You know what a CRM is. Now meet the one this course is about: Salesforce. Where did it come from, and how did it grow into what it is today?
How Salesforce started
In March 1999, Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez and Dave Moellenhoff started Salesforce in a small San Francisco apartment. The idea: a CRM delivered over the internet, with nothing to install.
In February 2000, Salesforce launched with an event themed "The End of Software". Not because software was going away, but because you'd no longer install it yourself.
How Salesforce grew
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2005 | AppExchange, a store for apps that work with Salesforce |
| 2008 | Force.com, a platform to build your own apps |
| 2009 | Service Cloud |
| 2014 | Trailhead, the free way to learn Salesforce |
| 2016 | Einstein AI |
| 2021 | Salesforce completes its purchase of Slack |
| 2024 | Agentforce, AI agents that do work for you |
It grew from one app into a whole platform.
Salesforce today
Today, Salesforce covers sales, service, marketing and more, with a platform to build on and AI built in. But you still open it the same way as in 2000: you log in through your browser.
Words from this lesson
Tap a value to copy it
- AppExchange
- Trailhead
- Agentforce
Recap
- Salesforce started in 1999 as a CRM delivered over the internet.
- It added apps, a platform, Trailhead and AI along the way.
- Today, you still open it in your browser.
Now you try
Which milestone surprised you the most? Tell us in the video's comments.