CloudWerx Wins Google Cloud Sales Partner Of The Year For North America: Here’s How

‘One of our core tenets is ensuring that we’re not just receiving leads from Google and customers from Google. We really have a vested interest. … We’ve come a long way in three years, but we’re just getting started,’ Betsy Reed, co-founder, vice president and CRO of CloudWerx, tells CRN.

It’s hard to imagine any Canada or U.S.-based Google Cloud partner winning Google’s prestigious Sales Partner of the Year Award for North America in less than three years after becoming an official partner.

However, startup CloudWerx did just that—and in unprecedented fashion.

Working at a ferocious pace this year, the San Jose, Calif.-based startup was critical in on-boarding AI superstar MosaicML to Google Cloud, vastly expanded its customer base across North America, provided next-level services for customers, and became one of the launch partners for Google’s huge generative AI charge.

At the Google Cloud Next 2023 conference in San Francisco Tuesday, CloudWerx was named Google Cloud’s 2023 Sales Partner of the Year for North America.

“We are definitely one of the fastest, if not the fastest, to get this award,” Betsy Reed, co-founder, vice president and CRO of CloudWerx, told CRN.

“There’s other partners with thousands and thousands of employees that are backed by VCs [venture capitalists] or PEs [private equity firms] that have access to all sorts of resources and have been around Google Cloud much longer than three years,” said Reed. “The other thing is there are not very many Google Cloud partners that [have a] female founder. … So in under three years to be awarded Sales Partner of the Year is very rare.”

Who Is CloudWerx?

Founded in 2020, the tech startup placed its cloud computing and technology bet on Google by becoming an all-in Google Cloud partner.

In possibly record time, CloudWerx achieved Google Cloud’s Premier Partner status by 2022 as sales and customer wins exploded last year. The engineering-based company increased its revenue by 10 times in 2022 compared with 2021.

CloudWerx initially focused heavily on the Silicon Valley region and mostly tech-savvy small to midsize businesses. However, with the technical and sales prowess CloudWerx has built, the company is branching out in terms of customers and geographic expansion. The company is also hiring top-notch talent from Google, such as on-boarding 12-year Google veteran Munish Gupta this month as its new CIO. CloudWerx maintains an astounding 100 percent customer retention rate thanks to its commitment to technical, account and customer service.

“One of our core tenets is ensuring that we’re not just receiving leads from Google and customers from Google. We really have a vested interest,” said Reed. “This is embedded in each and every one of our sales representatives that we need to be identifying key greenfield customers in the market. … We’ve come a long way in three years, but we’re just getting started.”

In an interview with CRN, CloudWerx’s Reed explains five reasons why her company was able to win Google Cloud’s 2023 Sales Partner of the Year award for North America in spectacular fashion.

Chasing Greenfield Accounts

One of our core tenets is ensuring that we’re not just receiving leads from Google and customers from Google. We really have a vested interest. This is embedded in each and every one of our sales representatives that we need to be identifying key greenfield customers in the market. These [companies] have not yet been exposed to Google Cloud and we’re bringing them to the table.

[I’m proud of] our sales prowess and our ability to create impact, and the ability to usher in new, really incredible customers to the value of Google Cloud and tell that wide Google Cloud story. That definitely was a contribution to this award.

Biggest Differentiators: ‘Excellent Services’ And Top Talent

We always set out to be a partner that was services-focused and solutions-focused, as opposed to relying solely on being a VAR or reseller. ...

Supplying advantageous billing options and 24x7 support and optimizing cloud bill—those are important, and we will continue to do that. But where our true value and our customer stickiness is, and where there really was a gap that we saw, is in our ability to deliver really excellent services to customers on behalf of Google Cloud. So that’s been our biggest differentiator.

[In addition] from the time [CEO] Jason [Geis] (pictured) and I founded the company, we have remained steadfast in our commitment to having the top engineering resources, the top account management and growth resources, he top sales professionals to support Google Cloud and their ecosystem as well as our customers in their cloud journey.

Those are a lot of buzzwords I just said, but they are not buzzwords if you back it up with true action, results, hard work and dedication. … Our ability to continue to develop and provide top sales account and engineering resources to Google Cloud is paramount.

‘Our Ability To Grow With Our Customers Has Been Paramount’

From what I would consider quite humble beginnings in the SMB space of Google Cloud, which we still have a very large presence in, we work with greenfield customers and digital-native customers that are just getting started. We then continue to commit to support customers as they begin their cloud journey with Google Cloud.

But what’s become even more apparent over these last two years is our ability to retain and grow those customers and supply them with more strategic, high-level, and more really bespoke technological solutions as they grow as a business.

As they grow out of their infancy as an organization and they start bringing on their first, second, third, fourth customers themselves—we’ve been able to grow with them and continue to be their go-to technical arm and their counsel on their cloud strategy. We help them with, ‘How do they ensure that they’re optimizing, scaling and securing that environment now and then in the future?’

So our ability to grow with our customers has been paramount.

Turning A ‘Very Buzzy Buzzword’ Into Real Value

We’re also embracing new and cutting-edge technology as it comes out. We are one of the launch partners for Gen AI and we take that very seriously.

This means how do we turn somewhat ambiguous—a very buzzy buzzword, which is AI, ML, Gen AI—and really have it mean business solutions? At the end of the day, it’s a way for companies to embrace this new cutting-edge technology to support their business outcomes and their customers’ business outcomes.

So our alignment is consistently with the Google team, our customers’ team, and ensuring that we continue to have the best-in-class technical resources, and stay one step ahead of the market—I believe, is what’s led us to this Google Cloud status so soon.

Not Backed By Private Funders; ‘A Lot Of Grit’

To align with our core values of first, fast, persistent and customer obsession, Jason and I have remained really committed to growing in a very smart and measured way with a lot of grit.

We are entirely self-funded.

Other than a few small friends and family rounds, we are completely undiluted as well. What that means is that Jason and I do have the ability to make decisions from a very grounded place, from a very measured place. We can run the business really aligned with the vision we started with. This allows us to really continue that as opposed to being beholden to different dynamics that do come with funding.

That being said, we’re always committed to ensuring we have ample capital in order to fund the next phase of growth for our business.

We’ve come a long way in three years, but we’re just getting started.

With Google giving us a lot of responsibility, support and allowing us to work with some of their largest and most complex customers—our commitment is that we never get caught on our heels and we remain extremely proactive in our hiring, our delivery and execution in building the business in a smart and measured way. We’ve done that.