There’s a trillion dollars of unlocked value in cloud, presenting a massive market opportunity for  startups. Well-versed in cloud-scale data management, a new string of mavericks are providing faster insights for data enterprises already own.

With such a large market opportunity, what’s the playbook for enterprises, the startups they’re considering, and the cloud giants streamlining the infrastructure to make such an ecosystem a reality?

Looking to answer these questions and more, theCUBE host John Furrier sits down with a panel of industry leaders for the closing session during the AWS Startup Showcase Event: Innovators in Cloud Data event. Specializing in cloud-scale data management solutions, the featured startups have unique approaches to a growing problem — how to leverage data in a world tuned to cloud computing. (* Disclosure below.)

“There’s not only one playbook,” said Mike Feinstein, (pictured, left), principal business development manager at AWS. “If it’s a trillion-dollar opportunity, that’s in the aggregate. There’s many different types of opportunities.”

From older line companies that need to change the way they’re doing things to younger companies trying to take advantage of all the data they’ve already collected and try to get more value out of it, there could be some radically different types of opportunities with newer technologies, according to Feinstein. 

“For each of the companies here at the showcase today, they are targeting some segment of this. Each of those segments is already large, and I think you’re going to see a wide range of solutions take hold,” he explained.

Free to focus on innovation

For these startups and their clients, there’s a major opportunity with data, according to Ben Haines (pictured, right), CIO advisor at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

“How can we leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to really start getting some insights a lot quicker and [getting] a lot more value to the company from the data they own? Anything around that, to me, is a major opportunity,” he said.

Thanks to the software revolution and cloud computing, there’s a perfect storm of opportunity for startups seeking an accelerated time to market. By removing the hard stuff of starting a software-led business — the hardware and maintenance of servers — newcomers can focus on the innovation.

But just because it’s easier to launch a software-based startup doesn’t mean success is guaranteed. To meet enterprise needs, a startup must provide reliable value and do so at scale.

“Honestly most founders don’t want to spend any time on anything other than the unique piece of innovation that they’re going to deliver to their customers,” said Michael Skok (pictured, center), founding partner at Underscore VC. 

In fact, Skok sees so much promise in the world of cloud computing, he joked that McKinsey’s trillion-dollar market is underestimated.  

“We’re all really under-shooting on this number. I mean, the reality is that every part of compute infrastructure we talk about today was built from an infrastructure that’s decades old … and we look forward in 30-50 years, we won’t be talking about cloud and everything else, but we’re just talking about computing or whatever we want to talk about at the edge, or the application of data in a car, or an augmented reality or virtual reality heads-up display that’s helping surgeons work across the world. The fact is, the only way this is really going to work is on the cloud,” Skok furthered.

An ecosystem of perks

Looking at the event’s featured startups and the advantages they bring, from their cloud native approaches to innovating cloud-scale data, a potential customer could feel anxious to jump on the bandwagon. Yet the cloud remains a large investment for companies, from product to process, and it’s a decision no chief information officer wants to mess up.

“Every enterprise, and through every decade, it’s a buy versus build conversation. With the cloud you can actually build a lot quicker or you can leverage companies that can build even quicker than you that have a focus on innovation,” Haines said.

It’s oftentimes difficult for enterprises to “focus on the really cool stuff,” according to Haines, who sees value in partnering with a hungry, agile startup. “That can actually help accelerate your own internal innovation a lot quicker than trying to spool up your own team,” he said.

The other perk of launching a startup in the cloud is the ability to bring a level of reliance that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Running on AWS infrastructure and achieving a certain level of certification enables an ecosystem of trust that extends to enterprise clients, streamlining processes from pricing to security to integration. For AWS, this ecosystem provides a go-to-market strategy designed to work together.

“Even five years ago you would have to ask a lot of startups for a single sign-on. The smart [startups] are understanding the enterprise principles we need, and a lot of it is around security. And they’re building that from the start of their products. If you get over that security hurdle, their stability is a lot more improved because they’re a lot more focused and moving really quickly, which can help companies move quickly,” Haines said.

Watch the full video below as the panel goes into great detail discussing the shifts in software pricing models, how startups thrive with the right investment and infrastructure partners, and the real-world stories of companies benefitting from emerging models of data management. 

(*Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Startup Showcase: Innovations With Cloud Data. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE