AWS Garage ScaleUp Partner Series Episode 1: Driving Sustained Revenue Growth

Guest post by Jonno Southam, Startup Business Development, AWS 

One of the things I love about working at AWS is the opportunity to work with the some of the most inspiring leaders, both internally from Amazon but also through our AWS customer base. The sheer volume of collective knowledge on how to build and scale a startup and the lessons learned –both good and bad– as well as the willingness to share those insights to help future startup founders and leaders succeed is inspiring.  I believe that AWS has a responsibility to help future startup leaders by capturing the knowledge from our willing customers (and partners) and using it to develop inspiring high quality business thought leadership content.

I was curious to understand how startups get their business knowledge today, so I conducted a survey to find out. I asked 40 founders across Europe at all funding stages how they attained their knowledge on how to start, scale, and grow their businesses.  Interestingly, blogs and industry events came out on top, followed by mentorship in 3rd.

Whether you are surprised or not on these results,  its clear that startup leaders look to content created by inspiring leaders through wide-reaching channels such as blogs, narrower channels like industry events (now predominantly online), and private interactions with mentors who are able to help the startup deliver a specific outcome.  When mentors are not available, startups tend to turn to business coaches who offer their experience and time (usually at a cost) to deliver results in their specific area of expertise.  These coaches often come in the form of small consultancies, founded by ex-executives or ex-founders who have built a repeatable consultation model by leveraging their corporate career experiences.

Introducing the AWS Garage ScaleUp Partner Series

In my AWS Garage ScaleUp Partner series, I have invited the most prominent scale coaches to pitch their industry leading thought leadership content to AWS customers to help provide those customers with insights in their areas of expertise.  These include topics such as growth strategies, branding, culture, and understanding startup KPIs (key performance indicators) amongst others that we will explore throughout 2021.

In the first of six webinar recordings, Jonathon Bates, Founder of the revenue growth specialist group Thomond argues that businesses that have the most effective sales and marketing strategies outperform their industry peers and drive hyper growth. In this session, you will learn best practices around how to build an optimizable sales and marketing machine that drives a predictable pipeline of scalable revenue. In addition to best practices, you’ll hear real life case studies from what works and what mistakes to avoid.  Bates is also joined by Stu Conroy, founder of Activ8, which provides data-led operational solutions for clients to combine agility and scale utilizing technology and outsourcing solutions. Having won a place on the UK’s Sunday Times Fast Track 100, Conroy has experienced the challenges with delivering and maintaining hyper growth first-hand. Listen to this chat to hear Stuart’s advice, experiences, and anecdotes from over 20 years of being at the forefront of helping businesses exceed their growth goals.

Enjoy the series, and if you are interested in getting in touch with Jonathon or Stu, contact jonathon@thomond.co.uk or stu.conroy@a8uk.com.