Name: Behind the Cloud
Rating: 4.3 (54 reviews)
Author: Marc R. Benioff and Carlye Adler

What’s in it for me? Discover how to turn your business into a multi-million-dollar company and change an entire industry.

Every year millions of companies are started around the world. The majority fail within a few years. Multi-billion-dollar powerhouse Salesforce.com is truly one of the exceptions. So what makes them different?

All success stories begin with an idea you truly believe in and the courage to go your own way when venture capitalists give you the cold shoulder and markets are in uproar.

But how do you give that fledgling idea wings? By clearly differentiating yourself from others, putting the customer at the heart of your business, and by not being afraid to pick on the big dogs, you can not only pave the way to success, you can also change an entire industry.

In these blinks you’ll learn

how Salesforce.com put an end to the software era;
why standing out from the crowd is so important; and
how you become big in Japan.

Stick to your idea and think big if you want to build a fast-growing company.

Even the biggest companies in the world start off as mere ideas. But if everyone could snap their fingers and manifest those ideas, the world would be teeming with entrepreneurs. So what is it that made Marc Benioff and Salesforce.com so massively successful?

Let’s start with this tip from Benioff: when you notice an idea’s potential, don’t be intimidated by it, even if it means going at it alone.

The idea for Salesforce.com wasn’t the culmination of an arduous journey to seek out a grand new business concept. Benioff was on sabbatical after over ten years as vice president of Oracle when he got his inspiration while swimming with dolphins in Hawaii.

Around this time, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) company Siebel Systems went public with a software solution that enabled salespeople to track leads, account information and manage contacts. However, it was expensive, flawed and high-maintenance, like many other similar solutions at the time.

Benioff noted the concept and thought he could improve the software using a “Software-as-a-Service” approach, specifically through a cloud computing model, so he contacted founder Tom Siebel about his idea. However, although supportive, Siebel didn’t think it would win over a significant part of the market.

But Benioff stuck to his vision and decided to go at it alone. He knew he had to think big. To draw in the best engineers for his new company, he marketed his vision as “the end of software business and technology models.” He knew that this benchmark would intrigue any skilled developer.

By March 1999, he had employed three highly experienced application developers who worked with him in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco and by that summer, Benioff had ten employees and was out-growing the apartment. To accommodate his promising company, he decided to rent an 8,000 square-foot office space at the Rincon Center.

Advertise your product aggressively from the beginning.

Marketing: it’s the number one way to garner attention when you’re still a growing company. If you want to see the same kind of success as Salesforce.com, you must assert yourself either against the market leader or as the new market leader from the very start.

The first thing you must figure out is how you can show the public that you are unique.

It’s essential to put the customer at the heart of your business.

Dealing in enterprise software during the 1990s meant tailored presentations, multiple negotiations and months of expensive work. But as the internet era dawned, Salesforce.com found a far better way to deliver and improve their product: they recognized that the customers themselves should be able to evaluate it.

Benioff understood that potential customers wanted to be hands-on with the software before they signed anything. So he started giving away free trials over the internet, which meant customers could try it without talking to a salesperson. This isn’t unusual today, but in 1999 it certainly wasn’t standard industry practice.

When it comes to capital and finance, combine thinking outside the box with sensible accounting.

Getting sufficient funds together is one of the most stressful and draining parts of setting up a business. Unfortunately, even if you’re a passionate entrepreneur, the passion alone is not enough to support your new business financially.

Thankfully, though, start-up capital is often closer at hand than you might think.

Key ideas in Behind the Cloud

What is Behind the Cloud about?

Behind the Cloud (2009) details the rise of Salesforce.com from a one-room apartment start-up to a prosperous global company. Using often unconventional methods, Marc Benioff – the founder and CEO of Salesforce.com – steered his company through financial problems and the dot-com bubble burst, and came out on top.

About the Author

Marc Benioff is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com. He has written three books on business and is currently a board member of Cisco Systems. He’s also a committed philanthropist who’s donated hundreds of millions of dollars to good causes.

Carlye Adler is an award-winning journalist and a bestselling writer. She has been published in Newsweek, TIME and Wired and has co-authored many successful business and leadership books such as The Promise of a Pencil with Adam Braun and The Hard Thing about Hard Things with Ben Horowitz.