Salesforce.com: I missed an opportunity

Salesforce.com is heading toward an IPO. You have no idea how much I kick myself in the ass everytime I hear about their success.

When the company was founded in 1999, we were considering the implementation of a similar system at Penton Media. By “we” I mean the corporate Internet development group, of which I was not a part of but worked closely with from my business unit. I think the idea was at one time pitched to the execs, but they didn't get it. To us it was obvious... the ability to consolidate CRM across the entire company and identify overlap between customers and the markets we covered via magazines and trade shows. It was an even harder sell I suppose because of all the little “kingdoms” in the company.

Outside of work, I was looking at the crappy contact managers and some of the other software being used at the time to manage customer contact, and it all sucked. A Web-based app seemed like a really good idea at the time, even though Web-based apps were not thought to be a very good idea by the general population.

I didn't have the programming skills at the time, and probably still didn't for another two years or so, but what I would have given to thought of the idea and got something to market first. I signed up for a demo account at Salesforce.com, and I was only partially impressed. Overall, yes, it's a good system with a ton of features. However, I think the UI absolutely sucks.

Salesforce.com pretty much owns that Web-based CRM market, but it can't last. At $65 per user, it's kind of steep. Someone can do better. I certainly have the resources and partners to develop such a system in a relatively short amount of time (.NET, of course!), but I certainly don't have the sales and marketing to sell it.

9 Comments

  • Build it and they will come. Just put a .NET logo on your marketing material and its sure to sell ;-)

  • Salesforce.com might be the leader now, but other rivals are catching up and quickly. Check our Netsuite, Salesboom.com and RightNow.

  • Saleforce sucks, I tried uploading a csv file 5 fnucking times, which didn't work, then emailed after calling to their support, who then never even bothered to reply the twat. Wasted my time on this. Also the User Interface is terrible. They need to hire some UI designers.

  • Just stumbled on this post looking for alternatives to salesforce.com. In my opinion, nothing more than an online ACT application that they're trying to retrofit with bells and whistles. One of the frustrating aspects is 3rd party apps that are cobbled onto platform and the confusing steps end users have to go through - awkard syncs to leads, opportunity or account - features that should have been part of the software in the first place.

  • Try Highrise from 37signals.

  • for us all we need is a contact manager, and have custom fields in the companany detail page, and act works well, and they just came out with ACT! for web, so you can get a 3rd party to host your act dbase and access thru a browser.

    siebal, MS dynamics, and the other don't give us the ability to access client or lead notes quickly and at a glance. in salesforce you have to put your notes in a subject line just to be able to see them quickly, not a great solution.

  • Salesforce.com is really a sales-driven company, not a technology driven one. So, even if you built the technology, you probably wouldn't have had the same sales success as Salesforce.com.

    The hard part wasn't building the software; it was going into Fortune 500 accounts, pitching the service and winning the account. That's what Salesforce.com did right.

  • I can tell you from a sys admin user of Salesforce, they suck. And being a "sales-driven" company as opposed to a technology driven one may seem good for short-sighted investors, but clients will get sick and tired of being lied to and suffering thru SalesForce's buggy software. They over promise and undeliver. They are not a Google that doesn't need any tech support. Their service sucks, and people will start finding other alternatives that aren't that much more than SalesForce costs now. And it will be well worth the conversion costs.

  • I agree. Sales Force is horrible. We had some many problems with them and no one was able to respond to our emails even. They are croocks, the way they prepare their agreement is to take advantage of their clients.The worse experience ever.

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