The Power of High-Level Relationships and Overcoming Challenges

Name: The Power of High-Level Relationships and Overcoming Challenges
Uploaded: 2023-09-08T14:30:01+00:00
Duration: 52 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: In this segment, Jason M. Lemkin recounts how Salesforce chose to partner with DocuSign over his own company despite the latter having ten times more…

8 Sept 2023 · 1 min

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In this segment, Jason M. Lemkin recounts how Salesforce chose to partner with DocuSign over his own company despite the latter having ten times more customers and a thousand five‑star reviews. The decisive factor was a close personal relationship between Salesforce’s CEO and CRO, highlighting the outsized influence of high‑level executive connections. Lemkin describes the recommendation of DocuSign as a “huge blow” that contributed to his company’s eventual decision to sell. Nevertheless, he emphasizes that the setback did not halt the business’s momentum, as they subsequently secured major customers such as Facebook, Google, Yelp, and Twitter.

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but we did not have a, a deep relationship with Salesforce. And I remember when Salesforce told us that they were gonna partner with DocuSign, despite us having 10 times more customers at the time on the partner, despite us having 1,000 5-star reviews, they were gonna partner with DocuSign. And, and the specific reason was very interesting, which was that, uh, the CEO was very close to the CRO at the time, which is a reminder of the power of those high-level relationships sometimes to think all of a sudden, the, the game was no longer gonna be equal, that we were, that we were gonna be competing with our partner, that they were gonna recommend DocuSign over us was a huge body blow that maybe in some ways led to us deciding to sell. Um, but you know what? And it was a real blow and they really did recommend us and it really did hurt us, but you know what? It didn't really stop anything after that happened. We still closed Facebook. We closed Google. We closed Yelp. We closed Twitter. Okay.