\\ 22 First, this means structuring PoCs and initial engagements service agent, take the time to check in on a regular basis. to be short, with repeatable onboarding flow, clear success You may not get actionable feedback 9 out of 10 times but criteria and commitment from partners to that timeline. the one time you do, it will be meaningful.” —Ravi Malick, CIO of Vistra Energy If I was running a startup and engaging with enterprise Large enterprise companies — they’re complicated and you “ companies, one of the very first things I would do is ask “ have to approach them carefully in terms of product quality, ‘is the criteria for the evaluation of the PoC clearly defined’. security, requirements. You have to be very organized and I would want to know — do you want to bring my gear disciplined around product and implementations. You’re not in and play around with it? Is there a specific problem going to just be able to send it over the wall and be done. you’re looking to solve, and is there a specific outcome You’re going to be onsite and watching them. When you go you’re looking to get? The best example of a PoC I’ve ever live — you have to be all over them, responding to feedback, seen was at Greylock company: Rajiv Gupta at SkyHigh demonstrating agility.” —Joseph Ansanelli, CEO of Gladly Networks. There may have been 30 people in his company at the time and we were getting to know each other. I said Most companies are really poor at change management ‘Huh. I didn’t know we had a problem to solve.’ He said “ with new technology. It’s tech, it’s process, but it’s also ‘Most companies don’t know. But if you let us come in and psychology with the people in the organization. Given a do a PoC we’ll show it to you.’ I started thinking this is going choice, people will reject change. It is critical to find those to be months in the making. He said ‘We can do this in a in the organization who can see the positive possibilities of week. These are the three things I need. If you grant them change and enlist them as internal champions.” to me on one day, we’ll be out of there on day seven and —Chris Cook, CEO of Delphix have results a week later.’ And he did. Three months later we became a customer. Great example of how I think a Both groups here were supportive of land-and-expand PoC against predefined targets or goals once validated and done quickly turns into real business.”—Otto Chan, motions. As Bezos would say, “customers are always EVP Technology of Wells Fargo beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied.” Once you’re successful Second, technology leaders also cautioned against with one initial mission, and begin to build a relationship, “poisoning the well” — damaging relationships and look at their other problems; seek natural expansions, reputation by not delivering on promises. new use cases, and consider signing a Master Service Agreement (MSA) to accelerate internal adoption. Both Third, enterprises need startups to consciously involve sides want to leverage the relationship that has been built. the necessary stakeholders to operationalize technology, Can you get an MSA signed? There’s a great network effect even in planning and deployment, support their change “ in having overarching MSA with other business units in the management, and follow up with discipline, management, same company…[that way] we don’t have to repeatedly and follow up with discipline. do legal work.” —Deep Bagchee, SVP of Product and Technology at CNBC Do not underestimate the need for planning and change We go through a slew of [our top 100 customers] every “ management. There’s always a drive to get it installed and “ week in terms of adoption of the Sumo service, and implemented but the measure of success is adoption and diagnose what we need to consider 6–9 months before usage. It’s important when planning, you identify the right their renewals are coming up. As a platform business, stakeholders, connect to benefits, and understand the we are also trying drive upgrades into other audiences impact to users — make sure it’s not just technology folks and use cases within those customers.”—Ramin Sayar, who want to implement something cool and new…and then CEO of Sumo Logic don’t check out. The relationship and transition needs to be curated and managed. Whether it’s a sales rep or customer Startups Serving The Enterprise