“We are filling partners' pockets with opportunities”: Verkada head of channel ANZ on how they stand out from competitors

Jesse Casellini discusses how the 100 percent channel brand works with Aussie partners.

AI-based physical security company Verkada is 100 percent channel and according to Jesse Casellini, head of channel ANZ they are “filling partner’s pockets with opportunities”.

Comparing Verkada to its competitors Casellini believes the biggest differentiator is the use of the channel.

Speaking to CRN Australia at the VerkadaOne event in Sydney, Casellini said every dollar they make “runs through the channel”.

“Whether we find it or they bring it to us,” he said.

“Of course, if they bring it to us, it's running through them. But every opportunity we find, we bring to a partner.”

For Verkada, they don’t have a specific, singular partner in mind, Casellini said they need two different types of partners.

“You have your IT reseller, and then you have your security integrator,” he said.

“We need to fill both of those buckets, the beauty of physical security is it's on every building in the world. It's on the mom and pop laundromat, and they need one or two cameras, and it's on your 50 story building on every floor.”

Because of this, Casellini said they need a “wide array of partners to service the wide array of customers that exist”.

“In general, we want fast moving partners. We are a very fast moving, innovative company. We want partners that are willing to do the same thing,” he said.

“Historically, physical security is relatively slow moving, and again, we're the disruptor in the space, and we want to find people that want to innovate with us and grow.”

One of the differentiators between Verkada and its competition, is its sales team, according to Casellini.

“We have one of the biggest sales teams in the industry finding end customer opportunities and feeding partners,” he said.

“We want essentially like a 5050 relationship, if I bring you $1 you're going to bring me $1 and that is huge for partners that want to grow and innovate.”

A challenge they face in the Aussie market is a lack of brand recognition.

“We still don't have a lot of brand recognition in this region, the partners know us relatively well, but the end customer doesn't,” he said.

“There aren't people sitting in a room like this saying we need to improve physical security at our business, ‘call Verkada’. They're saying, ‘call the guy we bought security from last night’.

"If we don't have this big sales team trying to go and find those opportunities, they may not suggest us.”

AI tailwinds

Every company in the world right now is either looking at a tailwind or a headwind when it comes to AI and for Verkada, they see it as a tailwind.

Casellini said AI is a part of the company’s DNA.

"We've been built around machine learning, large language models, and things like that from the beginning It is certainly a tailwind for us,” he said.

According to Casellini, Verkada has had AI baked into its products since day one, which he said gives them an advantage over their competition.

“The gap between us and our competition is getting wider,” he stated.

“With the prevalence of AI in the market today, most people naturally would assume that gap is getting smaller. It's the opposite.

“What we see is AI will probably end up eating up a lot of the lower hanging fruit first, which will make it even harder for our competition to catch up to us.”