Category Archives: Social Change

Salesforce’s biggest threat has only 8 workers in Silicon Valley

And 600 in India.

Read this phenomenal story in Forbes about Sridhar Vembu, the Founder and Chief Executive of AdventNet, the company behind powerful startup Zoho.

Zoho, a productivity suite for personal consumers and enterprises a like, provides everything a typical Microsoft Office package does — for free. Free for individuals, and at a low cost for enterprises. It’s Customer Relationship management is $10/ user/ month in comparison with more popular web-based SalesForce, which charges users $65/user/month for the enterprise edition.

To be fair, the statistics the Forbes article are only partly true, SalesForce offers cheaper packages for its thriftier (and smaller) customers. For example, I set up SalesForce for my company (the 2000 version of ACT just wasn’t cutting it for our 2000+ customer database) for a mere $600 for one year with five user accounts.

That is $10/user/ month to save you from doing the math.

Apparently, Marc Benioff, SalesForce’s CEO, is so afraid (or envious of Zoho’s low costs) that he made a private offer to Vembu, which was turned down.

And to top it off, Sequoia’s Mike Moritz is breathing down his back.

At $1 million profit per month, who can blame them

And with a work force of 600 in India working at affordable living wages (and as the dollar declines it only gets better for them).

I won’t lie, I didn’t get Zoho when I analyzed the different products because the interface is horrible, and my boss is not to technologically-savvy, to say the least.

Some famous bloggers go on the defense when anyone attacks the Silicon Valley culture, but hey, apparently you can start a profitable business from outside the valley after all.

And for those who care about “social entrepreneurship,” Vembu’s bold strategy of hiring high-school grads from poor families seems to be working out.

Not only that, in India Vembu’s operation does not hire engineers with highflying degrees from one of the prestigious India Institutes of Technology, thereby squeezing his cost advantage.

“We hire young professionals whom others disregard,” Vembu says. “We don’t look at colleges, degrees or grades. Not everyone in India comes from a socio-economic background to get the opportunity to go to a top-ranking engineering school, but many are really smart regardless.

“We even go to poor high schools, and hire those kids who are bright but are not going to college due to pressure to start making money right away,” Vembu continues. “They need to support their families. We train them, and in nine months, they produce at the level of college grads. Their resumes are not as marketable, but I tell you, these kids can code just as well as the rest. Often, better.”

An awesome treat to begin this fine Sunday.

Oh, and the article’s author — you might want to add her blog to your reader.

The Loftiest poetry won’t change anything…

I saw a great quote today in an LA times op-ed piece, written by three of RFK’s kids, supporting HRC whilst speaking on some pertinent issues in this country, stating “the loftiest poetry won’t solve these issues.

Well the loftiest politics won’t change this country either.

While I admonish all the Presidential candidates for their lofty aspirations and goals to change this country, and put us back on the right path, the whole Presidential race underscores one key thought: Americans put way too much stock in politics as the vessel for change.

How many of my friends have I seen supporting Senators Obama or R. Paul because they feel those two, for their respective parties, represent new ideas and change.

Hmm, I’ve been to some of the poorest areas in the world, and in fact I’m writing this from the poorest city in the United States, and I haven’t seen a positive effect from politics improving the plight of the people that inhabit these hope-forsaken blots on a map.

We need to understand one thing: if change is coming, it is a change in the hearts and minds of the people, not to go out to the ballot box and put their 50 cents in to decide who should be President of the “greatest nation” on the face of the planet.

Change comes from each and every one of us — it is within us, the power to change — by changing the way we think, by changing the way we speak, and by changing the way we DO.

Another great op-ed by Nicolas Kristof in the NYT, citing how the number one issue in Evangelical America is fighting poverty (distantly followed by abortion and thirdly fighting genocide.) Kristof also wrote a great article about this same issue: how politics aren’t necessarily the vessel for change.

This shift in thought could be the thing that finally unites this country — the desire for social change.

I once read that this society works in cycles — 30 years of a “me” focus, followed by 15 years of a “we” and “us” focus.

Well, if you haven’t noticed the “green” revolution, outcry for an environment that has become “inconvenient,” or the push for sponsoring businessmen and women in other countries (read: kiva.org), than you must have been in hiding for the last 5 years.

Change is here, and I’ll tell you what, if you’re looking at politics — you’ve got your eyes set on the right thing, and it’s time to “get your mind right.”

I just read a recent article in which it infers that the Director of Ashoka , an organization that supports social entrepreneurs, believes “such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry.”

Revolutionize the fishing industry indeed.

Now that’s change I can believe in.