Scaling to success: Driving growth through the marketplace & cloud partnerships

Brian Lawrence: Hello, everybody. This is Brian Lawrence with the Clazar podcast, and I am thrilled to welcome my friend, Anthony Graziano, from Camunda. Anthony, how are you doing?

Anthony Graziano: I’m doing well, Brian! Thanks so much for the invite — great to see you.

Brian: You too! Let’s start by giving our audience a bit of background on Camunda and what you do. Then, we’ll dive into your role and your work with marketplaces.

Anthony: Absolutely. Camunda is laser-focused on process orchestration. We help enterprises manage complex workflows across multiple systems, devices, and people, so they can extract maximum value from their investments.

We’ve been adding AI on top of our orchestration platform, creating a new layer of disruptive tech that helps organize work more seamlessly. It’s an exciting space to be in, and we’re seeing great success.

Brian: You’ve definitely had success — hitting $100 million in ARR is no small feat. Congratulations! What role have partnerships, especially cloud alliances, played in reaching that milestone?

Anthony: Partnerships have been huge for us. We have an outstanding partner team supporting hyperscalers, GSIs, regional partners, and tech alliances. My focus is on global cloud partnerships, especially AWS, which has been a key initiative for our go-to-market strategy and product development.

Brian: It’s impressive that you went live on AWS Marketplace in January 2024 and hit ISV Accelerate status by October. Can you walk us through what it took to hit that milestone?

Anthony: Sure! We launched our AWS Marketplace listing early in the year and focused on driving marketplace and co-sell opportunities. Leadership buy-in was critical — having executive support across sales, product, marketing, and operations helped us align with AWS in multiple areas.

We also partnered with Clazar to streamline operations and make co-selling easier for our sales team. That operational efficiency allowed us to scale quickly and meet AWS’s requirements for ISV Accelerate.

Brian: And beyond go-to-market efforts, you’ve been working closely with AWS on product innovation, right?

Anthony: Yes! We were part of AWS’s Gen AI incubator, which helped us build Copilot capabilities into our platform. This makes it easier for customers to identify areas to automate. We’ve also developed intelligent document processing using AWS services like Textract and launched a SaaS platform fully built on AWS.

Brian: You’ve been very active at events and summits — what are you hoping to achieve through those?

Anthony: Events are a great way to connect with customers and AWS teams. We use them to showcase customer success stories, build deeper relationships with AWS sellers, and reinforce our market presence. It’s all about maximizing those in-person opportunities to strengthen partnerships and drive more business.

Brian: I know you’ve built a strong relationship with your AWS PDM. What advice would you give to other ISVs about building that collaboration?

Anthony: Regular communication is key. We have a steady cadence with our PDM and are planning quarterly business reviews involving more executives. We’ve also set up tools like Slack and Asana to share work plans and stay organized. The more transparent and collaborative you are, the more opportunities you can unlock together.

Brian: You mentioned tying marketplace success to company revenue goals — how do you measure success?

Anthony: We track metrics like co-sell opportunities, marketplace-driven revenue, and AWS service consumption. We’ve also set targets for joint solutions with GSIs and regional partners. Everything is tied to measurable outcomes, which helps us prove the value of our investment in AWS Marketplace.

Brian: That’s a great approach. It sounds like you’ve created a model for sustainable, scalable marketplace success.

Anthony: We’re working hard at it! Ultimately, we want to make it easy for customers to buy and use our software, while also making the process as frictionless as possible for our sales teams. If we do that, we all win — Camunda, AWS, and most importantly, the customer.

Brian: Love that mindset. Anthony, thanks so much for sharing your insights — I know this will be valuable for others navigating cloud marketplaces.

Anthony: Thanks, Brian. Always a pleasure to chat!