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Trunal Bhanse, Co-Founder & CEO at Clazar, joins the Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
On this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering, we dive into the intricate world of cloud marketplaces and AI with our esteemed guest, Trunal Bhanse, Co-Founder and CEO of Clazar. Trunal’s journey from engineering leader to innovator in the marketplace ecosystem is nothing short of inspiring.
Whether you’re a tech alliance leader, ecosystem leader, or an entrepreneur, this episode promises invaluable insights into how Clazar is shaping the future of marketplaces, co-selling and market dynamics.
The Dominance of Hyperscalers
Trunal and Vince kick off the conversation by discussing the substantial impact of the three hyperscalers—AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. With over a third of a trillion dollars in durable cloud budgets, these giants are driving significant growth and innovation in cloud technologies. As Trunal notes, the technology and support provided by hyperscalers have evolved dramatically, offering robust APIs and comprehensive documentation that empower businesses to leverage cloud marketplaces effectively.
Evolution and Impact of Marketplaces
The transformation of cloud marketplaces is a central theme in this episode. Trunal shares his experiences from Yahoo, LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Confluent, illustrating the rapid advancements in marketplace technology. These platforms have shifted from rudimentary beginnings to sophisticated systems that are now crucial channels for software sales and procurement.
The Role of AI in Modernizing Software Sales
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the SaaS ecosystem. Trunal emphasizes how AI is not only enhancing product capabilities but also streamlining operational efficiencies, reducing the time required to bring new products to market. This dual impact of AI is creating more opportunities for innovative and differentiated products in the marketplace.
The Three-Body Problem Analogy
One of the most compelling parts of the episode is Trunal’s “three-body problem” analogy. He explains how the constant interaction between hyperscalers, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and evolving market conditions necessitates continuous adaptation. This analogy provides a nuanced understanding of the complexities and dynamic nature of the cloud marketplace ecosystem.
The Vision Behind Clazar
Clazar was founded with the mission to modernize software sales. Trunal and his co-founder, leveraging their extensive experience, aim to create a platform where every software seller can efficiently buy and sell products. Their vision is to drive the next phase of marketplace evolution, ensuring that technology adoption continues to accelerate.
10 Things You Will Learn Listening to the Episode
- Tectonic Shifts in Technology: Understanding the major changes in the technology ecosystem over the past few years.
- Dominance of Hyperscalers: How AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are leading the cloud market with significant budgets and influence.
- Evolution of Marketplaces: The transformation of cloud marketplaces from rudimentary beginnings to sophisticated platforms.
- Role of APIs: The importance and improvement of APIs provided by hyperscalers, enhancing marketplace functionality.
- Human Behavior in Marketplaces: Shifts in how buyers and sellers interact and the increased acceptance of marketplaces as a primary procurement channel.
- Trunal’s Career Path: Insights into Trunal’s journey from Yahoo to founding Clazar, highlighting key experiences and learnings.
- Mission of Clazar: The goals and vision behind Clazar, focusing on modernizing software sales through marketplaces.
- Impact of AI: How artificial intelligence is transforming product development and operational efficiencies in the software industry.
- Three-Body Problem Analogy: An innovative analogy explaining the dynamic interactions between hyperscalers, ISVs, and market conditions.
- Future of Software Sales: Predictions and strategies for navigating the evolving landscape of software sales and cloud marketplaces.
5 Memorable Quotes by Trunal
- “The technology and support from hyperscalers have accelerated to a whole new level, with fantastic APIs and documentation now available.”
- “We started Clazar with a singular mission of modernizing software sales, leveraging the tectonic shift towards cloud marketplaces.”
- “AI is not only disrupting verticals by enhancing products but also changing the SaaS ecosystem by reducing time to market.”
- “The three-body problem analogy captures the constant interaction and evolution of hyperscalers, ISVs, and market dynamics.”
- “Our goal is to become the singular platform where every software seller in the world comes to buy and sell software.”
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Transcript
Generated by Adobe AI – please excuse any typos and incorrect text.
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;05;06
Trunal
The right analogy in my mind, is the classic physics problem of the three body problem that we talk about.
00;00;05;06 – 00;00;10;21
Vince
The three body problem. All right, Take me through this one.
00;00;10;23 – 00;00;27;19
Vince
Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose. And again, 2024 is the year that partners come out as the leading edge of the spear and finding this buyer intent. You show up to every meeting and demonstrate why you are relevant every day.
00;00;27;19 – 00;00;31;22
Vince
I have to force myself to make sure that I’m taking one step ahead in terms of my own learning.
00;00;31;23 – 00;00;54;03
Vince
That flywheel success is where you will build momentum and that momentum will continue, and then you feed into the other systems to say, this is what we did, this is how we did it together. Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Manziel and your host, and I’m on a mission to empower every individual, organization and partner to achieve their greatest results through successful partnering.
00;00;54;05 – 00;01;24;07
Vince
Much of the discussion we’ve been having these last several months have been on the tectonic shifts that we’ve been seeing in our world and in our lives, and the increased dominance of the three hyperscalers Google, Microsoft and AWS. And now we turn our attention to the technology that’s fueling this marketplace transformation. I’m excited to be joined in the studio today with an innovative leader helping to drive this transformation.
00;01;24;10 – 00;01;37;08
Vince
My friend Truant is the CEO of Clazar and joins us for a deep dive on the state of the cloud ecosystem and marketplace moment. Trunal. Welcome to the podcast.
00;01;37;10 – 00;01;39;19
Trunal
Thank you so much for having me, Vince. Excited to be here.
00;01;39;20 – 00;01;48;14
Vince
I am so excited to have you here in the studio in Boca Raton. flew in late last night. You look you look pretty chipper, though. Yeah. I have to say, you.
00;01;48;14 – 00;01;54;09
Trunal
Know, I got only, like, maybe four hours of sleep, but it’s it’s it’s it’s, you know, I’m excited. I’m excited for this. This recording.
00;01;54;09 – 00;01;57;11
Vince
As an entrepreneur, when do you get more than four hours sleep? Come on.
00;01;57;11 – 00;02;01;12
Trunal
Yeah, yeah. Entrepreneur. And a father of two young girls.
00;02;01;13 – 00;02;23;10
Vince
Oh, yes. Yes. I went I went through that stage. I was a long time ago. But, I am so excited for our conversation today. as I mentioned in the opening, like, you are helping to drive this new marketplace moment, right? Your organization and you and I actually got to meet when you were an ISV, confluent.
00;02;23;12 – 00;02;43;29
Vince
And, so you were in the thick of things working with the hyperscalers, and then you made a you made a transition. So, but for our listeners and viewers, they’re watching us today that don’t know true now and don’t know your organization. I thought you’d take us on a little bit of a journey. your your organization, your mission and your role within the organization.
00;02;44;03 – 00;02;50;27
Trunal
Absolutely. Do you want me to start at where? Closer is or start a little bit before on my how I got to the story of I think.
00;02;50;27 – 00;02;53;19
Vince
It’s I think it’s both I think it’s both. Take us on the journey.
00;02;53;20 – 00;03;11;29
Trunal
Okay. So, since I’ve been a product and engineering leader for about a decade now, you know, as you mentioned, I live on in California on the, on the West Coast. and I started my career, in around 2008, 2007 timeframe. I started with, Yahoo. As if you remember.
00;03;12;00 – 00;03;19;20
Vince
That’s fantastic. I was looking at your. Yeah, your LinkedIn profile. You’ve had you’ve been at all the hot spots at periods, different periods of time, I love that.
00;03;19;21 – 00;03;44;10
Trunal
Yeah. Know I’ve been lucky to, you know, be interested by all these organizations to be, to allow me to be a part of the success story, starting with Yahoo. Then I went to LinkedIn. then Airbnb happened, and then the last one was confluent, which is where I which is where, you know, my I really had this light bulb moment where, you know, maybe if I start a company in this space, it would be successful in certain in certain ways.
00;03;44;10 – 00;04;13;22
Trunal
Right? so that’s the entire story of me, like, at, let me not go too far back, but like, let’s say at Airbnb, I was the I started as an engineer, and then I, eventually left as the head of homes, host organization, which is a team of engineers and product managers and everyone where we, we had really had a mission to, help the host on Airbnb side understand and then become successful on the entire Airbnb host journey.
00;04;13;28 – 00;04;32;20
Trunal
And I learned through the through that journey of four and five years, I learned so much. And I really got in love with building products, building really fantastic engineering systems. Yeah. and that’s the experience that I got to confluent. And then, then, then confluent as, as as, you know, like, you know, I was the head of, engineering for cloud marketplaces, billing and growth.
00;04;32;27 – 00;04;49;01
Trunal
And that’s what the inception of the idea of, you know, what would a technology powered, super automated platform look like in this, in this ecosystem, which can, you know, which which customers might love? And that’s what the story of Plaza is, and that’s how close I was born.
00;04;49;08 – 00;05;07;19
Vince
Yeah. So what I hear loud and clear. Right. So engineering excellence to organizations that really set benchmarks in terms of the work that they did. And now you launch into closer. And let’s talk a little bit more about like what what you do is your goal with closer. Like where do you see this organization five years from now?
00;05;07;22 – 00;05;26;23
Trunal
Yeah. When we started laser events, you know, I and I was I was co-founder and CTO based out of Austin here and I work closely together at Airbnb and, you know, and this was like, gosh, like eight years ago at this point in time, but we kept in touch all along and we wanted to always start a startup of our own.
00;05;27;00 – 00;05;50;08
Trunal
but we were waiting for the right time in our personal lives and also in a, in a professional context, which, we were waiting for the moment that felt like, oh, the right moment for us to take the leap. And when I was at confluent, I really got to see, got the front row seat on to how the marketplaces are evolving the business and disrupting the whole buying and selling cycle of the enterprises.
00;05;50;10 – 00;06;19;11
Trunal
so when I looked at that, I’m like, okay, maybe there’s something in here that we can start looking into, and that’s this. That’s where the story of, of marketplaces for me started. So closer was started with a singular mission of helping and modernizing the modern sales. for the software sales. Right? Yes. We started with marketplaces because we are seeing this tectonic shift where now majority of the organizations are considering this as a primary channel of procurement and sales.
00;06;19;13 – 00;06;31;13
Trunal
so we thought that would be a good, opportunity for us to come in and start a business there. But eventually we want to be at the singular platform that where every single seller software seller in the world comes to buy and sell software.
00;06;31;15 – 00;06;53;07
Vince
Wow. That is a big, bold mission. I love that. And as you know, I talk about tectonic shifts. I’ve been talking about this moment that’s been happening with marketplaces, these three hyperscalers. We were just talking right before we got started here. I mean, it’s astounding. Right now, there is a third of $1 trillion in cloud commitments around the Big Three, and that’s growing rapidly.
00;06;53;09 – 00;07;18;26
Vince
Microsoft saw an 80% increase in commitments over $100 million or more just this last quarter, in fact. And, and then we talk about AI, you talk about this ecosystem piece, and we’re going to we’re going to dive in a little bit here. But yeah, this is really been, quite a moment. I would say that, you know, AWS had the they had the early, start in, in IaaS, but the other two have followed.
00;07;18;26 – 00;07;36;22
Vince
That’s followed in many respects. we’ve seen a quite a bit of acceleration this year. Right. And Google, as you mentioned, also is also coming on strong. Let’s talk about the evolution of marketplaces. Like we’re in a different place than we were five years ago. Probably when you were at confluent, you were probably in the very early stages of that.
00;07;36;24 – 00;07;40;12
Vince
What changes and advancements have you seen?
00;07;40;15 – 00;08;11;11
Trunal
so the changes and advancements, Vince, I’ve seen in multiple aspects. So let’s first talk about the technology. So when the marketplace started, it was, you know, very rudimentary. It was very early days for them. and each of the hyperscaler was have been in different like a piece of their own, as you know. but what that did is that also reflected in the availability of APIs, the technology, the infrastructure that engineers like myself or my teams needed at the time, that has drastically shifted.
00;08;11;15 – 00;08;40;22
Trunal
It has it has accelerated to a whole new level. Now there’s fantastic APIs available. There is amazing support available. There’s fantastic documentation available from all the hyperscalers. Right. So that’s change number one. that’s on the technology side. The other change is on the human behavior or the, the business side of the equation. Initially, you know, when we went out to the market, like we had to convince a lot of the buyers and sellers to even educate them what the channel is.
00;08;40;22 – 00;09;00;21
Trunal
And there’s still some of that happening out there. And, you know, it will continue to happen. But now there’s lots and lots of interest and lots of, education that has already happened in the industry. and credit goes to the hyperscalers because amount of the investment that has gone into the space is, you know, much more than what it was a few years ago.
00;09;00;21 – 00;09;19;25
Trunal
Right? So those are the two trends that I see today, and I can only see them growing, like if you look at just, you know, as a data point, if you look at the number of articles and number of, posts that are happening in this area, on LinkedIn, like you, I’m sure you can, project like, you know, how few there were a few years ago and how many there.
00;09;19;25 – 00;09;20;14
Trunal
Yeah.
00;09;20;16 – 00;09;40;12
Vince
Well, I think about it is more of a marketing function at first. Right. The marketplace was was set up basically as brochure aware in many respects. I think AWS certainly accelerated the transformation with their because they were cloud commitment first. they made it easier and then they and they led the pace in terms of like now you can buy off of our cloud commitments.
00;09;40;12 – 00;10;04;28
Vince
Right. And they they set the tone and then Microsoft and Google have followed along here. you know, we’ve talked about how much has changed just in this brief period of time. Right. Canalys said Jay McBain has been sitting in that seat and talked about how we they had predicted $45 billion in commitments or transaction within 2026, I believe they originally said.
00;10;04;28 – 00;10;32;01
Vince
And then they called it back to 2025. And then they said they’ve under called it. And then, another organization that you, compete with, we’ll just we’ll just call it that. They said $100 billion by the end of 2026. some believe that we and I use the Jeffrey Moore, analogy of crossing the chasm, right. Because I was a big fan of that technology adoption lifecycle and, and the work there.
00;10;32;03 – 00;10;54;15
Vince
But you’ve indicated to this, right, it’s not the right analogy to talk about crossing the chasm, that there’s there’s more at play here than just a linear transformation that’s going on. I was hoping you could share a little bit of your analogy and how this applies to this whole, I would say, the tectonic shifts and the confluence that we’re seeing amongst amongst the hyperscalers in the markets that we serve.
00;10;54;18 – 00;11;05;07
Trunal
Absolutely. Events. so like, you know, we’ve talked about it like crossing the chasm may not be the right analogy. The right analogy for in my mind, is a classic physics problem of the three body problem that we talked about, the.
00;11;05;07 – 00;11;07;23
Vince
Three body problem. All right. Take me through this one.
00;11;07;23 – 00;11;31;28
Trunal
All right. So like, imagine there’s like three like bodies and they’re constantly interacting with each other. Yeah. And that changes the way we as an ecosystem observer are supposed to change our reaction to them. And in this specific example the three bodies are the following. First is the hyperscalers AWS, Azure and GCP. And they are constantly changing evolving APIs, evolving strategies.
00;11;31;28 – 00;11;42;10
Trunal
You know, different level of funding that goes through like it is on the on the rise now with everyone inputting a lot of, funding to the ecosystem, but it can change a lot along the way.
00;11;42;10 – 00;11;56;29
Vince
Well, and then the build out. Right. So all the investments that are going on, Microsoft’s going to do $14 billion a quarter and then you layer in AI. Right? So this is a big, big function that’s now changing changing their roles. In fact in terms of what they’re what they’re providing back to the markets.
00;11;56;29 – 00;12;14;26
Trunal
Absolutely. And then like now there’s new kinds of marketplaces come in like, you know, Divo on my podcast, you mentioned about the data exchange or the the data provider marketplaces. I believe AWS already has one, and stuff like that. So that’s the one part of the Three-body problem. Part one. Part two is the ISV is the sellers.
00;12;14;26 – 00;12;30;23
Trunal
Yes. And if you think about, and you’ve been in the space a long time when yourself. Right. So when you, when you, when you, looked at the journey of the ISV is that has to change because the way you were selling even like you one and a half, two years ago when the economy was booming.
00;12;30;25 – 00;13;02;18
Trunal
And now where, you know, the budgets are getting cut, there’s lots more scrutiny on every single purchase that’s been made there. Like, literally SaaS companies out there who help you evaluate if your SaaS, spend is is, is is going through the roof is optimized. Exactly. So like we are at that phase right now. So like, you know, I seasoned leaders such as like myself or, you know, other SaaS companies out there, we have to be really, on our toes to make sure that we are, reacting in the right fashion to this, this change on the ISV side.
00;13;02;18 – 00;13;20;02
Vince
And I’ll, I’ll tie in I again to because now it’s now it’s all about like, how are you infusing AI into your solutions? So each of these ISV solutions, maybe not every single one of them, but there are a lot of them are looking at like, well, what’s our role in this, this AI journey that the world is going on right now?
00;13;20;03 – 00;13;44;25
Trunal
Absolutely. And I plays like, a role in two specific ways. One is disrupting the vertical, like, you know, how do you actually bring AI into your product to provide a better service to your end customers? So that’s part one. But the other part is like every single, like, you know, the the ease of, ease with which now you can build products because of AI is also changing the SaaS ecosystem.
00;13;44;25 – 00;14;03;07
Trunal
Right. Interesting. Now you have lots like lots of options available. You needed a, you know, five, six, ten humans to do certain job that are no longer needed. That can be very efficiently done via AI, which means the a value to market and the ability for you to try out and bring products to the market has also been reduced.
00;14;03;07 – 00;14;21;13
Trunal
The time has been reduced now, right? So I truly believe that ISV is will have more and more, opportunities to bring really differentiated and volume products to the market in the coming years because of AI. and in the three-body problem, going back to the three body part, the last is I know this is your favorite is the channel partners, right?
00;14;21;13 – 00;14;25;24
Vince
Yes. And the ecosystem is exactly.
00;14;25;26 – 00;14;46;08
Trunal
so for the channel partners, again, like the traditional way of doing business is, is, is kind of getting disrupted. And it is where, you know, you have to have this, a skill of routing the deal with the marketplace and understanding how that whole ecosystem works and, and, and really be on top of this new mechanism that’s coming into the picture.
00;14;46;09 – 00;14;59;23
Trunal
Right? So like when you combine these three, that is the three-body problem that we constantly talk about internally at laser. And that’s the kind of, you know, ecosystem that you want to be a part of because it’s challenging and fun.
00;14;59;25 – 00;15;17;23
Vince
I want to break this apart because this is fascinating. And you’ve got me a new model here. I it might it might find its way into my talk track. It’s on my presentations, if you don’t mind, but let’s talk about the hyperscalers for a second here. Right. And we talked about the dominance already. Right. And it’s it’s becoming more and more profound.
00;15;17;25 – 00;15;35;19
Vince
chat GPT just announced for. Oh, right. And that tells me that Microsoft is going to have some additional advancements and capabilities that it didn’t have just a week ago. Two weeks ago. it seems like Google is really playing fast catch up here. Where is AWS in the AI journey.
00;15;35;21 – 00;15;54;13
Trunal
In terms of, like the what we see is we do see in terms of the customers that we see, we see customers across the board on all of the, on, on, on all of the hyperscalers. there is slight differences between each one of them, does I, and slight differences in between how much of support they, each one of them provide.
00;15;54;14 – 00;16;17;12
Trunal
Yeah. It’s very clear that all three of them are trying, to capture the attention of the, the these companies will bring in AI to the market. Right. as I know, AWS gives a certain number of credits or, you know, GCP gives or I’m sure there’s credits on the, Azure side as well. but specifically what we see is typically, customers start with one cloud.
00;16;17;14 – 00;16;23;25
Trunal
and then that cloud marketplaces and then replicate that across across the other hyperscalers as well.
00;16;23;27 – 00;16;36;01
Vince
The difference is that the AI is not the same like you could do. I won’t call it a lift and shift. It’s much more elegant than that. But you can take your application as an ISV from one cloud to the to the next. There’s migration tools.
00;16;36;01 – 00;16;36;17
Trunal
Yeah.
00;16;36;19 – 00;16;41;20
Vince
I is a whole nother game, right? Because once you’re infused or locked in, it seems like it’s hard to uncouple.
00;16;41;24 – 00;17;05;01
Trunal
Yeah. I mean, and this again, like in a classic infrastructure or an engineering, parlance, like, you know, you could have like a pure SaaS way, which, you know, all of these hyperscalers have some solution, again, and a various degree of of maturity. Yes. And all of them also have, a way for you to ship the binary, like the code directly to them and then have a deeper, research and analysis.
00;17;05;01 – 00;17;10;11
Trunal
And each one of them have different, like, pros and cons and just depends on what you want as a business.
00;17;10;13 – 00;17;33;18
Vince
You talked about the ISV. You talked about what I refer to as the economic headwinds. Right? We we saw this big, you know, Covid accelerated a lot of things. Yeah. It accelerated with Satya Nadella said seven years of transformation in seven months. And truly it moved us. It changed our it changed our lives in many respects. And which meant that a lot of technology got deployed very quickly.
00;17;33;21 – 00;17;54;24
Vince
So we had this big infusion of spend and then kind of a pullback. Right. That’s where this economic headwinds comes. And close to a half a million people in the tech space were laid off last year. A lot of the do more with less that we’re seeing. And these organizations now again a lot of a lot of startups, a lot of investments in startups.
00;17;54;24 – 00;18;16;09
Vince
Yep. Congratulations. You, secured some additional funding recently. Thank you. but we’re also seeing the fact that a lot of these ISV are going and saying, okay, well, now, how do I find how do I find the customer? And this is where this is where the co selling, really becomes even more important. That gets us that gets us to the customer directly by working with the hyperscalers.
00;18;16;17 – 00;18;37;17
Vince
But that’s not necessarily how the customer buys. Right. And this is this is tied as this ties into this channel conversation. The third element. Yep. So the ISV is are saying, okay, now I’m, I want to hitch my wagon to the Hyperscaler and sell with them. But wait a second. The customer is down here and they’re buying from a reseller or a systems integrator or transactional partner like a CD.
00;18;37;20 – 00;18;54;17
Vince
She or an insight, how do I get there? And this is the third component that you mentioned. The third, the third piece of the model, which is the channel, the ecosystem. And I feel like that piece isn’t fully articulated yet the way the other two. And this is why I’m really fascinated, where are is going to take us?
00;18;54;17 – 00;19;01;10
Vince
Because you’re you have now said here at the table that it’s not just about cloud go to market. It’s really about the whole buying journey.
00;19;01;14 – 00;19;02;02
Trunal
Absolutely.
00;19;02;02 – 00;19;04;02
Vince
So take me there a little bit further.
00;19;04;02 – 00;19;21;23
Trunal
Yeah. And Vince, if you look at the innovation that has happened in the space, right. like there’s lots of innovation in like I like we’ve spoken about just in, in the last ten minutes. Like so it’s so much about AI itself. Right. but that innovation is now slowly making to the, the traditional businesses and channel partners.
00;19;21;23 – 00;19;25;05
Trunal
I would say I have been around for the longest time. It’s a very.
00;19;25;08 – 00;19;27;00
Vince
40, 40 plus years. Exactly.
00;19;27;02 – 00;20;06;11
Trunal
It’s a very mature, system and a very mature, ecosystem and, and and stuff like that. Right. So now what I do see is I see a lot of, increase understanding of the space because of the cloud marketplaces and how they are, disrupting and helping some of these ecosystem players. Right. So what’s going to happen is just like Lazada, I’m anticipating more and more innovation happening in this space because now it’s it’s, caught the eye of the engineers and the product people who are like, okay, wait, if I’m building a product, if I’m building a service, if I have to take it to the customer, I can no longer
00;20;06;11 – 00;20;20;04
Trunal
just, like, ignore this thing that I first of all, I didn’t even know existed. And now that I didn’t know it existed, there’s so much opportunity for me to go in and automate and bring real value to end customer. So I think that’s what I’m anticipating seeing.
00;20;20;06 – 00;20;44;18
Vince
What’s interesting to me is where I’m using coupling and decoupling quite a bit here, but where you’re decoupling from the old methodology, which is, you know, the channel was created 40 plus years ago, actually, down here in Boca Raton. I always refer to Bill gates coming down in Boca Raton, signing an agreement with IBM to license software and then resellers and, and OEMs developed hardware and software.
00;20;44;20 – 00;21;05;07
Vince
And then then there was a need to get those to market right. It started off with like, you get a you’d get a magazine sent to your business saying, here, buy pieces from us, buy software from us, buy networking hardware from us. And so that was a way that organizations purchased, organizations of all sizes, SMB, up to enterprise is would would buy that way in many respects.
00;21;05;07 – 00;21;32;15
Vince
And then those organizations got built out. They have thousands and thousands of sellers now embracing this customer. And now I’m up here on my journey as an ISV, working with a Hyperscaler. And it feels decoupled from that journey. And, you know, the each of the hyperscalers are various. I’m going to I’m pointing to the hyperscalers here. There are various stages of getting that glue between the two motions there cloud go to market and their ecosystem.
00;21;32;21 – 00;21;52;21
Vince
But it seems like a lot needs to happen here in terms of the development, because you have existing models, you have, compensation models, you have, procurement. Everything that comes to all the I’ll call it the supply chain. That takes everything through to the customer. How do we how do we streamline that? Like how do we think through it?
00;21;52;23 – 00;22;20;12
Vince
It seems that AWS has done a better job here than the other two. Maybe because they had a couple of years head start. They had five organizations go to $1 billion in transactions last year. Yeah, right. Yeah. Jay sat in that seat and said, you know, we they became the fifth largest distributor last year. Yep. And they basically, shot across the district distribution channel directly to the ISV, directly to the customer or to the channel to to the customer.
00;22;20;14 – 00;22;24;09
Vince
How are we going to streamline it? Like where do you see your role in that process.
00;22;24;09 – 00;22;50;02
Trunal
Yeah. So I’ll I’ll answer that in two ways. Right. One is like I’ll tell you a story before we actually get to the actual answer. I love it. like when I was a guy, B and B, the motivation for engineers and product people was eventually a metric on the customer side. So I strongly believe that any company has such a culture is going to be successful because everything is tied to eventual customer goal right now.
00;22;50;02 – 00;23;07;24
Trunal
If you take that example and bring it to the enterprises, which is kind of the, the shift that I did in my career, like I have been at, you know, LinkedIn, Airbnb, Yahoo, all of these consumer companies. Then I went to confluent, and I really saw what the enterprise world looked like, and I was fascinated. I’m like, I’m never leaving this world ever again.
00;23;07;27 – 00;23;09;21
Vince
It’s very different than the consumer world, very.
00;23;09;21 – 00;23;32;12
Trunal
Different, very different. And there are some parallels like this one. Right. So now if you bring that value to companies like let’s say closer are where we value the customer value. a lot. Now what’s going to happen is engineers are going to figure out, okay, like if I have to figure out a way to sell my whatever software that I’m building, I can no longer ignore the the, the entire channel partners ecosystem.
00;23;32;12 – 00;23;58;02
Trunal
Right. Because that plays such a huge part. And especially as your organization starts maturing, it plays even bigger part. Right? and has all of those benefits like, you know, cost benefits, distribution benefits, all of that. so when engineers come to that, like that is going to like disrupt some of these equations. And then, you know, these hyperscalers have, have done a really good job, I would definitely say AWS as the CPO process, which is really well loved by our customers.
00;23;58;02 – 00;24;17;10
Trunal
And, you know, we always get good feedback. And GCP has it’s coming up with something like, you know, Azure has their MPO process. Now this is where the technology and automation can actually help accelerate the motion of of the of the business. Right. And now this is specific to the hyperscalers. Now imagine a world in which, the hyperscalers are there.
00;24;17;10 – 00;24;22;01
Trunal
But there’s also the other a business that happens outside the hyperscalers. And how does that automation work?
00;24;22;01 – 00;24;22;16
Vince
That’s right.
00;24;22;16 – 00;24;33;00
Trunal
I do definitely see some of these learnings that have happened over the past decade with the hyperscalers will be brought to the direct channel and and things will be better for the future. Yeah.
00;24;33;00 – 00;24;58;14
Vince
And you mentioned things like multi-party offers, which is Microsoft’s term. And then there’s the channel partner private off offer. Yeah, these acronyms roll off the tongue. But essentially what they’re doing is they’re coupling the channel with the buying behavior of the ISV with, with the Hyperscaler and pulling it together. Yep. And ultimately, I see it as the customer is going to be pulling you talked about the customer experience.
00;24;58;14 – 00;25;19;17
Vince
The customer is going to be pulling a solution together. Right. The what’s what’s fascinating to me, we talked about the cloud commitments. These decisions are no longer being made in the lines of business. These technology purchases, these cloud commitments are being made at the board level. Vodafone just made a big agreement with Microsoft for $1.5 billion buying over a billion.
00;25;19;19 – 00;25;38;13
Vince
I mean you can just you rattle off all the fortune 500 right now. You know, these decisions are being made at the board level. And so then the the actual solution purchases, which is really like how do we solve for a problem? We have a security requirement. We maybe need to couple together the three ISVs to solve for, backup and recovery.
00;25;38;16 – 00;25;56;03
Vince
And then we need a systems integrator and we need another organization to do managed services around that. Right. So I need to put, like, all five of those together, and I want to buy off of my billion dollar cloud commitment. This is where the party or the CPO comes in, right hundred percent. And so how do you help how do you help to streamline that process for them?
00;25;56;10 – 00;26;09;14
Trunal
Yeah. So in in terms of the, the technology enabled, these like there’s some certain tools out there and, you know, there’s certain solutions, but by and large it’s still a lot of manual work, which as you probably know, yes.
00;26;09;17 – 00;26;14;26
Vince
it’s a lot of paper, paper shuffling going on here a little bit too much radio.
00;26;14;28 – 00;26;32;14
Trunal
but I mean, I would say hyperscalers have done a really good job, like, especially with the, you know, multi-party offers or the Cpos is fantastic APIs available. Yeah. So we build an experience on top of it that combines some of those elements. And that’s the that’s the that’s the early signs of stream, you know, streamlining some of this flow, the procurement flows.
00;26;32;14 – 00;26;42;14
Trunal
Yeah, I would say I wouldn’t say that we are in a, in a, in a space where this is like solve problems like that. The things will evolve as, as we go and time will tell how it how it works.
00;26;42;17 – 00;26;58;06
Vince
You know, now I take your model apart now, now I’ve got it. So you’ve got, you’ve got a three body model, but with each with any, each one of those three body models, there might be another technology curve going on and each one of them independently of one another. And they overlap. Maybe this is a 3D model.
00;26;58;07 – 00;27;17;14
Trunal
Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. Say it is a 3D model because it feels like the three models again, like the hyperscalers is the ice V’s and the channel. And each one of them is a behemoth of a system. Yes. And they have their own like micro ecosystems going on within them. That’s going to change the way the entire ecosystem operates.
00;27;17;19 – 00;27;18;20
Trunal
So it’s just a fascinating.
00;27;18;21 – 00;27;42;00
Vince
And they’re each at different, levels of maturity along their journey. Yeah. The ISV are a different levels of maturity on their journey and the channels different levels of maturity on their journey. And I know from working with the channel partners, some are and I’ve had I’ve had insight on the podcast just recently, in fact, Tony Savoy and Andy Burger, the president of Insight North America, they’re much further along the journey than some of these other resellers are right.
00;27;42;00 – 00;27;54;21
Vince
They get ISV, they get solutions selling, and they’re bringing that down to with, you know, their tens of thousands of customers and they’re they’re stitching it all together the way we discuss. Absolutely. But others aren’t there yet.
00;27;54;21 – 00;28;20;10
Trunal
Yeah. Yeah. And then how can technology help with the acceleration. Like when whenever I like think about technology technologies job is to accelerate something. Right. Like whatever’s happening organically in the world. Yes. Technology should come in and accelerate that value for for the people and and the and the and the humans out there. Right. Like Tesla is doing something similar where, you know, accelerate the, you know, transition to sustainable energy.
00;28;20;13 – 00;28;27;12
Trunal
But like technology plays this really critical role. And I’m seeing similar kind of role will be played by technology in the channels of partner space.
00;28;27;14 – 00;28;29;10
Vince
So it’s a fascinating time we live with.
00;28;29;11 – 00;28;30;03
Trunal
Absolutely.
00;28;30;03 – 00;28;43;10
Vince
So you think it’s going to be a five year journey down the line. You think it’s going to take that long or do you do you see an acceleration? It seems like AI is accelerating so fast right now, while marketplaces accelerate at a slower pace than, I guess is the question I have.
00;28;43;12 – 00;29;07;09
Trunal
Yeah, I think like, you know, five years to really mature. I would say, but I think you would start seeing some really cool technology emerge in the next 1 to 2 years timeframe, and then it’ll take some. It’s on course to mature like there’s there’s so much AI out there. But, you know, I do believe that eventually in the in the longer run it will settle and you will have fewer AI tools that really get the job done.
00;29;07;14 – 00;29;28;20
Trunal
And everything else would be, you know, kind of non-existent. Similarly, in the space, like you would see some innovation happening. And that’s the thing with innovation right then. So like you, you have to try something, but guaranteed some of those things are not gonna work. But the things that do work, they stick for the longer time and that that takes time, that takes, effort and time to, to really mature.
00;29;28;23 – 00;30;02;21
Vince
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00;30;02;27 – 00;30;24;11
Vince
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00;30;24;13 – 00;30;43;29
Vince
What about the laggards? Like we talked about this 3D model. Now there’s laggards in in each maybe maybe not so much at the hyperscale level. But within the ISV community there’s still some laggards. Yeah I saw organizations that were were selling the old model. Right. They were still selling the on prem software or the old subscription model, which wasn’t a true a truly cloud model.
00;30;43;29 – 00;31;02;03
Vince
Yeah. and then, yeah. And then there’s the born in the clouds as well. And then on the channel side, certainly we mentioned the, the, the early adopters are the ones that have accelerated and there’s laggards there as well. What do you what what are you seeing from those laggard organizations in terms of being slow to adopt marketplaces.
00;31;02;06 – 00;31;22;10
Trunal
Yeah. So I’ll talk about the ISV first. on the ISV side, like, you know, a few years ago, like not many people even knew about it. And then, like the examples that I’ve seen, people are trying to, people are almost like, skeptical when they’re like, hey, you know, who’s going to go to buy, go, go buy an enterprise software by going to.
00;31;22;13 – 00;31;23;13
Vince
it’s a waste of time.
00;31;23;13 – 00;31;43;01
Trunal
Or waste of time, like, all right, let’s put a couple engineers and see what happens. And and some people give give it that chance. And those early adopters who really leaned in and try to really go deep and figure out how this thing works, actually were rewarded with handsome rewards with in terms of IRR, in terms of, you know, increased deal size and all of that.
00;31;43;04 – 00;32;08;01
Trunal
Still, like if you look at the DNA age that we live right now, there’s still a lot of, apprehension. I do see less than previously for sure. Right. But still, there is. And what that means is the startups that are coming to the scene and the the companies that are now maturing and going into the series B, C, C, series D, level D, now all of a sudden need to have a really good understanding and grasp of this channel, which they do not.
00;32;08;08 – 00;32;25;01
Trunal
Yeah. And the reason being like as you start growing the pressure to grow revenue and you know, find new channels to, to increase your sales is growing as well. And you can no longer ignore this channel because of the, the, the, you know, 30, 60 billion committed spend that we just talked about. That’s right. Which is locked into the hyperscalers.
00;32;25;01 – 00;32;28;09
Trunal
So you don’t really have an option like it’s it’s like it’s you.
00;32;28;09 – 00;32;29;04
Vince
Can’t ignore that.
00;32;29;05 – 00;32;37;10
Trunal
You can’t ignore that. And events you know, this, but you know the the projection for this summit, it’s going to go to $1 trillion in the, in the next, you know, few years.
00;32;37;15 – 00;32;39;07
Vince
It’s going to happen sooner than later.
00;32;39;09 – 00;33;07;12
Trunal
Exactly. so it’s no longer a channel that you’re, you can, have an afterthought about. And just like, like I give this example to, you know, every, each one of our customers and prospects and everyone, like, every single channel, like marketing. Marketing is a channel. Sales. Outbound is a channel. Partnerships is a channel like marketplaces. And you need to invest time to get the get the rewards out of it is really I mean, if you just put up a website and expected, you know, customers to flow in, it’s not going to happen.
00;33;07;12 – 00;33;10;17
Trunal
You need to do SEO, you need to do paid marketing, you need to do all of that.
00;33;10;18 – 00;33;12;19
Vince
You might need to do a podcast. Yeah, exactly.
00;33;12;26 – 00;33;25;02
Trunal
Exactly. So is this similar a similar kind of motion. And the the laggards that are, that are now lagging will actually be heavily if they don’t, you know, accelerate their understanding of the.
00;33;25;05 – 00;33;47;11
Vince
This is reminds me of a conversation 12 years ago, getting up on stage at a channel event and speaking about the cloud to all of these organizations that were looking at me like, DOH, I’d like, why should I change my business model? Right? The ISVs were selling on prem software back in those days. resellers were selling Dell computers in target’s bags.
00;33;47;11 – 00;34;02;11
Vince
And we were sitting back there at Microsoft going, we want you all to come to the cloud with us. And I feel like we’re on the same journey with marketplace. I feel like it’s accelerate a little bit faster than I expected, but I think that’s the the way the laggard thinks about it. Absolutely. What? Why is it why is it relevant to me?
00;34;02;11 – 00;34;21;25
Vince
Why should I change my business model? Yeah. what is the future of go to market look like? And how does software sellers sell in the future? Like how does this change? Like I’m a seller working for an ISV, or I’m working for Microsoft or I’m working in the channel. What is my future sales process look like, and how do you help support that?
00;34;22;01 – 00;34;44;07
Trunal
Absolutely. So, like I strongly believe that, you know, now what we are seeing and JJ MacBain talks about it a lot where the buyer behavior has changed. Yes. You know, the traditional buyer who was like, you know, pen and paper and, you know, pick up phone calls and talk, that still has a lot of value. But the buyer of this, this era actually comes in with a lot of research points.
00;34;44;07 – 00;35;07;06
Trunal
They know exactly what they’re looking for. That’s right. They know exactly what what their value proposition is. And then exactly how to extract the value. When we talk to our customers, some of our customers are extremely tech savvy, like they do a proper POC with us. They understand each and every feature that we have. We have a team that helps them understand the, the, differentiated value of the of the of the product and platform.
00;35;07;08 – 00;35;20;22
Trunal
but that is a change that is happening in the world right now where, you know, and then in the future this is just going to happen more and more like, you know, I can’t imagine my daughter is going in and like, picking up. They might not even drive their cars like the cars are going to.
00;35;20;22 – 00;35;22;06
Vince
Drive the car. Yeah.
00;35;22;09 – 00;35;39;07
Trunal
Exactly. So they may not know how to like I drove a stick shift when I grew up to and that’s, that’s that’s going to be a thing of a past. Similarly like what does that do to software procurement? That’s right. Software, business overall is going to be a whole lot of different world looking like in in not near near future.
00;35;39;07 – 00;35;39;21
Trunal
Yeah.
00;35;39;24 – 00;35;57;28
Vince
Well it ties into the whole ecosystem conversation in such a strong way. Like Jay Jay again. Jay you you’re getting a lot of kudos. You’re not even in the room today. but we talked about the the eight seats at the table or the six seats at the table. Right. Because you’re making that decision process by talking to all of your trusted.
00;35;57;28 – 00;36;24;27
Vince
So there might be other technology organizations you’re working with, the millennial buying behavior, which is changing, which says 75% want to get to end of job without actually talking to another human. Right. So selling changes in a big way, right. The, the cookie that that whole, that whole process that was so prevalent just 5 or 6 years ago that you had, you had a you had modern marketing, you had stars, you had the seller coming in and doing the clothes.
00;36;24;27 – 00;36;26;24
Vince
Right? That’s changed. That’s gone.
00;36;26;24 – 00;36;27;14
Trunal
Yeah, yeah.
00;36;27;14 – 00;36;33;27
Vince
And you’re saying is I’m doing all the research and I’m coming to you and saying, okay, I’m now I’m ready to procure. Yeah, I want to buy it off of this marketplace.
00;36;33;27 – 00;36;53;00
Trunal
Exactly, exactly. And also, like, you know, lots of, customers. I mean, when we, as engineers, when we looked at software to procure this, like, different methodology that we use, we actually almost always went to the website of the vendor. We looked at the quality of the APIs, the quality of the documentation. Is the pricing public or not?
00;36;53;00 – 00;37;04;09
Trunal
Like, do I do I get what I pay for? Right. And in gone are the days of you know, my pricing is opaque. Like I’ll tell you, let’s get in a conversation like that just doesn’t trust.
00;37;04;13 – 00;37;05;03
Vince
That’s right.
00;37;05;06 – 00;37;34;18
Trunal
and then anything that you could do to build trust with the buyer is going to be paramount. So, like pricing is one and on the same trust topic, like if you can attach your software to the hyperscalers, that automatically increases your scale, of trust 100 x. Yes, these these are household names. Everyone knows about it. People almost assume that you are a legit partner, and that you’ve gone to, and you do have to go through, you know, stringent security, question and, and check before you do get listed on the marketplaces.
00;37;34;20 – 00;37;37;08
Trunal
So all of these factors play into the trust factor.
00;37;37;09 – 00;37;37;27
Vince
Yes.
00;37;37;29 – 00;37;39;09
Trunal
It’s going to change the way we license.
00;37;39;10 – 00;37;58;18
Vince
Yeah. And it ties in. And then it comes down to the fundamentals of partnering, which I always talk about the seven principles and trust mutual trust being so prevalent important in the process. And then building your coastal methodology like building your trust with the partner that you’re working with, which is just so important. But now I want to dive in on closer, right?
00;37;58;18 – 00;38;14;20
Vince
I really feel like we know we’ve touched on the trends we’re seeing, and it’s a terrific conversation. But as you know, you’re not the first one to market here. Yep. Right. And there are been some other organizations, some have been on this podcast. We went on to mention a name. Some are friends. and as you are.
00;38;14;25 – 00;38;28;14
Vince
But I also feel like, okay, so why now? Like, why did you decide to do this? What what is the problem you’re solving that’s differentiated? And why is Clazar unique in this market, this amazing market that we both playing. Yeah.
00;38;28;14 – 00;38;54;22
Trunal
Events. And then like, you know, the way we think about the space is we are in the space of helping software and buyers and sellers buy and sell more and making it easy. Right. We started with marketplaces because of the tectonic shift that we talked about, just, you know, at the start of the podcast. So like if when we looked at, okay, here’s our mission, here’s we want to get to, here’s the ideal outcome that we want to have in terms of what our mission is.
00;38;54;22 – 00;39;12;06
Trunal
Our mission is that, you know, buyers and sellers of software, business are able to procure the software in the most easiest fashion, and sellers are able to reach the buyers that they want without much friction. So that’s the vision now if you like. And this is kind of what we did. Do it closer all the time okay.
00;39;12;09 – 00;39;33;26
Trunal
Here’s where we want to get to. What are all the ways that we can get to here and what’s the fastest, most efficient way of achieving that outcome. And we do that on the project basis, on engineering basis, on product basis, but also on the vision basis, which is, hey, here’s where we want to take the company in the next one two years, next five years, ten years, whatever that might be.
00;39;33;28 – 00;39;51;09
Trunal
What is the fastest way for us to get there and what we concluded was, okay, the, the no matter what we do, if we do not catch on this trend of cloud marketplaces and coastal, it’s like we are going to be, swimming against the tide. Yeah. So that’s why we we started a company in this space.
00;39;51;09 – 00;40;08;16
Trunal
But eventually what we want to get to is we want to get to a platform that is the singular platform that anyone needs to buy and sell software, and that’s a differentiated value that you will start seeing as the company grows. Like, you know, we’ve been we got a series A company right now. We’re growing really fast. But we are investing a lot in product.
00;40;08;16 – 00;40;12;28
Trunal
And again, motion to bring that value, differentiated value very, very soon.
00;40;13;01 – 00;40;19;16
Vince
So you’re taking a lot of the complexity out of the process. It’s still not as easy today as it looks from my side of things, right?
00;40;19;17 – 00;40;37;12
Trunal
No it’s not. And it’s like, you know, if you look at the company, the each company has a DNA. Like I firmly believe that. Yeah, I worked at LinkedIn. It had a different DNA. I worked at Airbnb, different DNA concert, different DNA. Right. So if you look at each of the companies DNA, they have a unique value prop and a unique reason why they are a certain way.
00;40;37;12 – 00;40;55;09
Trunal
It’s just like exactly like human beings. Right? Right. Glazer’s DNA is if you look at the quality of engineering, the quality of, of of product, like, you know, my background, eyelashes, background, all of these folks that we put together, we have a fantastic group of individuals. so that is what’s going to differentiate us. And that is the the value prop that we bring to the table.
00;40;55;09 – 00;41;19;13
Trunal
And that brings into the quality of the platform, the quality of integrations, the quality of customer service that we provide. And that is going to be eventually a different differentiator. I do believe, like, you know, events like companies, there’s thousands and thousands of companies out there, right? It’s it’s like differentiators can be on different angles. But at the end of the day, the quality of customer trust that you are able to earn is the only differentiator that matters.
00;41;19;16 – 00;41;36;08
Trunal
Because and that can take in different shapes. Like, you know, some people like your API, some people like your SDK, some people like your, you know, the quality of documentation as you talked about, like stuff like that. But eventually all that boils down to how much trust are you able to get with your customers, and how can you serve them for a long time?
00;41;36;15 – 00;41;46;02
Vince
And coming at it from a, an engineering pedigree, I would say in engineering DNA, and then and then solving for complex problems. Yeah.
00;41;46;02 – 00;41;46;13
Trunal
Yeah.
00;41;46;15 – 00;41;51;05
Vince
And and maybe not stitching or trying to cobble together to get there.
00;41;51;05 – 00;42;08;23
Trunal
Yeah. Exactly. And this is one of the other things that I would like to mention is like our mantra or our, DNA is always to have very high quality engineering, and, and a product that you love like this was long time ago when we, me and I were trying to, like, figure out, okay, what kind of company do we want to build?
00;42;08;29 – 00;42;19;02
Trunal
And then we actually made a list of products that we said, okay, what are the products that we absolutely love that we use on a day to day basis? Like, I love using Airbnb whenever I go out, you know, I oh.
00;42;19;02 – 00;42;20;03
Vince
It’s a fabulous I.
00;42;20;03 – 00;42;24;04
Trunal
Mean, the plastic service. Yeah, I am biased because I work there, but still I think, you know.
00;42;24;04 – 00;42;28;20
Vince
I and LinkedIn link developed into that very, true to business fashion.
00;42;28;24 – 00;42;39;13
Trunal
Yeah, yeah. But on the consumer side, like, you know, products like one password, which, you know, it’s just, I’m not sure if you use it, but it’s one of the favorite products that we’ve had. Slack is a fantastic product. It is used on a daily basis.
00;42;39;16 – 00;42;44;11
Vince
I still use teams because of Microsoft, but yes, I do use slack occasionally. Yeah.
00;42;44;13 – 00;42;57;05
Trunal
But these these products are evoking an emotion of of love and of of of of you know, really liking and absolutely loving that product existence in the world. And that is what we want to do.
00;42;57;07 – 00;43;18;01
Vince
Yeah. And, you know, you talk you reminded me. And I don’t want to digress from the conversation, but you reminded me that the three hyperscalers all came about it from a different pedigree. Microsoft came from the on premise software world. Absolutely. AWS came at it from being a retailer and having you swipe a credit card to get access to their data centers, and then Google from search.
00;43;18;03 – 00;43;23;21
Vince
and they’ve, it’s funny because they’re now in a common, arena that they’re playing in right now.
00;43;23;21 – 00;43;41;18
Trunal
Exactly. And this ties back to the, the DNA conversation. Like if you look at these three behemoth and super successful companies, but still they each have a different DNA. And that when you look at the, the way they are, they are approaching the problem of ecosystem as you talk about is slightly different.
00;43;41;21 – 00;44;11;03
Vince
Slightly different. Yeah. And and you can see it. Right. Because Microsoft is, is solving for the enterprise in many respects. They think enterprise first even though they play down market. Google is coming at it from data and AI because that’s where search led them. And AWS is coming at it from the customer, because the customer, you know, the customer obsession piece, the Jeff Bezos principles, and then also the marketplace, their learnings in marketplace are astounding, right?
00;44;11;03 – 00;44;26;07
Vince
I mean, they’ve got the most successful marketplace in the in the hemisphere in the world. so yeah, you can see that. You can see how they’re how they and their lineage has gotten them there. Absolutely. And and it’s also where their benefits are, like on their on the other side, when you’re sitting there is one of the ISV is trying to figure out where do I partner.
00;44;26;07 – 00;44;26;18
Vince
Yeah.
00;44;26;19 – 00;44;26;26
Trunal
Yeah.
00;44;26;26 – 00;44;28;03
Vince
Because that’s essentially where you go.
00;44;28;03 – 00;44;44;15
Trunal
And then what I’m excited to see is as the time goes along, like, because this is such a wide and huge space that we are playing with, how do these, these, three huge organizations help shape the future of where this is going? It’s going to be fascinating.
00;44;44;15 – 00;45;00;24
Vince
To watch from, from an engineering perspective and from Closer’s perspective. How do you have to watch there? Like we talked about the three models, but how do you have to think about the Hyperscaler model changing? Like how do you have to adjust or pivot your business? Pivot is always a big important factor for me in terms of business transformation.
00;45;00;24 – 00;45;19;02
Trunal
Yeah. So the way I look at it is, you know, this this like, you know, whenever we start any business, the first rule of thumb is try to go to a market that is massive. And we know that, you know, if the three hyperscalers are in this market, this this is going to be a huge market. Also, these three hyperscalers are all growing all the time.
00;45;19;02 – 00;45;43;28
Trunal
And they’re I wouldn’t say they’re converging. they’re evolving in their own ways. Yes. What that does is that gives an opportunity for a company like Lazaar to come in and simplify the cross. Hyperscaler. it’s just basically like the multi-cloud strategy that we talk about in the cloud infrastructure world. But this is for the GDM side of the house where you have to make sure, all right, my customers are across all of the three hyperscalers.
00;45;43;28 – 00;45;50;22
Trunal
And perhaps maybe there’s a fourth, you know, marketplace up and coming, and maybe even like we have some customers there.
00;45;50;25 – 00;45;54;27
Vince
What do you think the fourth is, is is it Oracle. Is it where do you where do you see I think.
00;45;55;01 – 00;46;20;24
Trunal
Oracle might be the, the fourth one. I’ve, I have heard some, you know, developments that they are, they’re working on, but, you know, nothing nothing official from the message. But that might be the that might be the other one. There might also be the local ones, like, you know, the regional ones. they are, you know, in the region like APAC market or the Asia market or the Mena market, like they might be local ones out there who might just replicate the model that we’ve seen.
00;46;20;27 – 00;46;31;23
Trunal
It could potentially be the hyperscalers replicating the model already or some of the local ones as well. but that’s that’s kind of what, what I anticipate seeing. Yeah.
00;46;31;26 – 00;46;47;03
Vince
Fascinating conversation. We could be here all day right now discussing this in greater depth. But as you know, I’d like to pivot. I, I’m fascinated with the personal career journey. We talked a little bit about it. Yeah. I noticed you spent some time at Arizona State University.
00;46;47;03 – 00;46;47;28
Trunal
I did.
00;46;48;00 – 00;47;04;22
Vince
I did an executive program. I wasn’t there for two years like you were, but I did an executive program there. So, kind of the heat that we have here in South Florida this time of year, you I’m sure you became accustomed to it, but I’d love to talk about, I, I use this analogy of the dinner party.
00;47;04;24 – 00;47;26;24
Vince
this my favorite question to ask each of my guests. And so tonight, you are hosting a dinner party, and you could host this dinner party anywhere in the world. I’d be fascinated to hear about that as well. And you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this dinner party. I have even had a guest or two said, somebody in the future that they wanted to invite to their dinner party.
00;47;26;27 – 00;47;31;07
Vince
Whom would you invite to this incredible dinner party and why?
00;47;31;10 – 00;47;46;11
Trunal
Okay. All right. So let’s first talk about where I would love to host it. So I grew up in India and grew up in the town of Mumbai or Bombay as excuse to call it the I love the city. I go there, you know, quite often my parents are still there. you know, lots of friends still.
00;47;46;11 – 00;48;07;12
Trunal
So I my entire, like, early life, family is is all there now. We live in California, so it’s a it’s a little bit hard, but we still love to visit. Yes. So I would host the party in that city. That’s one very nice. And then I would invite, invite the following people. First I would invite, Lewis Hamilton, you know, you know, that is.
00;48;07;12 – 00;48;08;26
Vince
I don’t who is Lewis Hamilton.
00;48;08;26 – 00;48;11;27
Trunal
So I’m a huge fan of, F1 races.
00;48;11;27 – 00;48;12;12
Vince
Okay.
00;48;12;16 – 00;48;23;02
Trunal
And I’ve watched, growing up, you know, I was always watched all of these races and, like, you know, Michael Schumacher, all of these names I was familiar with. But the recent name that you might want to look him up like he’s.
00;48;23;02 – 00;48;27;28
Vince
I’m going to I went last year to the one in Miami, so. Oh did you. Oh I see he was probably racing right.
00;48;28;04 – 00;48;47;23
Trunal
Yes. Yes. Yeah. He’s around. so he’s like a seven time world champion of, of of, of F1 races. But that’s not the reason why I want to I want to have time with him. Like I watch his videos. I’m a huge fan of him. And I think that is like, you know, when people become successful, like, I do believe that they have to have a purpose.
00;48;47;23 – 00;49;16;00
Trunal
And I feel like he’s the way he is going about his thing. Like, you know, seven time world champion has hasn’t happened before, probably will not happen again. but that’s not what he talks about when you, you know, watch his content online. What he talks about is a lot about, okay, what am I doing that I’ve gotten to this place to affect a change in the world, because if I don’t use my whatever resources that I have now to do that, then it’s not useful, right?
00;49;16;06 – 00;49;19;05
Trunal
That’s a fascinating thought to have. So I would love to spend some time with you.
00;49;19;05 – 00;49;26;10
Vince
It’s fascinating that a Formula One racer would think about it. Yeah, I mean, that in itself. I wouldn’t be thinking that. They would think that that aforethought.
00;49;26;11 – 00;49;33;09
Trunal
Exactly, exactly. So that’s one person. And the other person that I would love to invite is, Kobe, Kobe Bryant. Very low. Yes.
00;49;33;09 – 00;49;38;16
Vince
Yes. tragic. My my son was a huge is was a huge go is still a huge Kobe.
00;49;38;16 – 00;50;00;20
Trunal
So I know yeah it’s it’s it’s it’s such a tragic but like I’m just fascinated by the personality. And the reason why I’m fascinated by it is, is because there’s like I follow this principle of, of really investing a lot of time in the process and not worry about the outcome, because the process itself is is the journey itself is the destination is it’s not the destination itself.
00;50;00;20 – 00;50;18;03
Trunal
And I feel like you know, Kobe was the it was the epitome of that. Like, you know, he was all about the process whether you win or lose. Like it’s the same process that you follow and being able to extract like the joy out of it. And it’s really hard, Vince, because we are human beings, we have emotions like when you when your high, when you lose your low.
00;50;18;03 – 00;50;30;00
Trunal
Right. But how do you maintain that like a singular or or same emotional quotient all along the way is a very hard thing. So I would love to, you know, pick his brains if I could, on that one.
00;50;30;06 – 00;50;32;18
Vince
Fascinating. You still have one more person, though.
00;50;32;21 – 00;50;42;23
Trunal
One more person. All right. let’s do, let’s do, Novak, Novak Djokovic, the tennis.
00;50;42;24 – 00;50;46;26
Vince
Yeah, yeah, very, very interesting group here. Yeah. This. Yeah, yeah.
00;50;46;28 – 00;51;07;00
Trunal
No, the. And then the reasoning for that is I feel like he wasn’t the first one or he wasn’t the, the, the the most like like Federer who’s like, you know. Yeah. Apparently gifted. I think he’s done everything in his life because he worked extremely hard towards it. And he’s been focused and disciplined. And like if you look at his diet like it’s, you know, it’s it’s it’s he’s incredible.
00;51;07;00 – 00;51;09;03
Vince
He’s he’s an incredible incredible athlete.
00;51;09;03 – 00;51;15;08
Trunal
And so that level of discipline I would love to have that in me if I could and so know I would love to think has been.
00;51;15;10 – 00;51;23;17
Vince
Yeah. And the mindset to, tennis is such a hard sport both mentally and physically. Yeah. People people discount it. I mean, these are incredible athletes.
00;51;23;17 – 00;51;24;13
Trunal
Incredible athletes.
00;51;24;20 – 00;51;28;23
Vince
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, we have we have a tennis pedigree in our family.
00;51;28;23 – 00;51;29;23
Trunal
So I love.
00;51;29;23 – 00;51;32;22
Vince
Watch I love watching him and all the other amazing tennis players.
00;51;32;22 – 00;51;33;18
Trunal
And,
00;51;33;20 – 00;51;58;02
Vince
So, we are. I can’t believe this. We are at the midpoint of 2024. Like what happened? Like, I was just wishing you Happy New Year. I just felt like last week, for all of our viewers and listeners out there, we’re we’re going through this journey. I was hoping you could help us and help them. What do we need to be thinking about for the second half of the year?
00;51;58;03 – 00;52;13;23
Vince
Where should I be leaning in if I’m a partner or if I’m a technologist in this space? And where can I optimize for success going into the second? We don’t have a crystal ball in terms of where the economy we have, we have elections going on. I mean, it’s it’s an interesting time right now in our lives and our journey.
00;52;13;25 – 00;52;19;05
Vince
But what would you say to our listeners and viewers about how they can optimize for success for the rest of this year?
00;52;19;12 – 00;52;38;26
Trunal
Yeah. And, what I would say events is being aware of, of what’s happening in the industry is like, that’s one of the biggest moments for startups, founders like myself. you could be like a, you know, early one, like seed pre-seed or, you know, on a hyperscale journey like us or maybe a little bit more mature on CDC.
00;52;38;26 – 00;52;59;11
Trunal
CDC. Yeah. But along the entire spectrum, the one thing that you have to figure out is, okay, how is the world changing around you? And then go and react to it in a way that you are still in time. Ideally, you don’t want to be reactive. You want to be proactive where you anticipate the change and then align towards that change and be ahead of the curve.
00;52;59;14 – 00;53;23;26
Trunal
Many times it is possible. Sometimes it is not, but in the case at least, like I don’t, I don’t like, you know, worry about missing a train or missing a boat, like stuff like that. There’s always time, as long as you are cognizant of your surroundings. So that that’s what I would say. What I’m seeing out there in the market is this entire, like, marketplaces plus course, a motion is picking up really, really well and it’s only going to accelerate from here.
00;53;23;29 – 00;53;44;08
Trunal
So if you do not have a strategy around it, or at least if you’ve not like, done some research, there’s plenty of content out there. We put out good, good content on our on our website, on our LinkedIn as well. So feel, you know, viewers can feel free to consume it. but that’s what I would say. Like if you are if you’re not, if you make a conscious choice to not invest, that’s that’s I would say that’s step one of it.
00;53;44;11 – 00;53;47;03
Trunal
But not knowing about this is not an option anymore.
00;53;47;03 – 00;53;56;29
Vince
Yeah, yeah. Be cognizant research. I would say lean in in a big way. I think organizations that lean in the most opportunity for success right now.
00;53;56;29 – 00;54;04;14
Trunal
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We didn’t really get into the whole deep, you know, causal and what the mechanics of, like, you would be here for 2 to 4 hours.
00;54;04;16 – 00;54;17;15
Vince
Well, I love that. We’re going to have to have you back so that this year we’re going to give you a reason to. Or I’ll have to come out to San Francisco. Yes, and we’ll do. We’ll do it on. You know, it’s gets hot here in Florida this time of year. So I’d be happy to come to San Francisco this later this summer.
00;54;17;15 – 00;54;35;07
Vince
So, now you’ve been a fascinating guest. You’ve been an incredible guest. I’ve been so excited to have you come join us. And we’ve been anticipating doing this for quite some time now. So true. Now, I want to thank you again for your time, for making the trip out here to Florida and to being here for our listeners and viewers on The Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
00;54;35;10 – 00;54;35;22
Vince
Thank you.
00;54;35;25 – 00;54;43;28
Trunal
Vince. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a beautiful part of the country. you know, I’m looking forward to spending some time here today. And then I looking forward to hosting you in San Francisco.
00;54;43;28 – 00;55;06;01
Vince
I love that. Thanks for listening to this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Hopefully this episode and all the episodes we’ve recorded are helping you better align your partner’s strategy to achieve your greatest results. So I want to ask you something. Have you implemented everything you’ve been learning, and are you now achieving the growth and revenue objectives that you hope to achieve?
00;55;06;03 – 00;55;38;02
Vince
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