Databricks Sells to Dozens of Industries Without Building a Single Vertical Product — 'Industry Imperatives' Replace Personas
SaaStr·medium signal
SaaStr AI Annual session reveals Databricks' GTM strategy: instead of building vertical-specific products, they use 'Industry Imperatives' — understanding strategic priorities per industry — to sell horizontally. Each vertical gets 2-3 focused pods aligned with top 10 named accounts. This framework replaced traditional personas and ICP as their core go-to-market strategy. For builders, this is a playbook for selling AI infrastructure horizontally without the cost of vertical product development.