As lead for analytics and AI solutions at Google Cloud, my team works with startups building on Google Cloud. This puts us in the fortunate position to learn from founders and engineers about how early-stage startups’ investments can either constrain them or position them for success, even at the seed level. In this post, I want to share a few of the best practices to keep in mind as you’re building. 

Understand your value proposition before diving into a technology stack

If you’re launching a startup in the cloud, you’re no doubt thinking about a technology stack, but it’s important to step back a bit and think carefully about the major value proposition that your startup offers to your customers. That value proposition is going to fundamentally drive the kind of technology that you should pick.

For example, does your system need processing in real time, or can it be done in a batch mode? Can you rely on once-a-day insights or do the insights have to come in as events happen?

Additionally, what kind of latency will your customers face? That latency makes your value proposition either usable or unusable. Early on in Google’s development, leaders realized that no one was going to wait more than a few hundred milliseconds for a web page to show them their results, and that realization drove the technology decisions that have allowed Google to scale from being a startup in a garage to being a trillion dollar company. Your startup needs to define its value to customers with this level of specificity before it can build a technology stack suited to its needs. 

Focus on customer interactions

A few companies have gracefully pulled off big IT pivots that reshaped their value proposition. Netflix, for example, moved from mostly sending DVDs through the mail to becoming a streaming service and major content producer. That’s a huge shift in the user experience and the technology stack necessary to support it, even if the underlying value proposition (i.e., get content to customers) was broadly the same. But it’s also an outlier. If you’re planning for potential changes of this magnitude, rather than focused on getting your value proposition to users, you probably need to sharpen what that value proposition is.

Specifically, you need a clear vision of how customers will access and interact with your business. Typically, they’ll do so over a website or a mobile app, but there are still so many variables. 

Are customers going to transmit documents? If so, in what format? Is handwriting supported or is input limited to typing? Can they use images for optical character recognition? Will it mostly be forms? Will the data be structured or unstructured? If all that sounds  a little overwhelming, don’t worry, it’ll seem simpler by the end of this article—but also be aware: we’re just getting warmed up.

Imagine that most of your customers will access your business via voice, so you know you’ll want to prioritize conversational workflows. That’s a start—but dig deeper.  Even if we suppose you’re usingDialogflow, a Google Cloud conversational AI platform that lets you build and deploy virtual agents, we’re still not really seeing the value proposition.  How will all this work, from the beginning of a typical full customer interaction to the resolution? How many interactions will have to be facilitated over low-bandwidth connections, for example? When it comes to user interactions, make sure you can see an end-to-end use case.

Another example: you’re building a retail website, and one of your end-to-end use cases involves the customer asking if a certain amount of a given product is in stock, whether it’s one unit of the product, ten or hundreds. If the product is not sufficiently stocked, you want your app to offer similar items that are. Will your technology stack support this end-to-end use case?

These considerations are not an argument for premature optimization. There’s value in moving fast, getting minimum viable products to users, and then iterating. But in the early stages, you only get one chance to start on the right foot—and how you navigate that chance will influence a lot of dollars and effort down the road. You need to make sure you have business use cases, not just an idea, before you can start designing a technology stack.  

Here’s how to get in the right frame of mind. Pick three use cases: two that are “bread and butter” and one that is technologically complex.  Make sure your proposed technology stack can support all three, end to end. 

Default toward higher levels of abstraction

Now that we’re in the right frame of mind, we’re ready to think about the technology stack more directly. 

As a startup, you’ll need to conserve resources, and to do that, you’ll want to build at the highest level of abstraction possible for your value proposition. For example, you probably don’t want your people setting up clusters. You don’t want them configuring things if they can use a fully managed service. You want them focused on building your prototype, not managing infrastructure.

This focus has definitely informed how we create products at Google Cloud, as our canonical data stack—Pub/Sub, Dataflow, BigQuery, and Vertex AI—consists of auto-scaling and serverless products.

But management of infrastructure is not the only place where you should err toward a less-is-more philosophy. 

When it comes to architecture, choose no-code over low-code and low-code over writing custom code. For example, rather than writing ETL pipelines to transform the data you need before you land it into BigQuery, you could use pre-built connectors to directly land the raw data into BigQuery. That’s no code right there. Then, transform the data into the form you need using SQL views directly in the data warehouse. This is called ELT, and it is low code. You will be a lot more agile if you choose an ELT approach over an ETL approach. 

Another place is when you choose your ML modeling framework. Don’t start with custom TensorFlow models. Start with AutoML. That’s no-code. You can invoke AutoML directly from BigQuery, avoiding the need to build complex data and ML pipelines. If necessary, move on to pre-built models from TensorFlow Hub, HuggingFace, etc. That’s low-code. Build your own custom ML models only as a last resort.

Focus on getting your vision to market, not chasing technology hype  

The goal is to pick the right technology stack for bringing your vision to market, generating value for customers, conserving resources, and maintaining flexibility for growth. Early IT investments should usually gravitate toward things that preserve flexibility, such as managed services built on standard protocols or open APIs, but they needn’t always rush to the flashiest technologies.  The answer isn’t always ML, for example. The answer might be heuristics to start, with a path to ML once you have collected enough data. You want to make sure that your intelligence layer has enough abstraction so you can mark it up with simple rules at first, but then replace it with a more robust system as you go along. 

Launch and iterate fast with these principles 

The preceding discussion is a reminder that your most expensive resource is your people—and that you really want them to be focused on building your prototype, minimum viable product or production app  You want to launch fast and iterate fast, and the only way you can do that is by focusing on the things that differentiate you. 

But regardless of the technologies you use, the bottom line is the same: follow these four principles. 

• Figure out your major value proposition and design your tech stack around it. 
• Be very careful about user interactions. User experience is super important; you need to make sure you deliver the kind of experience that your customers have grown to expect.
• When you’re building, pick the highest possible level of abstraction possible—the most fully managed tools and no-code/low-code frameworks that give you the functionality that you need. 
• Instead of choosing new or flashy technologies, consider if you can build a “good enough” minimum viable product quickly and come back to a better implementation later. 

To learn more about why startups are choosing Google Cloud, click here.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Consumer Goods Technology Magazine

Shifting work habits, more online shopping options, rising inflation, and stretched supply chains are just a few factors making it harder to discern what’s top-of-mind for shoppers today.

But we’re starting to get a clearer picture of what consumers say they value most right now. New Harris Poll research commissioned by Google Cloud reveals how U.S. shoppers are thinking about consumer goods brands in new ways—from apparel, electronics, and beauty products, to food and beverage.

While price unsurprisingly continues to be a major consideration in purchases, the average shopper is increasingly paying close attention to the values of consumer goods brands and how eco-friendly their products and practices are.

Shoppers want to buy from brands aligned with their values

COVID-19 drove people to reflect on their priorities, elevating concepts like community service, equity, and sustainability. A decade ago, most consumer goods companies would not have made these front-and-center, operational priorities. But today’s consumer not only wants savings and convenience, they also want that good feeling that comes from spending their money with a company that aligns with their values.

Our new research reveals that 82% of shoppers prefer a consumer brand’s values to align with their own, and they’ll vote with their wallet if they don’t feel a match. Three-quarters of shoppers reported parting ways with a brand over a conflict in values.

Even with their favorite consumer goods products, a majority of shoppers will not compromise on principles. If there’s a value mismatch, 39% of shoppers said they’d permanently boycott their favorite brand, and 24% would break ties at least temporarily. Most won’t be quiet about their concerns either: 28% of consumers that found their values at odds with a brand said they have shared their concerns with friends and family, and another 15% have shared their qualms on social media.

Consumer goods companies need to prioritize sustainability

A majority of today’s consumers (52%) are especially interested in supporting sustainable brands. They want to know how companies are managing their resources, specifically whether they are sourcing responsibly. These shoppers want to see meaningful, measurable efforts from CPG firms to save energy and reduce waste, like how Nuuly, URBN’s digital rental and resale business, has woven sustainability into its business operations, from its distribution centers to reusable packaging.

In fact, 66% of shoppers are now seeking out eco-friendly brands, with 55% saying they would pay more for more sustainable products. But these same shoppers are skeptical too: 72% think that companies and brands overstate their sustainability efforts. And they’re right to question brands’ practical application of their values. According to another Harris Poll survey recently commissioned by Google Cloud, 58% of executives polled across 16 countries admit that their organization has overstated its sustainability efforts.

Product availability is table stakes

A final point from the research: The global supply chain has stretched past its limits, and 60% of consumers are voicing some level of concern about it. At the end of the day, if a preferred brand isn’t actually on the shelves of a real or digital store, it doesn’t matter what the brand’s values or sustainability efforts are. A staggering 98% said they’d either buy from a different brand or search other stores or websites.

What’s a brand to do?

After more than 25 years working in the consumer goods industry in roles ranging from marketing and product development to business strategy and technology, at companies like Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly Clark, Carter’s, and now Google Cloud, I’ve seen successful brands do four things well when it comes to their values:

1. Don’t be generic.
   Your brand’s values need to be authentic, and they need to have teeth. But being too bold could run the risk of alienating some consumer segments. This is where technology can help. Personalizing your messages and outreach to specific shopper profiles is one way to ensure that your core values reach the right customers at the right time.
2. Make your values clear and consistent.
   When focusing on which values to highlight with your consumers and the world, make sure they make sense for your brand and that you’ll stick to them over time. For example, it’s painfully obvious when a brand is being opportunistic and inserting itself into conversations around values like sustainability or social justice, when it doesn’t have a history of voicing those values. The key to clear and consistent messaging of values is balancing authenticity with relatability and the appropriate amount of promotion.
3. Develop sustainability practices and communicate their impact to everyday people.
   How everyday people perceive a consumer goods brand’s sustainability initiatives is different from how an investor or general business audience does. Shoppers don’t read business sustainability plans or impact reports. To increase awareness of your brand’s sustainability efforts, consumers need to identify and interact with your brand and products directly. Some of my favorite examples are how I love that Google Maps gives me the choice of eco-friendly driving directions, and that I know I can buy low-waste, packaging-free cosmetics from a company like Lush.
4. Reward customer loyalty.
   Shoppers have more choices than ever before, and supply chain woes are testing preferences even further. But when someone chooses a specific brand because they feel aligned with their values or like their eco-friendly products, that shopper doesn’t always get recognized or thanked. Implementing a rewards program or following-up with customers after their purchases is one way you can make loyal shoppers feel appreciated while creating a lasting relationship that extends as long as possible.

One of the key trends that emerged from the lockdown brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak was the significant rise in people seeking entertainment online.

According to data released by Carat India, smartphone usage increased by 1.5 hours a week and social media consumption nearly doubled to 280 minutes a day. Of India’s 670 million internet users, a significant percentage live in rural areas, which saw a surge in demand for local language content.

As India’s premier social media platform, ShareChat saw significant engagement from its 60 million monthly active users (MAU) during the lockdown. The platform now has surpassed 120 million MAU post the government banning 59 Chinese apps in the last week of June.

ShareChat was founded by Ankush Sachdeva (co-founder and Chief Executive Officer), Farid Ahsan (co-founder and Chief Operating Officer), and Bhanu Pratap Singh (co-founder and Chief Technical Officer), in 2015.

In a recent conversation with YourStory, Bhanu spoke about content consumption during COVID-19, how they are reaching out to the country’s vernacular audience and their recent transition to Google Cloud.

Read the Full Story on YourStory

When we launched Partner Advantage, we committed to making it predictable and easy for partners to drive business with us. Since launch, those commitments have been validated by channel experts like CRN, which gave Partner Advantage a 5-Star award for 2022, and by the fact that our partners have seen impressive growth* across virtually every facet of their business.

I am pleased to announce that our commitments endure today with the launch of Consumption Packs for Deal Acceleration Funds and Partner Services Funds (DAF and PSF for partners). Inspired by partner feedback, these new packages are designed to accelerate all stages of a customer’s journey to the cloud, and make it even easier and faster for partners to do business with us.

Consumption Packs are purpose-built so that partners can plan and initiate customer projects much more quickly, with predictable funding. They include assets and templates that allow partners to deliver Google Cloud designed and validated infrastructure, application migration and modernization plans to customers faster than ever–particularly for customers beginning their journey to the cloud. Based on learnings gathered from thousands of customer deployments, these turnkey packs have been designed by our partners and Google Cloud Partner Engineering and Professional Services’ teams.

Here’s a brief look at Consumption Packs in action:

• Consumption Packs offer pre-approved, curated templates and assets to simplify and shorten the process for most common projects.
• For Deal Acceleration Funds (DAF), packages include everything partners need to conduct assessments, workshops and proofs-of-concept so they can quickly meet customers where they are on their journey to the cloud.
• For Partner Services Funds (PSF), packages are structured so that partners can develop cloud ready foundation and migration plans that align with Google Cloud priority solution areas.
• Packages have pre-determined funding levels to enable faster deployments.

Partners still have the option to engage with Google Cloud Partner Advantage and their customers through customized requests, as they always have. This is ideally suited for projects that require a tailored approach to meet unique customer requirements.

We are launching nine consumption packs today focused on key enterprise workloads, with a vision toward introducing additional packages to cover more solutions. Partners can explore Consumption Packs now by visiting the Partner Advantage portal.

We welcome your continued feedback and suggestions, and look forward to helping our customers achieve new levels of growth and success, together.

See you in the cloud.

• The Google Cloud Business Opportunity For Partners, a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ study conducted by Forrester Consulting, October 2021