René Bonvanie is Senior Vice President and General Manager, AppExchange and Developer Marketing at Salesforce.com. Rene has responsibility for the marketing and strategic direction of the AppExchange on-demand platform and developer marketing through the ApppExchange Developer Network. AppExchange is a novel new business strategy which allows SalesForce to develop symbiotic relationships with established and emerging
Om stayed with Forbes for several years, helping it become an established online venue. He then left to join a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley amidst the madness of the late Dotcom era. SM: At Forbes, for the first time you were working in an American professional environment, right? OM: Yes. This was more
One of the seminal moments in Om’s evolution has been his stint at Forbes.com, which at the time, intersected with the infancy era of online media. SM: How did you get involved with Forbes? OM: Forbes had a piece on ARPANET which had a really profound impact on me. From there I kept building. Forbes
Om is largely a self-taught guy, with little formal journalism school style training. But he has great instincts as a reporter, which he has always used to his advantage. What you read below is a remarkable story of having, simply put, “fire in the belly”. SM: How did you manage to pull off the transition
SM: Who financed the company at the very beginning? VJ: Ammar Hanafi @ Alloy Ventures seed funded in Feb 2006. SM: Did you raise Angel money? How much? From whom? VJ: Three founders bootstrapped the company with $150K cash. SM: Did you raise Venture money? How much? From whom? VJ: Total $3.9M venture money raised
Om discusses his first brush with the Internet. And we talk some philosophy. SM: What year was this? OM: It was 1992. SM: It was before the Internet bubble had started. OM: That was one of the things that crystallized things for me. While I was in London I had acquired a laptop and signed
SM: How big is the market for what you have to offer? (TAM analysis is essentially what I am looking for here … ) VJ: $1B-$1.5B. Assume a conservative $25B online spending out of a total of $150B CE spending in the US. Assume 4%-5% of the total online spend in referral. TAM is much
Journalism is not the typical career path selected by young Indians in middle class families. However, Om made a choice and followed his passion. SM: What was the first significant journalism job you had, something you consider a milestone? OM: I don’t think there has been anything that significant. I have been going through an