Behind the Cloud audiobook cover - The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company and Revolutionized an Industry

Behind the Cloud

The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company and Revolutionized an Industry

Marc R. Benioff and Carlye Adler

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Career & SuccessHistoryEntrepreneurship

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Behind the Cloud
Vision & Product Strategy+
Marketing & Positioning+
Events & Sales Tactics+
Customer Centricity & Survival+
Global Expansion+
Finance & Growth+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 7
How did Marc Benioff position his vision for Salesforce.com to attract top-tier engineers?
  • A. As a highly exclusive, premium CRM tool for Fortune 500 executives
  • B. As an open-source community project funded by venture capitalists
  • C. As a cheaper alternative to Oracle's database management systems
  • D. As 'the end of software business and technology models'
Question 2 of 7
What unconventional marketing tactic did Salesforce.com use to generate buzz and challenge their main competitor, Siebel Systems?
  • A. They paid actors to pretend to be protesters waving 'no software' signs at a Siebel conference
  • B. They bought out Siebel Systems' primary advertising agency to halt their campaigns
  • C. They launched a massive Super Bowl television commercial mocking Siebel's software
  • D. They hacked into Siebel's website to display the Salesforce 'no software' logo
Question 3 of 7
Why did Salesforce.com shift their focus toward hosting 'City Tours' and cocktail parties instead of traditional product demos?
  • A. To target high-level executives who controlled the corporate software budgets
  • B. To secretly recruit talented developers from local competing tech companies
  • C. To cater to end-users and leverage customer testimonies and word-of-mouth
  • D. To satisfy the strict marketing requirements set by their venture capitalist backers
Question 4 of 7
How did Salesforce.com solve its critical cash flow problems when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001?
  • A. They transitioned their customers from a monthly to a yearly billing plan
  • B. They secured an emergency bailout from major venture capital firms
  • C. They laid off 50 percent of their workforce to cut operational costs
  • D. They sold their proprietary 'multitenancy' technology to Oracle
Question 5 of 7
What is the 'multitenancy' model that Salesforce.com utilized for its software?
  • A. A pricing model where companies pay based on the number of office locations they operate
  • B. A system where multiple users share the same servers and costs, but maintain private access to their own customized data
  • C. A software architecture that requires each client to host the platform on their own internal company servers
  • D. A hiring practice where developers are rotated between different tech companies to share industry knowledge
Question 6 of 7
How did Salesforce.com adapt its sales approach to successfully penetrate the cautious Japanese market?
  • A. By heavily discounting their software to undercut local Japanese competitors
  • B. By completely redesigning the software's code to be exclusive to Japanese business regulations
  • C. By hiring aggressive local salespeople to implement their American 'protester' marketing tactics
  • D. By referencing familiar, successful foreign companies like Google and Amazon to build trust
Question 7 of 7
When venture capitalists rejected the 'no software' model, how did Marc Benioff successfully fund Salesforce.com's early growth?
  • A. He raised $65 million over five rounds from his family and friends
  • B. He crowdfunded the startup using early internet forums
  • C. He took out massive high-interest corporate loans from traditional banks
  • D. He sold his previous company to Oracle to self-fund the entire project

Behind the Cloud — Full Chapter Overview

Behind the Cloud Summary & Overview

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.

Who Should Listen to Behind the Cloud?

  • Business owners
  • Salesforce.com users
  • Rising entrepreneurs

About the Author: Marc R. Benioff and Carlye Adler

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.

 

© Marc Benioff, Carlye Adler: Behind the Cloud copyright 2009, John Wiley & Sons Inc. Used by permission of John Wiley & Sons Inc. and shall not be made available to any unauthorized third parties.

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