Inside the World of an AWS Partner Solution Architect: Career, Partnerships & Scaling with Marketplace

Host: Hello, everyone. I'm Sujay Maheshwari. I'm the host for ScaleToZero - The business edition. We also have a security edition. And today, I have with me a dear friend of mine, Lalit Khattar, who is based out of Gurgaon, and he works at AWS, Amazon Web Services. Lalit is a partner solution architect at AWS and I know for a fact I was looking at his LinkedIn and he's very recently completed five years at AWS, and that's a big deal because now he has an orange badge. I think you guys start with a blue and then an orange, and at 10 years you get a red badge. So it's an accomplishment. Congratulations, Lalit and welcome to ScaletoZero the business edition.

I want to also tell the audience that this is completely unscripted. A meeting invite was sent to Lalit, and we forcefully made him agree to coming to this show and give his valuable time. I don't think he has any idea largely what we are going to talk about. So expect a very candid conversation.

So again, Lalit very, very excited and I love the fact that we are wearing very similar kind of clothing, similar brand, so you got the memo, so did I, and we both followed it to the T.

I want to start with this. As you know, ScaleToZero, we talk about security a lot. So, Puru, who is my co-founder, he talks about the technical part of security, and today we are going to talk about a lot of the business, GTM, channel partnership.

I want to start with this with very, very basic question. What is partner solution architect? Like what do you do or what do you have been doing for the past five years? What does your day look like? Like something, something which encompasses this now.

Lalit: Sure. First of all, thanks, Sujoy. I'm really feeling excited to talk about some of the topics which are very close to my heart. And I'm very, very passionate about the role which I'm playing. I got a lot of opportunities to kind of play different hats, not just from as a technical architect perspective and helping partners to kind of take their technical muscle from one level to another.

But it is a very broader role, I would say, when it comes to have a partner solution architect helping partners.

Now, going back to your question on the kind of, definition, what is that role and what you end up doing a lot of things, which is outside of your role. So if you go by definition, it's a my charter is to basically help SI and I'm also helping some of the ISV partners to build their technical competencies. When I say technical competencies, I'm talking about technical practices with a lot of groundwork, which is required for the skills which is required from the partner technical team and specific solutions which is required to build jointly with us, right?

But broadly, this is one part of...

Host: So this is likely, you can say not a day job, but this is like 30, 40, 50 % of what you do sort of thing.

Lalit: And I'm, I'm referring to more of a 30, 40,000.

Host: We will keep going deeper and deeper. I want to define certain things for folks who don't know AWS as much. When you say SI, you are talking about system integrators and ISV, largely the product companies. I think there are two large categories of partners. An SI services company is concerned, companies which don't build product.

And then the companies which are more not services but more product like is that something.

Lalit: So broadly, you look at SI slash GSI is one category. So SI is the system indicators who are not very large. GSI, which are very large in nature. And they have a global presence, typically. Not that SI don't have it. They also have growing. Some of the partners has now a kind global setup now. And we call them maybe a large SIs.

Then ISV, as you mentioned, who are building joint solutions with us. And there's another category which we normally use very often, like BCAP partners, which is business consulting and advisory partners, where we have large consulting partners.

And there's one other term which we use very often, which is the distributors. And most of ISU work through distributors if they're not managed. So that's a big problem.

Host: That is correct. So let's, okay. So we understand now a little bit of partner solution architect, PSA, you I think that that's acronym it goes. We'll come back to this. We'll go double click like, but let's go back. You started your career as a software engineer. You are a technical person. Even today you write code. I am aware of that.

A little bit of How did you land with AWS? But why PSA? How did this all materialize? Because while this role is technical, you are not writing code for amazon.com or AWS services, right? You have a different charter, like a little bit of that journey that will least help me and the audience to understand why are you so passionate about this, how this is all came about.

Lalit: Sure. So for that, I'll just go back. When I started my career, maybe that will help understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing and why I'm passionate about. So I started my career back in 99, 2000. So you can say I'm 25 years experience, multiple GSIs.

Which means that I understand this whole ecosystem very well. I've been working with AWS when I was working with some of the previous roles.

Host: So, from the other side, you were on the other side of the table.

Lalit: I was on the other side. And that's how my passion about AWS to be more specific started. And I'm talking about back in… I think it is 2011 if I'm not wrong.

Host: It's been a while, pretty cool. So well, we started working in, I think, 2010 sometime when I was with one of my previous organization. one of the top FMG customers, I was helping them to get onboarded.

The Cloud and AWS.

Lalit: So my charter was more of a solution building and cloud becomes very natural choice to building as part of the overall solutions building approach. And the part of my journey was to help with the consulting partners because typically the large brands, like I mentioned, FMG were the top FMG customer we had.

They work with very strategic approach where they have the large B caps helping them building their digital transformation journeys and building marketing platforms. That was my charter was the first step. Right. Before they start their branding. then, know, if you talk about, let's say, large insurance company, which again have again big brands,

They have a marketing, they started the marketing platforms and then integrate this, you know, sales and service platforms. And if you look at end customer journey, it is very similar.

So if let's say if the large insurance organization have to onboard a customer, that customer journey will start from marketing, right? They go and they come to their website, they understand the products.

They ask few questions and most importantly, kind of build a trust. That is the first starting point for any end customers to transact.

Host: Build the trust, make the buying process easy, have the transparency in place, like, hey, what does it take for me to buy anything? Absolutely.

Lalit: And this whole, some of the areas which you just mentioned is come under our customer experience. And that's what we used to call as a customer experience platforms, which I was built on top of AWS. And that's how my journey started. And I was very fortunate to work with some of the top AWS assays across the world. think India, were still picking up. So the global brand, I worked with.

Host: So you got, you saw maybe when AWS still had maybe less than 10 services, this started with four services. they had 10, 20 handfuls of services. You could remember, you could remember that, okay, these are the services, right? And at that time, you are absolutely right. You got access to the actual product team, solution architect teams, maybe sitting out of Seattle or somewhere else, probably US largely. Beautiful time. Okay, so.

Lalit: So yeah, I think most of our solution which we are building was on top of EC2. Let's keep it that way. I think no RD, there's no Aurora out of the world. And of course, solutions we built that needs some compute. that's how the whole journey started. For those customers as well, because even that time cloud was picking up.

Host: Storage S3 was always there of course.

Lalit: I think customer understand this, this is the future and they want to start. And that's how we help some of the customers to basically start their cloud journey with actual real business outcome solutions, which is helping their end customer. I said, we build marketing sites, including the marketing automation tools to engage with the customers they approach the customers to come on board it.

Host: Lalit, at that time when you were doing this, and I'm sure you did this for some time, did it cross your mind that I should work for AWS or I'll end up working for AWS? You were just enjoying the technology piece.

I was in technology. One thing which I loved about AWS was the kind of documentation they were preparing that time. And that's the only way I measure the technical maturity of the products. That's how I take that, right?

Unless you don't have a good documentation which tells the story about your product, without any filters, right? With all the limitations and the strengths which the AWS was building at that time. I was very, very…

So I think, as I mentioned, for customers, as an end customer, you have to go and earn trust, right? Before the transition starts. Similarly for us, if you have to… transaction with AWS, know, the trust was very important. And for me as a technical architect for that solution, people talking on the phone and telling about great things about product is one way to look at it.

But actually on hands on and with minimum support, right? From anybody which can give me through the documentation. like keeping that. I think the nation plays a very, very critical role in that.

That's the reason you see that right now, the best of the voice bot and chat bots now with natural language, helping customers and customers to understand their product very well. And if you don't have that documentation, which is we're talking about data here, you will not have that conversation, even though you're using best of the best, know, generally, tools on top of that. This is going to be the conversation.

And this is.. this is happening right now as well, right? Unless you have the real content, the data, structured data, which is high quality, you will not have that impact if you don't have it.

Host: No GenAI can help you here because ultimately it is the input which matters to any of the output that has come.

Lalit: And that's what we saw back in 2022 or 2023 when the whole GenAI wave started. And we're very excited. Hey, I want to start. And they started with POC. But they're stuck because they don't have the data to actually make it more meaningful for them.

Host: Very interesting. And I think you definitely are highlighting and it's resonating with me as a technical guy that if the products which have been the bottom-up product as we call them, right? Is this you can earn that trust and trust is not just about whether the service works, but can I use the service? If it's service goes down, can I figure it out how to fix it? Right? That that is all about, have you empowered me? As an individual, as a technical person, have you empowered me?

And if that happens, you you have got my trust, I can figure things out, right? As an engineer, as a technical person, that is very...

Lalit: And going back to that's one part. So documentation, services, portfolio, and the maturity of some of the services. I think that's one part of the puzzle.

Second part of that puzzle is as a solution architect, and I'm not saying I'm an AWS solution architect at that time. I was more of a platform solution architect. How I'm building that solution for the customers with the with the kind of limitation these services may have to get the real business outcomes. How do I go and overcome with that? Is that a real solution architect role? would say, know, if everything, you know, the solution does by itself, there's no solution architecture requirement.

So be that performance, be that security, be that cost.

Host: availability so many absolutely 100 %

Lalit: So you look at all other areas which require to build end-to-end solution. And that is how it actually, I was very impressed when I started working on this building the solution with the kind of legos I have, let's use EC2 with S3 and then EVAs. And we were having struggling in terms of deploying SQL Server cluster.

I'm talking about back in 2010, 2011, and figuring out how EBS can support this partnership and things like that. When it to Windows Clustering, nobody had done that at that time. We started with that and we shared lot of feedback to AWS.

Host: And then I'm sure you got attached to AWS as a cloud platform, right? And you kept working, building your knowledge relationship, right? How did it happen when maybe an opportunity came to you that, hey, there is this role or you came to know about that there's something called as partner team. Tell us a little bit about that. Before you talk about your PSA journey, what you do, I want to like...

How does somebody like you who is so into the weeds of building solutions comes to know and get sold on the partners? There is something called as PSA. Let's do this. And you're like, yeah, this makes sense. That is important.

Lalit: So I'll fast forward to answer your question. Just to complete the story, we have good, I think this is one of the top, at that time, it's a great success story for AWS and for my organization and for the customers. we have this platform group, it's more of a global platform. It's still running.

And we have still, I keep interacting with that team often because.: 

Host: left a part of you there.

Lalit: first love with that platform when I started building it and it's still 200 team members across the globe managing. So now going back to the my role when so when I got to know about this opportunity I looked at at a very very high level to be very honest and I looked at as a partner social architect. It kind of resonated with the role which I playing and when I was working with AWS and how the, you that time there was no PSA, by the way, but I can still, I can resonate that, why this role is very, important, right?

Because for SA, AWS, it's more focused on the solutions, what, you know, they have built and for the technical architects, it's basically their role is to basically figure out how this translates into business.

For AWS, it's the kind of solution we have built. These are building blocks. This is the platform. Please go and build it. And these are some of these areas which you like. I think I don't remember if was a well-architected framework at that time, but there were some best practices that they have shared with us.

Now, if I look at right now, I see that there was a kind of a gap between a customer to understand and… you know, these, the product which has been built by SA's to understand, you know, customer needs and kind of how that translate into the solution. Once they go and figure it out. that's the role of PSA now is basically is to kind of, you know, bridge that gap is they understand customer requirements. They understand AWS strength and then does, and then kind of marry them together and maybe, you know, building a joint solution.

That is where this joint solution building exercise comes, which means that in my role now, this partner is basically taking the joint responsibility to understand what partner want to build.

Host: So let's continue on this thread now. Let's go one layer deep, right? Let's say, and maybe this answer, if I were to treat you as a foundational model, which you are in many ways, if I were to write a prompt for you right now, I would say that Lalit act like you are an advisor sort of thing. And you are talking to a partner, an SI partner, because you have been on the SI side and now of course you are a PSA.

It's a new partner and it's an established company. So we are not talking a SI company, a services company, which is like two people team. are talking about they have been around for four or five years. They know AWS a little bit. Of course, they have built a lot of solutions on top of AWS, but they are not partners with AWS because the question for them is why should I partner with AWS?

Why does it make sense? How does it help me? But now they are thinking about working with AWS. So how would an SI company start to work with you particularly? Like what role a PSA plays for an SI company who are just getting started, who are leaned in, but they are confused.

They don't know how to navigate the system, right? How would you work with them day to day? And most importantly, what questions they should ask you, what should be their ask?

Because they can't come and tell you that, Lali tell us what to build next. That's not how it works, as I understand. How can they be successful? Like, something around that if you can help. And this is a shout out for any net new partner. If you want to know how to work with Lalit/ PSA team. How would that happen?

Lalit: Great question, I think this is the biggest puzzle we are trying to solve and we have solved for most partners. I give you a very summarized version, like I said, there are a lot of things which we do on the ground to help partners where they're not sure what they want to build because they're not, they're new to AWS. Yeah.

Like you said, they have some expertise on some of the areas, because customer has asked them to do it. now they're looking at this. think that they're looking at this could be a good partnership with AWS to go and jointly work with them. my, for those partners, think, first thing, first for them to basically, build a very high level perspective, which most of partner already done that like what I would like to do three years, five years down the line.

Host: Okay, so start to plan three to five year journey down the line, okay?

Lalit: And don't just focus on one year to be very honest because one year just goes like you know your partnership starts and you know it ends you don't know you're still understanding different programs that we have. So my request to those partners would be look at very present perspective. So three or five years down the line what they want to do and if they don't know it's absolutely fine.

My session to them would be, so we use a mechanism called working backwards. So do a Google on.

Host: Is it a principle working backward? It is not a principle. Is it a principle?

Lalit: It's a mechanism. So if you Google it, you will find Culture of Innovation. That's a program which we use with the customers. And it's not just AWS. It's across Amazon, which is part of the overall exhibit of the Diffing console, we invite customers to come and participate to look at their customer problems, understand their customer problems, and then work backwards. So put customer in the center. Define the problem statement and then go!

So going back to your question on if partner doesn't know, absolutely fine. And that's a great problem to solve. And the question is how is my session would be using working backwards under cultural innovation. Do Google it. You will find a lot of content.

And look at what are those customers you want to focus on. Now, part of the problem is they don't know who's the customer. Which customer to start with.

Since you mentioned about the scenario where they have been two, three, two, five years, then they have certain customer base already. Look at those customers. Come up with a list of the customers. Build a profile. Take deep on some of the problems which you have addressed. Look at what is happening in those industries. They are especially focusing on some of the industries.

One thing which is going to work for sure is the, you know, how Genity by is important for those. Right. So Genity by is cutting across industries. It's not, it's not very now, um, one industry focus it's going across. And I don't call that as horizontal, by the way. Right. It used to be horizontal when we were talking about chatbots, you know, XYZ solutions or, you know, content summarization, creative content, creating marketing content and things like that, which is very, very horizontal. Now, you know, there are specific solutions.

Host: Industry focused very ingrained into that particular absolutely.

Lalit: Correct. So if they don't know which to start with, maybe you know, look at what are this Genitive AI stories, which you know, which is more relevant for those customers. And that becomes a case for us to work jointly with them, Right.

Which is this similar approach I'm hoping they are using with their set of customers, right? Right. If they go and talk to their customers, the same problem, the same puzzle they have, like what to, where to start. Which is again, backwards.

Put them into the central of the environment and think about it, ask specific questions. even in the working backwards, there's a five step set of questions which we ask partners to get those answered by their customers. invite them for this working backwards workshop.

That's one way to look at, build, where to start with the partners, like where they want all the energies to be focused on when they have to start working with us.

Host: Perfect. So let's keep working on this while we were talking about working backwards. Let's take this conversation forward now.

Let's say somebody, so who would you try to pair up from a partner side? Any particular persona you generally interact day to day? That's one question.

Second, what's a successful trait of a partner or what's a trait of a successful partner?

Like, I know you will not name names, you will be very careful in answering this question and I expect that from you. But I am trying to put you on spot a little bit. But you start to work with a partner and within few days, weeks or interactions, depending on what it is, you would know that they just can't do it.

Or you like, wow. these guys are amazing. Like they are, they have figured it out or they are on the right track. So maybe in a very political way, if I'm asking you to say dos and don'ts or what the trait of a partner who will become successful when working with AWS ecosystem. And later on, I want to go into the marketplace. will try this up on the marketplace. But before we go into the marketplace, something around that if you can help us understand.

Lalit: Yep. normally what we do, let's say if partner is showing interest in a partnership, we do similar exercise walking backwards with them, by the way. So that as a PSA, that's one of the workstream item we have to create their business based on their business plan. That's it. You know, at the PDM role, which is partner development manager role comes into that.

I work with them. So we as a part work very closely with the partners. And their charter is to basically understand the business aspects of the partners, what they want to do in the next one to three years or five years or whatever, or the vision that they have, and create a business plan.

Host: And a business plan could be simply like, hey, as an SI partner, I want to build this competency around generative AI or competency around data analytics or security, right? know, kind of thing. Something like that. Is that a granular thing or very high level?

Lalit: That's a fact. That's a fact. But that's not the right approach. And I keep telling my point. Host: Not the right approach. awesome. Okay, so what would be the right? That's amazing.

Lalit: So the first step which I keep asking, and that's why, like I said, PDM rule comes very, very important for this relationship is to basically understand partners' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, your kind of sort of analysis of the partners.

And you are saying PDM, Partner Development Manager and it is your peer function.

My function, and we work very closely. So I'll answer your question, like, who's the right persona which I should work with. But for that story to understand, this is very, important because unless there's a business plan, there's a GTM plan, the technical solutions, technical capabilities that we are going to build by working with my peer in the partner organization will not fly. That's very, important for partner to understand in terms of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, threats, to come up with a vision which they would like to build jointly with us.

Forget about they have their customers or not, but they have an intent to go and commit it to basically invest, co-invest with us to build let's say a business of X million of revenue in the next three years by focusing on these industries with these technology solutions.

Host: Solving these problems basically.

Lalit: But I saw this problem and we don't have the solution. Absolutely. That's a great Yeah, because in that case very it's for my job become very easy, I would say to be very honest as I say what says they they know what solutions typically have seen The solution which they are building Or they have it sometimes, you know, that's not the right

Host: And the reason you said my job is easy because that means that the partner is open for new ideas to go back to the drawing board or rather to go to the drawing board and think from ground up versus somebody conceived with a coming with a preconceived idea and saying that this is only what I want to do and that may not be the right tool to get to the destination. Is that something you were replying?

Lalit: See, I'm coming from a technical background. I understand partners, technical teams they have certain solutions already in mind, or they may already build it. And it's very difficult for them to.

Host: Unlearn that, let that go.

Lalit: Why is, you know, the change is required and you end up spending a lot of time into that versus, you know, you have a clean slate. And then let's get into a workshop mode and do a whiteboarding and, you know, like I said, working backwards to understand what customer needs are and what are the possible solutions which we can go and jointly.

What is the art of the possibility? You know, that's the bigger picture, which I would like to draw with my partners to build their tech.

Host: Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Lalit: So that is how my and we make a question that technical persona I work for essays to be able to the CTOs and their plus one plus two, maybe plus three in terms of the team size which which required and typically CTOs are not hands on. So I am a hands on guy. I love to write code jointly with partners.

Which means that I would need help from the CTOs to basically align some of the solution architects. And with them jointly, maybe get into a room and start with a basic solution prototyping jointly build their side based on some of the best practices.

Host: cadence whatever was okay.

Lalit: Correct. And then that results into a joint solution, which we say, OK, this makes sense. what is it? So the second part will start with the MVP. Right. So go and.

Host: I think you just read my mind maybe and you are going to see this, but now I'm trying to put myself as a business guy, which fortunately or unfortunately I do these days as a tech guy. And now I have my CTO and my team. They built something together with you. And of course the question I will ask to this team now, including you that, all right,

Is there any way we'll work with AWS or the other instruments in place in AWS or programs in place which could help us get in front of the customer? I'm not talking about closing. Closing is a very different thing, but at least that visibility. Is there any program like that or any instrument and do you play a role in that?

Lalit: So that's the second part of that puzzle where we have a solution now which customer to reach out and what are the different ways to reach out. I think typically when we have this business plan created, there's certain areas which we already identified where we think that this is the way we want to reach out to some of the customers.

But when comes to the essay, what role I can play into that, when we are building those solutions, we would have some certain kind of ready as an outcome of some of the GTMs where we have some customers showing interest is to run those workshops with the customers because that's the only way they can understand the solution deeply.

The best part of that is, and I keep saying that, and this goes back to the first conversation we had is like untrust, right? Unless end customer understand your solution with the approach or experience they want to see, it is very difficult for them to you know, kind of understand how this this whole solution will come together.

So it's a good idea to basically, and I've seen, you know, I highly recommend all my partners to run different sort of workshop with their customers, and help them understand how this tool or this solution works. And sometimes it's not just and a product but they have built.

It's also about some of the solutions and the workshop we have. this is part of the benefit as a partner. A partner gets from this relationship is to basically some of the existing workshop, which we have built. This works. How the solution works. They can reuse those workshops with their customer.

And if you have any solutions, I would recommend them to follow the same path.

Host: So let's double click on that Lalit because I want to make sure we just don't leave with a word workshop. One example or one or two examples small like which are like, wow, these are like think about it, maybe a tactical double click I'm doing, but what's a workshop you have seen that, Sujay, this is so simple, so silly, so intuitive, common sense, know, again, you will not be using these words. I can, you know.

Something which works and we all fail as either SI partners or ISV partners. We fail to build it. That last mile connectivity, right? Taking this in front of the customer and like, aha, this is what was missing.

Anything you can say that guys, just do it. This makes sense. Just build it. What would that be? That workshop.

Lalit: My suggestion to those partners would be a start with Amazon Q dev. So that's first thing I would, I recommend my partners to start if they're not using Q dev, then missing big time. And one part of the puzzle is we are our customers and some of our partners are right now using is to build the whole solution using QCLA.

So CLA is the one part where you have a, as a developer, have full control on what Q is building for me with the prompt.

Okay, let me step back. So Qdive is the software development lifecycle tool for partners and customers, development team to start using it. And, you know, it is not just a, by the way, development lifecycle where it does some processes. It's the journey started with, you know, code solutions to code reviews, to code scanning, to code deployment.

But it's now the art of the possibilities is way beyond our imagination right now with QCLA interface. Now we call that as a QIRO.

QIRO is one thing which I suggest my partners to go and start using it starting today, I would say, and think about with single prompt, can build at least, if not end-to-end solution, at least prototype, which usually take like four to six weeks.

Now with QIRO, they can get started. We call that the wipe coding, where you just give a prompt. and ask KeyRoute to basically create a solution for me, which is cloud native. And it can be easily deployed without a developer need.

So, even you or any business person, is sometimes we also, people also use term like low code, no code kind of solution. You don't have to go and build a solution by the developers. Anybody can go and build a, at least simple prototypes, not a production grade solution, of course.

Lalit: And start working and look at the imagination, some of the possibility of the solutions with some of the tools can provide. With workshops, that's more of combining the story with QIRO starting with prototype and workshops, basically take this tool to the next level to build an MVP and then productionize it.

Host: Absolutely. That's a good one.

Lalit: So I recommend my partners to go and start Amazon Q devs CLI and QIRO. If you're if, if I have to try both by the way, Okay. I, I'm using, in some of the scenarios where I want freedom, where I don't have to say, yes, I trust my Q CLI. so if you, don't know how much you use that, but people have used it, understand where I'm coming from. You give a trust to the Q-desk agent to start building the solution and build the solution to my sandbox environment with the certain network configurations which we want to do it. Open public till I go and test it and things like that. That can be done with single prompt.

Right. So you go and if you want, you don't want to set up on AWS, you can go and start set up out on your local desktop and then move it to that. So the journey is going very, very fast for developers to basically kind of building some of the solutions which were used in taking months.

Host: And a lot of skilled people and iterations and mistakes sometimes kind of thing. Wow, okay. That's a good one. That's a very good one.

Lalit: So going back to your question, think would say Kero and QCLA is much for any partner to start using it.

Host: Like you are suggesting like like it's it's it's the way forward right you know why would you not use it sort of thing right? It's a

Lalit: I think the way I look at it, coming from a developer background, I used to go and search about best practices, said, AWS documentation, in developer communities. That I don't have to do anymore.

Host: It's on plateau for you.

Lalit: or you want to say it's a more of a best practices, a productive tool to use it to know, fast track my development cycle. I highly recommend.

Host: Security guy only think in terms of hack and incidents and that. This is good. This is very good Lalit. I'm going to switch gears a little and segue into that ultimately there was a business plan with PDM and you were part of that. The goal was set the solution was identified, you guys build something together with the partner, right?

Now there's a workshop or a lab or some instrument, you know, which is, which the customers are part of, are using it. How do we scale? Like, and somewhere in my mind, which I understand of marketplace, for me, marketplace is a scale instrument, right?

There are many attributes, it's like a six blind man and elephant, can say, marketplaces. Also, you can close faster, you can build faster, like, know, like, and all that stuff. It's all good stuff is that I know for a fact that marketplace does not get you leads. I say that all the time.

It's not that you list on marketplace and now you have your TOFU top of the funnel. So that never happens.

But again, in the journey, when you are an advisor to your partners, you are holding their hand into the world of AWS, right? From a technology lens. How does marketplace fit in all of this? Because PDM could say something, you know, the other guys could say something, but you as an architect, right?

Who is cutting through all the marketing fluff and all the BS and focused on the problem and the solution, How do you put this puzzle of marketplace now with this?

Lalit: Great question again. So thank you for asking that. And this is another one more puzzle.

Host: By the way, you have not paid me to ask this question. Just... It's been very clear with the audience.

Lalit: No, but it's very, very relevant question. All of our partner, not just ISP, but it's for SI as well. Why should we and build it? Okay, this is a problem which I want to go and solve it. I've built the solution. How do I go and scale it?

Have you had think about scaling earlier while we're building? Answer is yes. But what are the options we have used for scaling this solution which can impact multiple customers?

So Marketplace is definitely a good platform for SI and ISV partners, of course, to go and publish those solutions. My recommendation to my SI partners is that look at Marketplace only if you think that this is the right platform for you.

As you mentioned, if you go and build it and you won't publish it, a customer will start coming automatically. That's not going to happen. You may get some, unless you have built very, you're trying to solve one of the biggest problems of the world.

Host: Hunger or something like, yeah, good air, quality air or something like that, yeah.

Lalit: Even though you have built a great solution, do expect people may not come and subscribe to your solution, which is very practical for the SI partners who understand and define what platform they want to use to scale.

If some of the solution, let's say, is a SaaS solution, publishing on Marketplace absolutely makes sense. don't see any reason why they should not go in publishing. The fact that the whole problem of managing the customer's onboarding journey and billing journey is taking all the heavy lifting and taking care of the micro details. There are a of things, the capabilities that we have built on using..

Host: The meter, the ease of procurement, a beautiful construct, yeah, 100%.

Lalit: And that's the reason we go back to the conversation we have, is that what is that problem you're trying to solve? If it is large SMB problems, or is it in general, SMB problem we are trying to solve? Scale is the default mechanism.

And as SAS becomes a very natural choice for them, because these SMBs are cost sensitive and they don't have those compliances, requirements per se, it comes to managing their data into a multi-customer model, We technically call it a multi-tenant model, right? So they should definitely go and publish that onto the marketplace.

For enterprises as well. think this is a this is is a good platform. Primarily if it is a self-service model. So let's say you have built in a solution which is You know somebody customer can go and use those am is right

Or if it is a solution and to a solution which CloudFormation templates, they can go and publish that or containers for that matter.

Host: business app, know, putting stitching few things together on a business app AWS all put together. Yeah.

Lalit: Correct. Which means that all those, the helping customer to reach to marketplaces has been taken care by you because you understand this is maybe a good platform for customers to basically go and subscribe. know, your heavy lifting is more on the acquiring those customers, right? Right. From the GPM perspective. And I'm talking about, you know, enterprises.

Scale is easy, right? So you.. For scale, you can run some multi-customer workshops or an event where you ask them to go and understand the solution that you have built and how they can start using it starting today if they are.

Host: When you are seeing scale you are talking about a segment in EWIS which is the scale segment.

Lalit: Correct. So that's how we look at, but in general scale, or SMB, you know, is a very common term. We know that where customer either go with very focused solution, like a package solution, I don't have technical skills, right? I just need a solution which address my business problems. I really don't care where it is hosted, managing.

As long as it's solving my business problem. I'm happy to write all that right I think that that is where you know the whole scale motion

Host: I have an accounting software could be anything. should be available. Backup is a problem. Should take backup. You know, my, have teams in multi location. It should be available over cloud or through a browser and just give me a package end-to-end service. And maybe there is an SI partner who is doing this could put it onto a marketplace and the whole procurement, billing, everything can take care of. Roughly the mental model is something what came in front of me. that a fair?

Lalit: Yeah, so one solution which is very, common across all the SMBs, and I'm talking about like two or three years back when I was working with some of these distributors, was the SMB bundles, which is a bundled solution of their website hosting, for example, with certain chatbot capabilities with one contact us form for building this here, connecting with some CRM and taking care of all the security aspects and the branding and the guidelines, quickly getting onboarded with some few clicks and their life.

So that is one solution which resonate when it comes to scale. I see some of these again, some of the Generative AI which is again very horizontal now, like chatbots of the world.

When I say chatbot, I'm not just talking about the NLP-based chatbots where you have to go and write. I'm also talking about the voicebots. Voicebots are to be voice-based. They're going to be the next scale mechanism or skills which I see that most of partners are probably going to build if they're not built already.

Host: And just to clarify, when you say build, you are really not talking about like a product build, you are talking about a solution build. You're talking about a SI partner, maybe building some code, but taking some products, stitching it together. Again, walking backwards as you saying, this is the business problem of an e-commerce customer. They would need these five things, stitch all those together host it on AWS and offer it.

Lalit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense. So let's go a little deep on the example you gave, like e-commerce. So let's say personalization, for example, right? Now we are talking about we have a Semibirdle website is there, but it's not personalized.

So how you go and embed personalization features onto those websites. So we have Amazon personalized, which is what out of the box solution for customers to start using it. And partners can kind of, you know, build that one variation of that SMB bundle with first, where they get target specific customers based on their region or profile or their historical purchases, right? So all multiple factors around that. And they're going to go and.

Host: Sorry to interrupt there, but I'm just working with you here. if this partner is stuck with using this particular service, that is where they can again work with you. They can sit down with you. They can do that whole architecture that two week or whatever one week sprint and at least get the prototype out. This is where you will unlock them, sort of re-skill them or whatever the terms we use these days.

Lalit: One thing which your partner gets a benefit from this from PSS perspective is, so we work very closely with the with the field SIs where we get a lot of customer insights.

And the example which I gave like voicebot or personalized one another use case which is coming very common is around IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) and equal, right? The top four or five solutions, which, know, especially in this, I'm talking about again, going back to the question on scale, you know, what are the scale solutions which are there, we take this input from the field, we analyze what you know, multiple customers asking, what are the common patterns.

And then we go and we know build those solutions with with partners, that's the benefit they get. So you have to uh, read tons of different, uh, material from Gartners of the world. Uh, right. Uh, they can still go and do that, right. They would like to see, what's other things that are happening.

But when it comes to quick joint solution, we, I have to kind of go and build jointly. I don't have to, you know, study and plan and then go and jointly build. Uh, I, we normally shorten that cycle that maybe six months to maybe a couple of weeks to go and sometimes we only have those solutions.

Host: You have that design pattern, have what to do, how to do it, kind of, you know.

Lalit: I'll you an which is very, very, most of our partners were very excited. So I did this AWS ambassador. I run this program in APJ.

Host: Thank you for that because that is something I absolutely want to talk about but why don't you continue the story and then we'll go into ambassador that's the segue good.

Lalit: So that is how the, you know, when we have some of these technical executives building joint solution with us, you know, running some of these programs with the customers, some of the top technical executives who are actually kind of doing a hands-on with us, evangelizing, you know, the solution with the customers, we onboard them as an ambassador. And it's only for partners.

And the benefit of that is, now we have a certain set of focus partners with commitment and solutions jointly they have built. Now we have to take them to the next level. Where we can enhance some of the solutions which is maybe not be right now industry-specific. Like I said, most of them were building chatbots, but not voicebots.

I work with the AWS field team and our internal prototyping team, call it the Pace team. So we recently did a couple of workshops where we actually handed over this code base to our partners to fast track some of these opportunities. Awesome. Right. They have this. So one day is the enablement solution handing over, second day they jointly building with us that the solutions are ready to do that.

Host: Let's double click a little on PACE because I am aware of that team a little bit and the Ambassador program. Again, how did this all come together and you lead the entire APJ charter. So it's a big deal. Again, why are you doing it? Because that's above and beyond what is expected, what the job was offered to you.

And how do you put this together back into the whole partner journey? If you can tie the ambassador part and of course help us understand the PACE team, like what is this team about and how does somebody works with a PSA or an ambassador team like into the PACE team.

Lalit: Yep. So I'll first go over the Pace team. Pace team is the AWS internal prototyping team. The charter is basically to help AWS customers to understand the art of possibility with the prototypes. The art of possibilities is amazing.

And we're focusing on Genitivi and of course data plays a very critical role into that. So there's a ready to use accelerators what they have built based on the customer, actual customer requirement. And these prototypes are being deployed in customer accounts as well, multiple customers across the globe.

And with ambassadors, we ask them to basically pick those solutions. based on the existing opportunities that the customers were asking. Pick those solutions and start deploying, which was taking ages for them to basically go and build.

Now they have not just the code base, they have the code base which is relevant for the customers because they're bringing those opportunities and the use cases which we're asking. And then they have a solution ready in their AWS account. We are deploying the solution into their AWS account to take to their customers.

Now, where exactly ambassadors' role come into that is typically most of the enablement what we do with the partner is one time. We ask them to come and enable, and then we assume partner already know that. With ambassador, there's a sense of responsibility which is there for ambassadors to pick some of the solutions, help customers, show the outcomes, and socialize. Maybe do similar kind of work.

I may be doing some similar kind of podcast with other ambassadors down the line for, know, who's basically build the solution based on initiative and help customers.

Host: So ambassadors become the bridge and the continuity sort of thing to yeah, okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. And like most of your partners will have an ambassador like or they invest in ambassador program. How does like, what's the ratio generally like, or if you don't want to share these details, you know, again, as a partner, how should I think about an ambassador and invest into that program?

Lalit: So we have right now, as we are speaking, around 45 ambassadors from India. And these are across ISV, SIs, and GSIs. But yes, the ratio is very less. And the reason for that is we picked only partners who are committed to this program. There's a lot of investment by AWS onto this.

We build the technical muscle to very to the next level, as I mentioned, with the hands-on solution with AWS using Q is they have not done in the past, right? With any program. that's one benefit they see by investing in this program. And second is, if you remember earlier this year, AWS Transform was launched. In January, we did a very focused on the enablement on AWS Transform beta versions.

And some of them as an organization become launch partners for AWS Transform.

So people who don't know about AWS Transform, it's another agentic solution that we have built for customers to fast-track their migration and modernization journey on AWS. So be that VMware exit, this tool will help to do an assessment, create a plan, right sizing, and actually migration as well with one single interface.

That's the benefit of this tool. Similarly, for mainframe modernization, it helps you move from COBOL to Java and then build a plan and gradually move some of those objects from legacy infrastructure of IBM to Java. .NET, again, we have an enablement for .NET to .NET Core. Now, .NET Core is not just Windows, it's basically can deploy on Linux as well.

Basically, if you look at the cost-benefit perspective from customer perspective, they're saving around 40 % if they're not using Windows. All those journeys which customer was looking for from Genetive AI based tools to fast-track their journey on migration modernization concern. We did that.

We did with the ambassadors and we got a very decent success through that program as well. Similarly, with Pace and I'm planning to run similar kind of programs for building more technical muscles, joint solutions, actively engaging with our customers in some of these events which we are going to host in India and globally through this program.

So I think there a lot of benefits. It's a commitment from AWS and commitment from partners. If they have any questions, definitely reach out to the PSAs. PSAs is on the first level of… interaction with the partners on the ambassador program. For Pace team, have a solution they want to build with us. think ambassador program will become very natural choice because we have kind of very built kind of structured program around that. you know, just join the ambassador program and then you will get into some of these solutions and the initiative which we are jointly building with partner.

Host: Got it perfect!

So moving further, And I think we have tied so many things together now Lalit. What does a continuity with a partner looks like? Let's say now I started my journey as a partner. I recently was part of an initiative by AWS is called BOX, Business Outcome Accelerator, I remember the acronym. And you were there, right? Of course, as part of that.

A quick primer, if you can help from your perspective understand what this box is, because I could see the outcome and I was pretty excited to be part of that and looking forward to take it with the partner. But a quick construct on that and again, what role, going back, a PSA or your team, somebody like you plays and how this all comes together.

Lalit: Great, great topic. It's very, very close to my heart. The only difference is it's been structured in a Box program recently. You know, this conversation we're having with the partners, you know, all the time we have this conversation.

But I'm glad, you know, this program has come up. And a lot of excitement with SI and ISP partners both. So people who don't know about Box is basically a program where SIE and ISV partners can jointly work to build a solution or a co-built solution with AWS. You know, there's, it could be two SIE or two ISV jointly, it could be SIE, ISVs, you know, the structure doesn't matter. What matters is what is the business problem we are trying to solve here.

If it is very ISV heavy focus, we ask ISV to lead that solution building along with SI because SI brings lot of value in terms of flexibility, the technical capability, outside of the ISV solution, what ISV brings on the table, which they were not able to do it earlier.

A lot of opportunities which ISV have. I'm sure you know you're coming from ISV backgrounds. You might have come across certain situations where you would have done it better if you have an SI helping customers to basically cross that line. And you're saying that, this is my product does. That's all I can do. For this kind of scope of work, you should involve SIs. Now that's the problem we are trying to solve with this.

Because being customer obsessed, I keep mentioning that, we want partners also follow the same. So if it is a customer business problem, and ISV plays a very major role, then take the SI jointly. And let's say if SI has seen a major problem, and he believes that there is a there's a potential ISV solution which can hook into the overall solutions. Or multiple ISVs as well. Correct. Depending on big problem you're trying to solve with the customer.

Host: Yeah, yeah, And in that case, as I play a lead role. Stitching everything together, multiple eyes.

Lalit: almost remains with the SI and ISC playing helping. think, yeah, it's, it's, it's, since we are doing the first time. It's a pilot. And there's decent traction I've seen with the with the partners, especially in India, to go and build joint solution with us and of course we give lot of benefits, funding benefits as well to excellent building the solutions by our, you know, we also have PSA playing a very critical role because when it comes to, you know, stretching all this together, there has to be one technical owner into that. Technical owner for for SI and similarly if ISV is leading that then PSA of the ISV team should basically This would be the technical on that because they become responsible for taking the ownership.

Host: I love that piece and I would recommend, And as you said, it's not really an SI and ISV, everybody comes together, So folks, at least who are working with AWS ecosystem, I just use this word all the time, AWS ecosystem. think talk to your PSAs or your PDMs and inquire about this BOX program. I loved it. The workshop which I was part of. But I did not know the role of a PSA. See, I was part of the workshop but I missed that. Because I don't know why maybe I was lost.

But thanks for educating that that makes sense like who owns the technical who has the technical ownership. It totally makes sense.

I know you wear multiple hats and because when I was introduced to you, I was a little confused. I'm like, he's a PSA. What is he doing on the ambassador side and kind of thing. But now even more I know of you. But of course, when I've interacted with you a times, I figured out, OK, this is your heart. This is your brain. Whatever you can see, two different worlds. of course, logically, come together.

Lalit: Just want to add that, since you asked for a PSA role, think one thing which I would just like to highlight here is it is not just technical acumen here. It's a lot of business acumen required in this role. The fact that the partner wants to build a solution is one part of the puzzle, like I said. Why? Is when? is very, very important.

Host: How does it make business sense?

Lalit: Which means that you should have a business acumen that you should not go and build some solution of telcos if their focus is not there. Partner comes with different thoughts and ideas to be very honest. I have very, very interesting partner which I manage. Especially SI partners, they get excited with lot of things which is happening around them. Be that AWS, be that what is happening in the market, be that discussion they're having with the customers.

My role, believe that is to kind of structure that thoughts into a shape where they can get some outcomes. Which means that a lot of maybe filtering is required. may be, you know, bringing more business outcomes required. Is it really making sense for making a solution? Technical creation is one part of the puzzle.

Anybody can solve that being if you're coming from technical. What is very, important for this role, which I believe is that making sure whatever the partner is not able to think to make the solution at a scale and be successful, you have to be at that height. So there's also some of the questions you asked, like how to become partner become more successful. Right?

Unless you don't wear that hat, you become more of a technical advisor, which is just a great thing. Absolutely, should definitely this being technical, we should definitely do that. Don't do that for sake of learning and something which is happening around you or with the partners and you know, the developers getting excited. Think about what so

That's why the business plan and the goals come into picture. know, have that goals, know, your technical enablement, the technical capabilities, technical muscle which you're building is should be aligned with some of those goals. Right. Otherwise it's going to be just one or the another enablement and things will come on and there's no outcome.

Host: Or the outcome from a business person or you will end up building something very fancy, know, next shiny ball jumping around, like no revenue or whatever the business or the ROI as we generally use that term.

Lalit: I so at this good point you raised that one thing which I am not saying not to build and not come up with the technical ideas and not building it. I'm coming from an organization where innovation was a key differentiator for any technical person on the team to drive some of the innovation.

Even though they are not related to business, but as developer, senior architects or architects, they have seen a common pattern where they can go and innovate something. It's very, very technical focused. It could be retiring from technical depths, building some automation on top of the existing solutions or accelerator they have built, which may not be solving a business problem, but accelerating solution building, right?

Host: frameworks or common usable frameworks.

Lalit: I'm absolutely on boarded with those innovations and ideas and the technical capabilities. As a technical person, should go and build that. But when it comes to a complete solution building, I think that is where I ask my partners to basically look at, is this really you want to build that?

Host: No, totally because  as engineers or technical we get excited about the possibilities. Like let's do it. know, I can do it like, you know, fold up the sleeves and start doing stuff. But the question always comes on the who would buy it? Why would they buy? How will we get discovered?

That whole GTM is actually a discovery problem we are solving. How would a customer come to know about us or how would we come in front of the customer? Right? So this whole co-building.

So we talk a lot about co-selling, you know, from the marketplace point. But what you educated me actually one more time is the co-building part, right? And how this co-building and then the co-selling come together. I was working with our PSA, and we ended up writing this beautiful blog, not one, but three blogs, which went onto AWS blogs and I have seen people reading those blogs and coming to us. And when I asked a customer that, Hey, how did you come to know about us? Like, I saw that blog and AWS blogs, right?

Something which you would do with your partners, right? You would talk about it. would, you would talk about the philosophy, why this, what was the problem, how we built it together kind of thing.

So this becomes a discovery engine, right? You know, and it's not coming from, a very fancy GTM. It's a simple blog was written and very honest blog was written and it was published on AWS-like blogs. So something which I'm sure you do. You have been doing it. Right. Yeah. That's amazing.

Lalit, let's talk a little bit about you as a person now. Like you said, you write code. I hope you don't write codes on weekend. Maybe you do, I don't know. What are your weekends like? What do you do apart from family and all that good stuff? You read a lot, you still code, you research, you're building your own startup, or plan to launch something. What do you want to share?

Lalit: So what I can definitely like to share with you is on weekends, I don't code. So, well, I used to do it depending on, so I was building one internal solution for the partners. mean, that time I remember I was working on the weekend and writing code, whole day. But now I don't do that.

I spend most of my time on, you know, not thinking about work because that's a little bit different a kind of break to unlined, to recharge. Unlined and then.

Right. I think that psychologically you should take some break when you're working five days a week, know, spend some time today with your family and yeah. But I do some time work. I do research whenever I get time on the weekends as well to prepare my next week. Not that I do for whole two days, it's normally the night.

When I feel like I'm I have not there's something which is going in my mind, I have not think, you know, actually kind of research on that, which I do on the on the weekends. Not that I don't do in the weekday. Something I also do that, but I tried keep myself on weekends, open for you know, thinking, you know, what is happening around some of the areas which I've not explored yet.

And these are I'm also doing building some workshops for myself, which I can try out with my partner. So depending on like, you know, how's my mood? I spend a lot of time on watching web series and you know, you know, that's how my weekend starts. But you cannot do that for two days.

That again, you feel like, okay, we know a lot of content I have seen and we'll get into my mobile job.

Host: Do you read at all?

Lalit: I used to, I read articles by the way. I don't read books much

Host: Any particular place you go read or it's very much like as it comes at you.

Lalit: I prefer reading a lot of prescriptive guidance, which is published on AWS. So that's one of my favorite areas where I learn different ways to build solutions and some of the best practices, is somebody has experienced it and published it. So that's one. And then I also read the Mackenzie Gartner articles. chance to go and not just reading, I think, and let's go back to what you just mentioned, like doing the research.

There a of my experiences reading those articles is there's something which they have mentioned because they have a lot of data, right? They cannot publish everything with data, which means that something which is not resonating with you, you go and do a research. You are going to do a research you know either way. That takes my two three hours sometimes you know if I even reading one article within one pager. Right. Actually do one kind of research on that.

Host: As a true Amazonian, think you have have imbibed that, know, it's like peeling the layers. think there's something like you, you just you are not reading something on the surface. You are going in the weeds of it as much till the time it doesn't satisfy you, guess.

Lalit: I think it should be the habit of all of us, not just going with the face of the content coming from partners of the world. It can be going to a research.

Host: Absolutely, that's a good advice. I do have one more question. Well, can keep talking to you all day long Lalit, these conversations are so much fun. I want to close somewhere on the fact that from here next, I don't know, maybe three years we should talk, but what are you looking forward to?

You have been around for some time. You have seen technology from that 80, 85, 86 Y2 keys of the world because the year you said you started reminded me of Y2K. Then all this whole high programming language, all the fun stuff stack overflows and now this whole GenAI like beautiful time like one of the best generations to be alive.

Anything for next three years and trying to tie it back into the GTM partnerships, your world you are in right now. Time to tie it back. Even outside of AWS, if you have seen patterns which have really worked for the partners. So the next three years and maybe next five years, because you are waiting for your red badge, know, right? 10 years you will get your red badge, only five years you have been accomplished. Why not, right? How do you put all of this together?

Lalit: So I think I would see myself spending another three years, maybe five years, building a very AWS executive, partner executive forum, or a community, say that. Where, you know, and ambassador is something very similar, if you look at, but this may be another, you know, very exclusive, very exclusive group. Where with, you know, of course, with the help of our leadership team to kind of look at how do we go and expand with those partners, leaders who have intent to go another, you know, mile with us, x, y, investments in certain solutions, technology areas, focusing maybe more on the industry this time.

I see we have to kind of solve at a broader level. Think in some shape and form, we are already starting to customers. Which means that when it comes to partners, working with the partners, the industry knowledge is very important.

Which persona we are talking to, that is very, important. What message you want to give is very, important, which resonates with their business and the role they are playing in their own life. I may be spending more time into that. That's how I look at it. Maybe starting with certain industries to get started with, where most of my partners want to focus.

And pick those industries and problem areas which is cutting across multiple customers. And build not just the industry knowledge, provided, like I said, partners should be interested into that. Because there's investment by partners.

It's a dual investment like you know, we and partner jointly thinking to co-invest into the right. So I think next three years maybe, you focusing on the industry, would say with very, very focused partners with the investment from us with very, very exclusive programs. Sure. Okay. Which, which will excite them. There's few things which are happening right now. I don't want to discuss right now. This is again, more.

We'll wait. But we are pretty soon going to launch a pilot with maybe one or two partners to start with to enable GoDeep building their capabilities on industries and solutions, focusing family on data and GenAI, also our executives, right? is, is, and the partners, like I said, you know, who has, who are ready to go invest with us.

So with this pilot maybe will start rolling out to other partner in next one year, two year down the line.

Host: Totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. I did say that was the last question, but I want to something came popped in my mind want to put you on spot. You are much loved, very popular in AWS team here I know for a fact. Tell us something which you would like to share about you which most of your colleagues don't know. It may not be embarrassing, but it can be anything. It can be fun. It can be something which they would be like, my God, I didn't know this about Lalit.

Lalit: Yeah, I think people who know me, I'm very, very open. Though you're asking about least known fact that's so people know me aware of, you know, some of the practices which which I follow, like my meditations is one very often. Before joining AWS were very, regular. Unfortunately, I'm not very also called a meditation practitioner but whenever I time I practice.

Host: Like the Vipassana type kind of thing where you have gone to Igatpuri or some other form of meditation.

Lalit: I think this will require another podcast. Okay, I see you have already sewn the seat for it. Since you asked for that, I am actually very into meditations. I had done certain practices. I still do that. For me, meditation means that a point where you are not getting impacted with what is happening around you. You are in a completely stateless mind. And you want to do something to reach to the next level and you start practicing in your mind without getting distracted with what is happening around you. Typically that can happen early mornings. Like I said, we can talk about that in another podcast.

If you read any religious books, every book will ask you to practice meditation early mornings. Because you become very less distracted, you are fresh, your mind is fresh, there's not much noise around you, people may be sleeping. And that is where you start practicing it and you come to a stage where you completely sit, let's not getting distracted, even in the day time. Okay. That continues that aura, that face.

Yeah, that continues your aura, but you have to practice a lot. There's a lot of practicing which is required and

Host: Why the hell we didn't start with this topic? We could have just f**ked up.

Lalit: I know. So I want to this very specific to the agenda.

Host: No, but this is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that. didn't know that. I'm sure a lot of your colleagues don't know about this. I'll give a shout out to you when I write about it that hey, if you want to know more about LID, this is what you should know that this is what it does. This is what is.

Lalit: Absolutely. Because of the incident which happened by the way. that's another least known fact which is I'm a tsunami survivor by the way. So it's back in 2004 when tsunami happened. I was in Colombo with my wife walking on the beach and we got drowned and this is my second life if you can say that. Yep. So that's a least known fact.

Host: Are you serious? That was one of the biggest, like big one and you were there and you said, did I hear the word drowned? Wow, you are a blessed soul.

Lalit: I am. I am grateful to the blessings I have, not just my family, friends, people around me and the energy which I got from all of people around me and you know that's helped. Of course, after that I started meditating.

Host: My God, you have compelled me to book a ticket to Gurgaon and come to discuss this with you in person. My goodness. This is beautiful. And there cannot be a better topic, any question to follow this. This is like you have to just soak this in now. I'm soaking it in as you are talking and just take it in sort of thing. Right. amazing. Yeah.

Lalit: Another podcast.

Host: We will. Thanks for your time. This was an amazing conversation. I'll tell you why. I have spoken a lot on business, spoken a lot with technical people, but this is like that amalgamation, that bridge between tech and business put together. That's the persona you are in right now at AWS. So more power to you. Thanks for taking time. Alot of your time. Thank you so much. This is beautiful and you have left very cleverly, very craftfully and very generously the next conversation we absolutely should be having as to how does this all put together.

Lalit: Absolutely. One call to action, if you have any partners who are interested and they still have questions, maybe we can use a forum. Absolutely.

Host: So thanks for how does somebody if not reach to you, but how does somebody get connected from outside? Like come through another partner, come reach out to somebody in AWS, reach out to you directly. there a monthly setup setup, is set up monthly meetings somewhere, open forum, office hours?

Lalit: I would say they should reach out first point of contact to the PSA and mediums. If they do not manage, go to the distributors. We have Red Intern, have Winkerminer.

Host: They have their own account managers maybe through an account

Lalit: Yeah, we can start from there. I think the you know, till they reach a advanced partner with some technical competencies, I think that is where their journey with us probably will start with with how they looking at three or five year down persona with they want to go and join the build up with us. And that's how you know, you know, they can reach out to me. If it is ambassador program, I'm on LinkedIn. People can reach out to me.

Host: Yeah, and when we we publish this video, we're putting links to a lot of these things, you know, you're not just your LinkedIn, but you spoke about the Box program. So there is a page on AWS, so we'll link the Box program, but there's also right so for our audience, we will

Lalit: We have an ambassador program portal page as well. can refer to that.

Host: Yeah, no, but your LinkedIn is the entry point to the Ambassador program anyway. So we'll do that. That was beautiful Lalit.

Lalit: Thank you so much. I really apologize. I have been talking to you about this and we could not record it earlier. But I'm so glad that this happened. I'm so glad this happened and very, very grateful to you again for your time and all your insights.

Thank you and thanks for this opportunity. I really appreciate. I think being known, not having a script is the best thing we could have. To become very natural in terms of what the messaging or experience which you want to share. And I think podcasts should be like that only. Once it is scripted, it's maybe a some...

movie or webcast. Podcasts supposed to be not having... there should be some kind of mental model what key topics we want to discuss but coming straight from the heart is what excites people and hoping you know your audience will love that so thank you so much.

Host: Absolutely. Look forward. Alright. I wish you a pleasant day ahead and thanks again Lalit.

Thank you. Bye.