Case Studies

The Challenge

No prior committed spend. AWS was a utility provider: on-demand consumption, no Enterprise Support, no co-sell, no executive engagement. The customer's marketing benchmarked their platform as significantly faster than several AWS-native data services across query speed and ingest throughput. Internal AWS service teams viewed the customer as a competitor. Building internal alignment was a prerequisite to any strategic engagement.

The Approach

1. 1

   Patient relationship building before any commercial ask

   Spent the first ten months on discovery and trust-building. Got to know the customer's product roadmap, financial trajectory, and competitive worldview. Mapped the internal AWS landscape and identified service team GMs whose roadmaps overlapped with the customer's strategy. By the time formal engagement opened, both sides knew exactly what value a partnership would create.

2. 2

   Full C-suite EBC with internal AWS pre-alignment

   Organized a full-day Executive Briefing Center session with the customer's CEO, CTO, CFO, CRO, and Head of Partnerships. AWS brought executive sponsors, multiple service team GMs (data, analytics, IoT), and partner organization leadership. A pre-EBC Roadmap Transparency Review aligned the customer's CTO with AWS service teams before the main event, converting internal skeptics into active collaborators in person.

3. 3

   Mid-8-figure revenue uplift model, not a discount conversation

   Commissioned a Business Transformation + Value Advisor to build a three-year financial integration model quantifying the AWS partnership's impact on the customer's topline. Base case: a mid-8-figure cumulative revenue uplift over three years (~8% lift on the customer's existing revenue base). Risk-adjusted at 80% confidence. Pessimistic downside still ROI-positive. Benchmarked against open-source-native database peers that achieved 30 to 47% growth during peak hyperscaler integration, making projections 3 to 5× more conservative than proven comps.

4. 4

   Multi-track parallel execution

   ISV Accelerate (AWS partner program for ISV co-sell), Strategic Collaboration Agreement, committed contract, and GTM tracks ran in parallel with defined milestones across the engagement window. ISV Accelerate qualification unlocked co-sell motions. The SCA created the partnership framework. The committed contract captured commercial commitment. Parallel execution prevented sequential bottlenecks once the partnership context was set.

5. 5

   Co-innovation roadmap turned competitive tension into pull

   Mapped direct integration paths between the customer's platform and AWS services, creating mutual product dependency: a generative-AI service integration moved to GA, a joint data-lake architecture using open table formats, and a managed ML platform integration. Secured an AWS speaker slot at the customer's Sales Kickoff, embedding AWS into the customer's GTM narrative.

Timeline

1. Mo 1-10
   Discovery and pre-engagement trust-building. Mapped customer roadmap, financial trajectory, and AWS service-team overlaps.
2. Mo 11
   EBC planning initiated. Pre-EBC roadmap transparency sessions with service team GMs.
3. Mo 12
   Full-day EBC executed with customer C-suite. Contract demand plan confirmed.
4. Mo 13
   AWS internal approvals initiated. Term sheet to customer.
5. Mo 14-15
   Customer paper process. Parallel SCA workbook development.
6. Mo 16
   ISV Accelerate qualification achieved. Mid-8-figure Integration Strategy model delivered.
7. Mo 17
   AWS speaker at customer Sales Kickoff. SCA intake submitted.
8. Mo 18
   Committed contract signed: 3-year $35M at 12.5% flat CSD. Enterprise Support enrolled. Reference rights granted.

Lessons for Replication

1. 01

   Build the partnership before the contract

   The contract was the last step, not the first. Eighteen months of discovery, EBC, roadmap transparency, ISV Accelerate qualification, SCA, co-innovation roadmap, and the revenue model all preceded the commercial ask. By the time the term sheet arrived, the customer had already invested significant C-suite time. The contract was the natural conclusion, not a cold proposal.

2. 02

   Model the customer's revenue, not their spend

   Changed the conversation from 'how much do we spend on AWS' to 'how much revenue does AWS generate for us.' Conservative benchmarks (3 to 5× more conservative than proven comps) with downside protection. CFOs respond to revenue models with risk adjustments, not discount spreadsheets.

3. 03

   Turn competitive tension into co-innovation

   The customer's product directly competed with several AWS-native services. Rather than avoiding the tension, mapped co-build opportunities across generative AI, open data formats, and ML platforms. Competitive friction became co-innovation pull.

4. 04

   Run parallel tracks once the partnership context is set

   ISV Accelerate, SCA, contract, and GTM tracks ran simultaneously in the back half of the engagement. Once trust was established, parallel execution prevented sequential delays that would have stretched commercial close by another six to nine months.

5. 05

   Use the EBC to convert internal skeptics

   AWS service teams viewed the customer as a competitive threat. The EBC brought those service team GMs face-to-face with the customer's CTO, converting theoretical competitive tension into concrete co-build opportunities. Internal alignment is a prerequisite to external partnership.

The Challenge

Original $10M one-year committed contract signed under a prior account team. Customer reported a 'less than desirable relationship' with AWS. Mid-cycle, several million dollars of annual GPU inferencing workloads migrated to competing neoscalers at materially lower per-GPU-hour rates. EC2 GPU spend dropped sharply in a single month. The account was on a trajectory toward commoditization and potential churn.

The Approach

1. 1

   Financial alignment, speaking the CFO's language

   Built a full income statement model mapping AWS programs to the customer's core financial KPIs (YoY revenue growth, gross profit margin, EBIT margin, Rule of 40). Programs included Migration Acceleration Program (MAP, an AWS program that incentivizes workload migration to AWS with partner credits and accelerates customer-side cost savings), the Strategic Collaboration Agreement, and the committed contract itself. Modeled a 5-year scenario showing the AWS partnership could expand gross margins by ~1,300 bps and turn an 8-figure operating loss into 8-figure operating income. Framed the contract as a valuation multiplier: companies exceeding Rule of 40 with 65%+ gross margins command 2 to 3× higher multiples, translating to 10-figure pre-IPO valuation expansion.

2. 2

   Technical repatriation, winning back GPU workloads

   Positioned AWS silicon (Inferentia2, Trainium3) as a margin protection strategy, not a price competition. AWS-silicon benchmarks: 70 to 91% savings on inference costs vs comparable GPU instances. Submitted a high-end-GPU capacity request totaling thousands of accelerators, accepted within days of contract signing.

3. 3

   Co-innovation roadmap, the 'agentic media' future

   Mapped AWS product launches directly to the customer's next-gen product roadmap: real-time speech-to-speech inference for sub-second multilingual streaming, low-latency real-time video streaming, AWS Marketplace SaaS Contracts for 4 to 5× richer enterprise deal sizes, and AWS regionalized infrastructure for sovereign data residency under emerging AI regulation.

Timeline

1. Year 0
   Original contract signed under prior account team: $10M / 1-year.
2. Mid Y0
   EC2 GPU spend drops sharply. Several million in annual inferencing migrates to neoscalers.
3. Y1 Q1
   New account team engaged. Full income statement and strategic account plan built.
4. Y1 Q1-Q2
   Term Sheet 1: 3-year multi-8-figure (escalating CSD). Rejected by customer.
5. Y1 Q2
   Term Sheet 2: 1-year $18M at higher CSD. Accepted. Thousands of high-end GPU capacity request accepted within days.

Lessons for Replication

1. 01

   Build the customer's income statement

   Stop selling discounts. Build a full P&L for the customer and map AWS programs to their financial KPIs. CFOs and boards care about gross margin, EBIT, and Rule of 40. When you can show a path from 8-figure operating loss to 8-figure operating income, the contract becomes a strategic investment, not a cost negotiation.

2. 02

   Compete on margin, not price

   Neoscalers win on GPU-hour pricing. AWS wins on TCO and margin protection. Position AWS silicon as tools that protect the customer's gross margin. Inference cost savings of 70 to 91% translate directly to 1,000+ bps of margin expansion.

3. 03

   Create technical lock-in through co-innovation

   Map AWS product launches to the customer's roadmap. Real-time inference, streaming, and agent infrastructure create dependencies no commodity GPU provider can replicate. The customer stops comparing GPU-hour prices and starts evaluating platform capability.

4. 04

   Use the exit timeline as a lever

   For high-growth startups approaching IPO or acquisition, frame the AWS partnership as a valuation multiplier. Rule of 40 + 65%+ gross margins commands 2 to 3× higher multiples. Converts the contract from expense into enterprise value creation.

5. 05

   Accept tactical concessions for strategic positioning

   The 3-year multi-8-figure proposal was rejected. Rather than force the issue, pivoted to a 1-year $18M structure that still delivered 80%+ YoY commitment growth. Shorter term creates a natural renewal opportunity and avoids friction during a sensitive pre-exit period.