After attending Microsoft Inspire at Washington DC, I walked away with a new perspective and appreciation for an organisation that isn’t afraid to disrupt itself entirely

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It’s no secret that Microsoft has had a major shake-up across the organisation in recent years, transitioning from a once ‘sleeping giant’ to a company that is leading the way with business applications and cloud solutions. With all of this change, not many people seem to be talking about how these changes impact startups, and the programs that are available today.

After recently getting back from the Microsoft Inspire conference in Washington DC, I walked away with a new perspective and appreciation for an organisation that isn’t afraid to disrupt itself entirely to cope with how the world and technology are changing. The conference was a great opportunity to meet with several Microsoft executives, employees and partners, to see where the organisation is going and how startups can really benefit.

Here’s what startups need to know:

BizSpark isn’t everything

Having worked in the startup scene for the past 6 years, I’ve noticed that when people think of Microsoft and startups, BizSpark naturally comes to mind. The program is designed for startups to give free access to development tools, Azure hosting, etc. While this is a helpful resource for startups to have access to, I can’t help but notice that the sentiment among startups is “well that’s great, but is that all that Microsoft offers to startups?” If that has been your perception, read on …

ISVs:

If you spend any time around Microsoft you’ll learn quickly about CSPs and ISVs. A Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) is a reseller of Microsoft products (e.g. Office 365 or Azure). These are often services companies that include Microsoft licenses when they sell a solution.

The Independent Software Vendor (ISV) program is where Microsoft are focusing A LOT of attention moving forward. Basically, an ISV is a company that’s building innovative products and solutions on Microsoft technology. This could be a web application that is built on Azure, a line of business platform built on Dynamics, or an AI Chatbot that leverages Cortana Intelligence. The sky is really the limit. As a part of Microsoft’s new shift in direction, they are looking for great startups that they can help to use as case studies.

Also read: Microsoft in talks to pump up to US$100M into Indian cab-hailing company Ola

Why this is important:

Being an ISV opens up significant partnership opportunities where you can leverage Microsoft’s global sales force of over 20,000 people to co-sell your product to customers, access funding for marketing campaigns, and access the latest in Microsoft technology.

One Commercial Partner:

97% of Microsoft’s revenue comes from their 40,000+ partners around the world. Previously it had been quite difficult for partners to interact with Microsoft because of their complex corporate structure and commercial models. However, a few weeks ago Microsoft made an announcement that they were changing their entire organisation structure to better serve their partners. This included simplifying their organisation structure and launching a new initiative – One Commercial Partner. This programs makes it easier to Build with, Go-To-Market with, and Co-Sell with Microsoft.

Build-with – Whether you need to build a practice, build IP, or build your capabilities, Microsoft’s team of partner development professionals are there to support you. They have business model expertise and are supported by technical and specialist resources. Their mission is to get the right resource to you at the right time to support your success and growth.
Go-To-Market – Microsoft’s team of partner marketing experts will help you bring your solutions to market through offers. They will orchestrate with the teams that build with you on the market opportunity and the teams that sell with you on customer needs.
Sell-with –Microsoft Channel Managers have responsibility for connecting the right partner solutions to the right customer at the right time. Armed with best practices, marketplaces, and solution maps, ISVs get to work hand in hand with Microsoft sales teams and customers of all sizes and across industries.

Why this is important:

By building your startup on Microsoft technology, Microsoft will open up the doors and help with your development by providing expertise and technical guidance. They will then help to get you connected with product marketing managers to look at how you can co-market your solution. From there, they will connect you with their sales force that are already selling to your potential customers and see how you can co-sell your solution. To top it off, Microsoft sales people are actually incentivised to co-sell ISV solutions! For any B2B startup – this is an absolute game changer for getting access to customers around the world!

Also read: Captain’s Log, July 18: Microsoft lays off Singapore-based consumer team

App Marketplace:

Microsoft has recently launched an app store – AppSource. This marketplace is to take ISV solutions and make them publicly available to Microsoft customers around the world. It’s great exposure for startups. I found out recently that one ISV is getting over 1,000 leads per month through the AppSource marketplace and had to add 20 staff just to cope with the volume of new customer enquiries! At the moment, the AppSource marketplace only sends leads through, but soon it will have eCommerce enabled so customers can actually sign up and purchase your products on the spot.

Co-marketing support:

If you are an ISV that is solving a big problem, with a good story to tell, Microsoft want to help you tell the world about it. It’s coordinated through the Product Marketing teams who have budget available to co-fund your marketing activities. It’s a 50-50 matched funding arrangement and can be used for most marketing activities including ad campaigns, case study videos, producing content, and events.

Co-selling:

Once you are ready to start selling your product, there are several ways in which Microsoft can help to get your product in front of potential customers. The first step is to become an ISV, then to get your product listed on AppSource. Once this is live, your Partner Development Manager will work with you to get your solution onto the ISV Solution Map. This is the list of ISV solutions that Microsoft sales people use to see what solutions they can sell their customers. As your sales increase, Microsoft will continue to increase the amount of support by giving you dedicated account managers, and access to more sales people in other markets.

Microsoft Accelerators:

Microsoft run a number of accelerator programs around the world for startups. There are 2 main types of accelerators: One for early stage startups, and one for late-stage startups. They are very different programs. The early stage accelerator program is really for Pre-Series A startups who have a MVP live with some early customers. This program gives you access to engineers to improve your product, and partner managers who will help you to really build a business.

The late stage startup accelerator is for Post Series A/B startups who have a few million in revenue, a solid team, and are growing. This program is more around how Microsoft helps you hyper scale, by giving you access to their top engineers, and global network of customers.

The best part, these accelerator programs are FREE; you don’t need to give up any equity to join.

Microsoft is acquiring companies:

Microsoft are constantly acquiring new companies from startups to well established companies that fit into their product roadmap and direction. Just last week Microsoft announced the acquisition of Cycle Computing to accelerate big computing in the cloud. If your startup is in one of the sweet spots, they might come knocking on your door.

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Chris Macaulay is the Co-Founder and CEO of Advvy — a media technology company leading the digital transformation of workflow in the media and advertising industry. The Advvy platform transforms inefficient manual campaign planning processes into a workflow solution to allow enterprise Media Agency employees to work smarter while giving management real-time visibility into their campaign activity and performance.

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