Our Startup Just Got Acquired by Oracle. Here’s What You Need to Know.

Sauce Video Co-founder snowboard trip

Being acquired by Oracle wasn’t top of mind when we joined Oracle’s startup program back in July 2018. On Monday, April 27, Oracle announced the acquisition of my company Sauce Video. As you can imagine, it’s been quite a journey, and it’s something I want to share with other founders.

We joined Oracle’s startup program because we wanted a program that would help us scale our technology and grow our business. Our video creation platform was in a great position to take the next step, the technology was developing rapidly, and we’d taken on our first enterprise customers. So we were on the lookout for an accelerator that would suit our goals. But accelerators are a dime a dozen. We wanted something different, special.

Oracle claimed it was a “unique acceleration” program, one focused on collaboration and co-innovation. The website spoke of “reimagining the corporate and startup relationship.”

We were intrigued and a bit skeptical. Oracle wasn’t as well known in the startup world, and most startups gravitated to programs like Techstars or corporates like Google or AWS.

So, we joined the Oracle program with high hopes, but realistic expectations.

The program blew away our expectations. I realise that sounds disingenuous now in light of our recent news, but it’s true. Oracle’s program has big upsides for those startups willing to lean in and fully engage, which is exactly what we did.

We collaborated with Oracle’s technical teams to examine our architecture, platform performance and integration points. We got to travel to events with Oracle to showcase our product and speak on stage, do media interviews and analyst briefings. We engaged with Oracle sales teams, as well as their enterprise customers. We developed key relationships across the Oracle for Startups team. Essentially, we put a lot of energy into the program and took full advantage of the resources this technology giant was offering us.

We were focused on building a better platform, generating market awareness, and driving new customer growth. And to do that we needed the resources and expertise of Oracle — from technical to marketing to sales.

Our experience with Oracle for Startups ended with an acquisition. And we are thrilled with that exit. But our experience would have been well worth it regardless. During our time in the program, we grew to be a smarter, stronger, more scalable business.

I think startups having partnerships with corporates like Oracle is really important, and that will only increase. For us, the Oracle relationship opened doors, resources, and opportunities in an accelerated time frame. We’ve seen many startups benefit alongside us. But it does take time, resources and dedication.

For startups interested in Oracle’s program, and I highly recommend it, here are six things I advise you to be prepared for:

1. Make sure you and your company are ready: Oracle’s program can help with a number of things like tech development, sales growth and marketing. Understand where your business is at and what it needs to get to the next level. Timing is important, and you want to get this right.
2. Dedicate resources to the program: You must be willing to put in the time, energy and people to work the program. Oracle is a big place, and can be challenging to navigate. I was point-person on the Oracle relationship, collaborating, networking, leveraging resources, and maximising the opportunities offered. The more effort you put in the more you’ll get out.
3. Be collaborative and flexible: You must be clear about your goals, but you also must be open-minded and flexible. Collaborate, learn and iterate your product and business plans. This does not mean rolling over, just be willing to listen and adapt.
4. Lean-in and engage: This is key. You must be willing to fully lean-in and engage. From marketing to events to sales to PR, we took advantage of every opportunity offered even if it was outside our comfort zone. You never know which conversation, event or Zoom call will result in something awesome.
5. Explore the technology: Oracle Cloud infrastructure is huge for high-performance compute needs like analytics, machine learning, or video content. We moved from AWS to Oracle Cloud after realising the power of NVIDIA GPUs on Oracle to create and transcode video content; and Oracle’s focus on utilising, and contributing to open source technologies like Kubernetes and Istio.
6. Stand up for your startup and stand out: As I said earlier, Oracle is massive. But if you stand up, be authentic and be confident, people will take notice!

We are the first startup part of Oracle for Startups acquired by Oracle. For Sauce, we’ll still be working closely with Oracle, this time as official Oracle employees. But we’ll also be active as Ambassadors in the Oracle for Startups program. The Oracle startup program is truly a unique program and one we’ll be supporting.

Good luck on your startup journey, whatever program or path you take.