How Do You Know if Your Startup Is Ready for an Enterprise Partnership?
“How Do You Know if Your Startup Is Ready for an Enterprise Partnership” by Oracle for Startups
Your startup is growing, your tech is solid, and your customers are happy. So maybe it’s time to go after the big-name clients you’ve always dreamed of, but how do you know if you’re ready?
Facilitating enterprise partnerships is what sets Oracle for Startups apart from other startup programs. We make it our business to help your business scale, from offering tech advice and business mentorship to access to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) products at a deep, startup-exclusive discount. But, perhaps most importantly, startups in this program have the opportunity to connect with Oracle’s massive network of customers.
By building personal relationships with founders, our dedicated team can spot opportunities for standout startups and help them make connections with Oracle’s global network of midsize and enterprise companies, industry analysts, venture firms, and product experts. This means more opportunities to get noticed, attract prospects, and close deals, not to mention access to modern cloud technologies. It’s a win, win.
If you’re wondering if it’s time to leap into an enterprise partnership like this one, these are the things you need to do.
Know Your Why
Startups ready for an enterprise partnership know their ‘why.’ When discussing their solution, they can focus less on what their product does and more on how their product solves a real problem for their customers. This means they have their elevator pitch nailed and can confidently and succinctly communicate the problem they solve to investors, analysts, and anyone who will listen. In addition, they understand the business value of their product and precisely what they offer customers that their competitors do not.
The Oracle startup program offers founders opportunities to tell their stories via media, blogs, podcasts, and videos. Regular pitch competitions judged by top industry analysts help them stay on top of their game.
Priya Shah founded Sauce Video and joined Oracle for Startups before being acquired by Oracle. She has this advice for startups: “Understand where your business is at and what it needs to get to the next level. Timing is important, and you want to get this right.”
Check Your Tech Is Viable
While tech gremlins like bugs and outages have a habit of rearing their ugly heads during the most important moments, making sure your technology is viable before putting it in front of your dream client is essential. That could mean building your architecture for scale or adding capacity to support more users.
Whatever the challenge, Oracle for Startups members benefit from advice from a dedicated Cloud Architect Team (known as CAT) which offers free, hands-on migration assistance and time-saving consulting services.
Peer-to-peer lending solution Mawlny worked with the Cloud Architect Team to migrate to OCI. “We mapped each service Mawlny was using with Oracle Cloud services,” says Vikas Raina, who led the migration effort. From there, CAT created secure tunnels to migrate data to Oracle Cloud, completing the move in just two days.
VR Glass, a startup working in the sports entertainment industry, leaned on the technical team to understand how to increase database performance while reducing costs. The results of the engagement enabled them to host big virtual events that required simultaneous requests.
“The Oracle team working with us always went way beyond what is usually expected from your regular infrastructure supplier. They guided us from the planning phase to the deployment of virtual events for massive crowds, giving us valuable advice gathered from decades of experience in infrastructure and software scalability and security,” says VR Glass founder Ohmar Tacla.
Understand Your Target Market
If you’ve got your infrastructure in order and have dream customers in your sights, all you need is the right introduction. That’s where market connections with a trusted partner can help.
“Oracle’s customers have a strong appetite for innovation. We introduce customers to startup technology that tackles their most common challenges with emerging technology that is secure and stable because it is built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure,” says Jason Williamson, VP and global head for Oracle for Startups.
NLPBots was one of several AI providers that Oracle introduced to the South India Bank. When the startup emerged as the frontrunner, the Oracle team worked alongside it through the requirement gathering phase, proof-of-concept, and negotiation. Despite not having direct experience with banking clients, NLPBots’ technology, customer references and relationship with Oracle sealed the deal.
Be Tenacious and Resilient
Like Sauce Video and VR Glass, your startup could benefit from the advice and introductions that are an integral part of our program, but as Shah says, “you must be willing to fully lean in and engage.”
“From marketing to events to sales to PR, we took advantage of every opportunity offered even if it was outside our comfort zone. You never know which conversation, event or Zoom call will result in something awesome,” she adds.
If this sounds like you and your startup is ready to scale up with an enterprise partnership, join Oracle for Startups and start making enterprise connections.
