I Spent 30+ Days Studying A Programmer Who Built a $230 B Company After Quitting His 9-5 — Here Are His Weird Rules To Build a Startup

Until 1999, Marc Benioff had been with Oracle for more than 10 years.

He had a lucrative salary and addictive stock options.

But since 1996, he wanted to do something of his own. For the last 3 years, he has been thinking about getting out of corporate life.

A sabbatical from work and a trip to India helped him gain mental clarity. He realised that he wanted to build a business through which he could give back to the world.

In 1999, he started his company Salesforce.com.

By 2009, he drove Salesforce’s revenue to over $1 billion.

In the past, I’ve spent over 30 days exploring his journey to build Salesforce.

Here are some of the startup lessons I learnt from him.

1. Position yourself as a revolutionary; People love to buy products from someone who is revolutionary.
2. Even if the person you admire misjudges your worth, continue to believe in yourself.
3. Act confident, even when you’re not.
4. Provide a platform for your customer to share their insights regarding your product.
5. If your software could help companies increase productivity or sales by 4–5%, your product is worth a billion dollars.
6. You never know how someone else who listens to your ideas might help you.
7. Don’t be afraid to take time off when you need it.
8. Think big even if you are still small.
9. Leveraging the success of your customers should be one of your marketing plans.
10. With high-ticket products, you need to give a free trial. A free trial will help you plant a seed in the customer's mind.
11. In the B2B segment, don’t try to capture the entire company at once. Start with just a small division.
12. If you going to call a customer, call them with a plan.
13. An attractive and unique website will be 100 times more effective than a direct marketing campaign.

In this short ebook, I have discussed seventeen of his weird strategies in detail.

I also discussed how you can utilize his strategies to build your startup.

Here are some of the reviews for this content I have published earlier on other sites.