Databricks co-founder shares his secrets for winning big enterprise customers
- ID
- 39724
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 27 Oct 2026, 6:00 AM
- Fetched
- 27 Oct 2026, 8:05 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/26/databricks-co-founder-shares-his-secrets-for-winning-big-enterprises-customers/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 5.5
- Created
- 27 Oct 2026, 8:05 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_foundersstartup_founders
What happened
At TechCrunch Disrupt, Databricks co-founder and SVP of field engineering Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji said startups selling to large enterprises wrongly assume the best tech sells itself; Databricks is now valued at $190 billion and says more than 70% of the Fortune 500 are customers. He cited early deals stalling on legal, contractual, and security questions, and a prospect who ignored him because they had already bet their career on a competitor. His tip: sell under a bigger tech company's umbrella, as Databricks did by becoming a Microsoft Azure partner after failing to get a UBS meeting.
Why it matters
If you sell SaaS to enterprises, prepare security, legal, and contract answers before the first meeting, and evaluate cloud-partner routes such as Microsoft Azure terms as a procurement shortcut. Do not assume a better product beats a buyer who has already backed an incumbent competitor.
Discussion angle
When does selling through a larger cloud vendor's contract terms actually shorten enterprise procurement, and what control or margin do you give up by doing it?