Case study · Oracle
Building a startup client enrollment pipeline
Spotting future gems in the startup ecosystem and forging relationships early is hard work. Beyond the product, you have to assess the team and examine the technology, in a scene that never stops moving, where founders are overwhelmed and every vendor is competing for their attention.
The client
Oracle is one of the world's leading enterprise software providers. Founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, CA, it offers cloud computing services alongside enterprise tools such as CRM and ERP delivered as software as a service. The company launched NetSuite for Startups, adapting its ERP system to the volatility, cost sensitivity and pace of early-stage operations.
The challenge
NetSuite for Startups targets a narrow group of early-stage companies that have reached a level of maturity: stable enough to benefit from NetSuite, with a real user or client base, a market large enough to support growth, and the potential to become a future NetSuite customer. Reaching exactly that group was the problem.
Approach & build
To filter for startups that met Oracle's criteria, FormulatedBy leveraged the community behind Data Science Salon. Adding a Startup Showcase to the Data Science Salon Austin event created a natural mechanism to gather applications, evaluate them against Oracle's requirements, and use the momentum around the event to orchestrate introductions between Oracle and emerging companies.
The result was a comprehensive, end-to-end pipeline for enrolling new startups in the NetSuite for Startups offering: sourcing, qualification, connection and handoff in one flow.
“FormulatedBy proved to be a strategic and reliable partner that provided an unparalleled support in building the NetSuite offering for startups. We appreciate their professional, easy-going and always-helpful approach. Their impressive ability to reach even the most narrow and hard-to-connect groups is impressive, and massively boosted the NetSuite for Startups project.”
Outcome
FormulatedBy successfully reached a focused group of startups that met the criteria for NetSuite for Startups. The approach proved effective enough that Oracle extended it beyond the Austin edition to all other Data Science Salon events.
Why it worked
An ICP this narrow needs a filter, not a funnel.
The showcase format did the qualifying work in public: founders opted in, submitted real detail, and arrived pre-motivated. Today we would wire the same pattern with AI-assisted research and automated scoring on top.
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