How to Become an AWS Partner

Ready to become an AWS Partner? Explore APN tiers, requirements, and co-selling benefits. Scale your sales by leveraging cloud partnerships. Leverage FREE access to my Mastering Cloud Partnerships & Co-Sell Online course (link below).

UPDATE: ⭐️Free Course Offer to the Medium Community⭐️: Mastering Cloud Partnerships & Co-Sell

Due to the high demand on learning how to partner with AWS, I have shared my FULL Cloud Partnership Playbook over a comprehensive course. I want to share with the Medium community a free access to the course.

In today’s cloud-focused ecosystem, many companies seek to partner with cloud hyperscalers like AWS in order to access AWS Partner benefits and scale their business. AWS Partner benefits can include technical support as well as marketing and sell support, that can impact companies revenue. In my Medium blog, I walk you through my experience as a former VP of Business Development at a SaaS company. The focal point of our business was our strategic AWS Partnership, which remarkably contributed to 50% of the company’s revenue. Which later on influenced the company acquisition by Cisco in a $500M acquisition. I detail how this partnership played a crucial role in reshaping the course of our SaaS journey. Building a successful Cloud Partnership with AWS is not a walk in the park, and include strategic planning. In order to start your AWS Partner journey, you first need to follow these steps.

Five steps in order to become an AWS Partner and start your Partner journey

1. Register to the AWS Partner Network and log in to the AWS Partner Portal. In this stage you will be asked to provide information an an online form about your business.
2. Enroll in the relevant Partner category (or as called by AWS “Partner Path”) that most relevant to your company. See below the 5 AWS Partner Paths.
3. Comply with your chosen AWS Partner Network (APN) Partner Path requirements. For each Partner Path there are different requirements.
4. Apply to relevant AWS Partner Programs that will help you differentiate your business and to build, market and sell with AWS.
5. Create your Partner Business Plan. Plan your AWS Partnership strategy in order to scale your business. identify and track specific objectives relating to APN membership. The business plan is reviewed/updated on an annual basis. You should work with your Partner Development contact on this .Checking the above boxes is a good start, but it wouldn’t help you much just to be part of a program, without creating a strategy and execution plan on how to leverage these programs to impact your revenue. Here is a Partner Plan template that has everything that your AWS Partner Business Plan should include:

Example of a Partner Business Plan

How long does it take to execute the Joint GTM Partnership plan? in this blog post layout the average timelines to build strategic partnerships with Cloud Service Providers and achieve co-sell success at scale.

Is a Cloud Partnership the right move for your business — take the ⭐️𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 ⭐️ to find out!

Over my time at Microsoft and now AWS, I’ve refined the 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿, a recommendation engine — designed to analyze responses and generate a 𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻. By completing it, you’ll receive:
✔️ A tailored analysis
✔️ Personalized recommendations
✔️ A suggested action plan

I’m making this available 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 to the cloud community. 𝗣𝗹𝘂𝘀, 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵, 𝗜 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗳𝗲𝘄 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 for those who need extra guidance (spots are limited!).

AWS Partner Categories (“Partner Paths”)

1. Software Path: for SaaS companies that develop software that runs on or is integrated with AWS.
2. Hardware Path: for companies that develop hardware that work with AWS.
3. Services Path: for companies that provide consulting, professional, managed, and value-added resale (VAR) services.
4. Training Path: for companies that provide AWS training.
5. Distribution Path: for companies that resell and develop AWS solutions.

AWS Partner Paths

Each Partner Path has its own set of requirements and benefits. In this post, I will focus on the most common Partner Paths that are pursued by companies: Software Path and Services Path.

Updated APN tiers’ requirements — Software Path — Partner Requirements (relevant to SaaS companies)

Once you enroll in the Software Path, you will be required to review your architecture and make sure that it complies with AWS best practices and public standards. If you comply, the next step is to request an AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) (Go to Partner Central > Offerings > Edit > Select ‘Yes’ > Next > Complete all required fields for the listing). Once you successfully complete the FTR, you will have access to Partners benfits and programs.

Updated APN tiers’ requirements — Services Path — Partner Requirements

As mentioned above, the Services Path is relevant for companies that provide consulting, professional, managed, and value-added resale (VAR) services.

Under the Services category, there are 3 Partner tiers (from lowest to highest tier): Select, Advanced, and Premier. As you progress in the tiers, there will be more requirement, but it the same time — you could access more Partner benefits.

Here are the Partner Requirements for Service Path Partners:

1. Annual APN Program fee — an annual fee of $2,500 shall be paid to AWS (usually will be fully returned in a form of AWS Credits)

2. “Knowledge”: obtain AWS Technical Certifications. The amount of certifications differ between the different Partner tiers, see in the table below the exact requirements based on the tiers.

The knowledge requirement for each tier

3. Experience: under this requirement, you would need to obtain the following:

• Launched opportunities — all partner tiers are required to have a certain amount of “launched opportunities” (see the the table below for the exact numbers). What are “Launched opportunities”? These are opportunities that your company’s closed-won. Please note that once you submit an opportunity, the opportunity’s status is “submitted” and NOT launched.
• Partner Business Plan — this is a requirement for Advanced and Premier Tiers. The Partner Business Plan is essentially a template you should fill where you describe your AWS Partnership strategy plan.
• Executive Business Review — very straight forward, this an executive meeting once you achieve the Premier Tier.
• AWS Competency, AWS MSP, or AWS Well Architected — here the requirement is to enroll to one of the AWS “differentiation” programs.

4. Customer success: here you are required to provide Public customers references and Customer Satisfaction Responses for Advanced and Premier Tiers (see table below). A public reference can be a blog post for instance (see Epsagon’s public customer reference).

I’m an AWS Partner — now what? Access AWS Partner Benefits!

Enroll in Differentiation Program

Now, that you are an AWS Partner, you can have access to more advanced differentiation programs that can help you scale your business, like: AWS Competencies, MSP Program, and more. These programs main value is to improve your market credibility and extend your co-marketing benefits provided by AWS. Go over the AWS Partner programs to identify the differentiation programs that are most relevant to your business.

Enroll in Co-Sell Programs and Start Selling with AWS

As an AWS Partner, you can start working on you Co-Sell strategy, and enroll in Co-Sell Partner Programs, that will help you to sell with the help of AWS. The two most relevant Co-Sell program you need to know are:

1. ACE Program
2. AWS ISV Accelerate

🚀 Here is a full step-by-step co-sell guide on how to enroll in ACE and ISV Accelerate.

Once you enroll in these two programs, you can start work on your Co-Sell strategy and analyze the growth of your AWS Co-Sell, leveraging the AWS Partner Analytics Dashboard. Here are 5 Co-Sell motions you can start implement with AWS.

💡As part of you Co-Sell strategy, I recommend to consider to sell your offering on the AWS Marketplace.

Create Partner Business Plan

Understand the 5 Pillars of AWS Partnership and create a strategic plan that will help you evaluate your partnership and accelerate success. You can use the template I provided above.

Access AWS Credits

Let’s talk about AWS Credits. There are various of funding programs that are available for AWS Partners, that provide either cash or AWS credits that AWS Partners can use for technical, marketing or sell purposes. For example:

1. Acceleartion credit, to start build on AWS.
2. Innovation sandbox, for solution development.
3. Market Development Funds (MDF) for joint go-to-market activities.
4. Partner Opportunity Acceleration (POA) to support customer proofs-of-concept.

Make sure you are leveraging these funding benefits!

AWS Partnership Timelines

What to expect in each of the Partnership phases? How long does it take to see actual value? For a deep dive into the realistic timelines of AWS partnership progress check out this post. Check out this blog post where I explore common partners pitfalls to avoid and provide a 3-Year Partnership Blueprint.

Essential KPIs for Cloud Partnership Success

As you navigate your journey as an AWS Partner, it’s essential to track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure long-term success. These metrics will help you measure the effectiveness of your partnership, ensuring both progress and revenue impact are on track.

Essential KPIs fall into three main categories: co-develop, co-market, and co-sell. For example, monitoring the number of joint product integrations and enrollments in differentiation programs can gauge the depth of your collaboration. Tracking joint marketing activities and lead generation highlights your market reach, while engagement with CSP sellers and deal support metrics reflect your sales strategy’s success. For a detailed breakdown of these KPIs and how to implement them effectively, refer to my comprehensive blog post on 13 Partnership Metrics You Must Track When You Partner with Cloud Service Providers. This guide will equip you with the knowledge to optimize your cloud partnerships and drive business growth.

To further support your cloud partnership journey, I provide the Medium community with free access to my Cloud Co-Sell Playbook, presented in a comprehensive course. This playbook offers in-depth strategies and actionable insights to help you master cloud partnerships and co-selling, ensuring you make the most out of your collaboration with major cloud providers. Don’t miss out on this valuable resource — click here for free access to the course and elevate your cloud partnership strategy today.

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