3 ways Capital One’s Technology Team helped us to win a deal

If you’re a startup interested in enterprise technology sales, this post is for you!

Blue-chip enterprises increasingly recognize a need for specialized teams dedicated to innovation in the technology they buy and use. Such teams can preserve or hone the competitive edge, while taking strategic risks the broader enterprise otherwise couldn’t.

Through our extensive work with them last year, I see Capital One Technology leading this charge within their industry and their market as a whole. With not one but three Innovation Labs across the country in NYC, SF, and DC, Capital One Technology is hard at work bringing innovation to their bank through:

• Sourcing startup technologies for enterprise deals
• Developing new technology for the bank
• Investing in or acquiring innovative technologies and talented teams
• Accelerating Capital One’s digital transformation through hackathons, office happy hours, and much more

That’s a lot of initiatives, but if you’re reading this you probably care most about sourcing startup technologies for enterprise deals. Matthew Tomaszewicz leads the Capital One Technology Down Streaming Team, and he has made it his team’s mission to ensure that start-up interaction is efficient and additive to not only Capital One, but start-ups at all costs. At ClearGraph, Capital One Technology helped us win a great enterprise deal with Capital One in three ways.

1. Targeted Introductions & Champions

Relationships. Relationships. Relationships. Selling enterprise software is all about identifying the right decision-makers early and establishing relationships so internal champions can block and tackle for you when the going gets tough.

Capital One Technology has developed Scan Trip, a tried-and-true process for getting startups in front of key decision makers. The Scan Team evaluates Capital One department needs and pairs those departments with startups offering technology that could help meet these needs.

At ClearGraph, we met our deal champions through five Scan Trips the Capital One Technology Team organized.

The Capital One Technology Team even provided pre-meeting materials on each team’s current processes and technology gaps. This context helped us enter every meeting with not only demos, but well-considered solutions to Capital One’s most pressing business requirements.

2. The Inside Scoop

Leveraging their Scan Trips, ClearGraph secured interest from a few teams at Capital One wanting to trial our technology. The Capital One Technology Team pinpointed each team’s bandwidth, deal cycles, budgeting, and technology readiness.

This “inside scoop” allowed us to focus our efforts on a single team within the “prospect qualification triangle” — they needed our technology, actually had the budget to pay for it, and were resourced to deploy it.

Within a month, we locked down our first Statement of Work (SOW) for a six-week proof of concept. Without the Capital One Technology Team, this process would have taken 3 months or more.

3. Startup-friendly Procurement

Procurement at a bank of Capital One’s size can nearly bankrupt any startup — and it often does. Enter Capital One Technology with the final arrow in their quiver: DART. DART is Capital One’s unique contracting process for digital deals. Their contracts come SaaS-ready (a rare luxury when working with big companies). The process is extremely efficient, with a simple 5-step process of submission, initial review, edits, live negotiation, and final signatures. The DART process helped ClearGraph keep our customer acquisition cost low while addressing sensitive contracting areas like IP ownership on jointly-developed technology.

All told, ClearGraph’s collaboration with Capital One Technology made this deal cycle our fastest to-date.

Of course, if you’re an innovation team at another bank seeking to help us break that record, we look forward to hearing from you. Likewise, if you’re a startup wanting advice on selling into Capital One or working with their Technology Team, also feel free to reach out!

Thanks for reading, and happy selling.

Andrew is the Founder and CEO @ ClearGraph. ClearGraph provides the first knowledge graph platform, a dynamically learning data network for the enterprise.