and providers. You know when word about COVID started, spreading Luma helped solve a big increase in questions and concerns from patients and the providers. Luma Health saw an opportunity to create new products, to help patients and providers during the pandemic, to decide what to build and how to build it, the company wanted to analyze sentimental signal and data real-time. Using Sisense, Amazon Redshift and Amazon Web Services, Data Migration Services, Luma Health built a platform that delivered analytics and insights it needed, democratizing access to the data for all users. As a result, Luma Health uncovered insights such as facts that SMS was the preferred method of communication and that many patients had similar questions. Just three weeks after their hypothesis, Luma Health released new products based on its insights, a turn-key EHR enabled healthcare solution, zero contact check-in and COVID-19 Broadcast Messaging System. >> So a lot of good successes. The question that I would ask you guys, this is the probably what's on everyone's mind is I'm a partner, I'm growing, obviously I'm in the partner network because I'm being successful. I don't have a lot of time. I need to figure out all the stuff that you have. You have so much going on that's good for me. I don't know what to do. Can you help me figure out what resources and programs to leverage? I could imagine this is a question that I would have, I want it too, I want to make money co-sell, I want to get into this program. What's the best path? I mean, what do I do? Can you share how you help your partners get on the right road, have the right resources, What are the right programs? 'Cause it makes it more consumable. This is probably a big challenge, can you share your thoughts? >> Yeah, happy to explore that. So we certainly find a lot of opportunity to innovate with our partners and customers and a result we do offer a broad range of programs, resources, material to meet the diverse needs of those partners and customers. One focus of these programs and enablement models that we offer partners, is to help our partners build their products and build their business with us. And the other focus is to create program structures that help customers find the right partner and the right solution at the right time. But we recognize it's a lot (chuckles) and we want to make sure that our partners are easily able to find what's most relevant to them. And to deliver this more effectively for ISV partners specifically, Doug just announced the launch of ISV Partner Path. As with everything we do at AWS, this new program structure works backwards from our customers and our partners to deliver the needs of both of those audiences. When a customer identifies a need for a solution, they search for that solution based on their business needs and the outcomes that they're looking to deliver rather than searching based on a partner profile. So ISV Partner Path pivots the focus that we have today on partner-level tier badging to instead focus on solution-level validation badging that helps us better align to what our customers are looking for and how they look for software products. The new model responds to that partner and customer feedback that we've heard, it removes APN tier requirements for ISVs and introduces the ability to engage across all of the products, services, and solutions that a partner offers and it pivots the partner badge attainment. So today our partners attain badging based on a tier and moving forward, they'll attain that badging to go to market with solutions that are validated and have gone through a technical assessment to either integrate effectively or run effectively on AWS. So if you were requirements to access APN programs from differentiation to funding and co-selling, partners can engage more quickly in a more meaningful way and in a more clear path to develop their solution offering and go to market with AWS. >> Ryan anything you want to add on in terms of structural support in terms of account management and does everyone get in on a wrap? Is there certain levels of attention? When does that come into play? >> Yeah, I think Barbara has made a great point in that we have a lot of great programmatic resources, but there's also no substitution for engagement with a person. And we have Partner Development Resources available to engage with our partners and help them develop their individualized plans that help them understand how they maximize the opportunity with their customer set and expand their customer sets. This starts as soon as a partner registers with the AWS Partner Network, they're contacted by a Partner Development team member within the first business day. This is a commitment we find incredibly important to the partner. And even when we have five or more new partners registering every single day. We look to go beyond that and it's not just about onboarding to your point John, our partner team works backwards from the customer and the partner to help develop what is that joint plan? How do we focus on what strategic to the partner and what becomes strategic to our customers? With that plan our team works to activate that broadly across the team in support of achieving our joint goals. And then naturally all partnerships, we want join accountability, we want mechanisms to measure success. >> You know I talked to a lot of channel partners over the years in my career, and the Cloud it really highlights the speed and the agility feature, but it all comes down to the same thing. I want to get my solution in front of the customer, I want to make money, I want to make it easy to use, make it easy to consume. I want to leverage the Cloud. This is kind of the process, this is how it always happens. This is what they want and you guys are bringing a lot to the table and that's important. And I think co-selling having the kind of support, making it consumable is easy and super great. So I have to ask you with that, what's your advice for people who are jumping in? Because you're seeing more on boarding of ISVs than ever before. And we've been commenting on theCUBE for multiple years. We've been seeing the uptick in software SaaS ISVs. And remember Amazon is not in the SaaS business a hundred percent. And government just collapsed the platform as a service in the IS categories that highlights the fact that your entire ISV landscape is wide open and growing. So there's new ISV is coming in. (chuckles) What advice would you give them to get started, experience and -- >> Yeah, I can take that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I can take that one thank you. And I actually want to build on something Ryan said, we actually have more than 50 new partners joining the AWS Partner Network every single day. And so having the right structure for those partners to easily navigate and the right resources for them is something that's very top of mind for us. I think I can distill down about two primary pieces of advice from my perspective for a new partner who's trying to figure out how to work with us and get involved. First and foremost, build a relationship with your Partner Manager, help them know and understand your business, the customers that you focus on, the solutions you provide. The Partner Manager is your advocate and could be your mentor in working with AWS. Make sure they know what you're good at. Partners are able to build the best traction with our shared customers and our AWS sales team when it's very clear what they're good at and how their solutions solve specific customer problems. And specialization through programs such as competency, which validate solutions based on industry in this case or workload is really key to helping communicate that specific value. And second, I would say avail yourself of the resources available to you. We offer a number of self-serve resources, such as the new ISV Navigate Track that is launching in conjunction with ISV Partner Path that provides individuals the sort of step by step guidance to move through that engagement with us, they connect them to all the resources that they need. Marketing Central which we discussed earlier to drive marketing campaigns that can be very self-served and driven by the Partner Central, which offers a wealth of content, white papers, et cetera. That's our portal through which partners engage. And you can also access things like training and certification discounts to build your Cloud skills to support your business. But I think both of those are really important things to keep in mind for partners who are just kind of getting started with us as well as partners who've been working with us for a while now. >> Ryan, what do you want to add to that because again, there's more ISVs is coming. And again, Amazon has been very disruptive in it's enablement of partners. Not everyone fits into a nice clean bucket. I mean what looks like a category might be old and being disrupted into to a new category being developed. All these new categories and new solutions. It's hard to put people into buckets. So you have a tough job, how do you give advice to your partners? >> It is tough, and the rate of transformation continues. And the rate of innovation continues to quicken. My advice is lean in with us. We continue to invest our efforts in developing this vibrant community of partners. So lean in, we'll continue to iterate around and optimize our joint plans and activities. And we'd look to be able to continue to drive success for our customers and our partners. >> Well, you guys do a great job. I want to say I've watched the APN grow and change and evolve. Market demand is there and you got the Factory, you got the Boost, you got the Lenses, you got the Partner Network, the people. It's people equation with software so congratulations. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you so much, appreciate the time. >> Thank you. >> Okay, great event here, re:Invent 2020 Virtual. This is theCUBE Virtual. I'm John Furrier your host, wall-to-wall coverage with theCUBE, thanks for watching. (gentle music)