Salesforce-Public-Sector-Solutions-Accredited-Professional certification - Salesforce Public Sector Solutions Accredited Professional Updated: 2024

The Best Salesforce Certification Courses

Salesforce Certification Courses for Beginners

1. The Complete Salesforce Classic Administrator by Udemy

2. Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential by Trailhead 

3. Formula Fundamentals in Salesforce by PluralSight 

4. Cert Prep: Salesforce Certified Administration by LinkedIn Learning (Formerly Lynda.com)

5. Salesforce Platform App Builder Certification Course by Udemy

6. Prepare for Your Salesforce Platform App Builder Credential by Trailhead

Advanced Salesforce Certification Courses

7. Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator- Part 1 by Udemy 

8. Salesforce Sales Cloud Consultant Certification by Udemy

9. Salesforce Service Cloud Consultant Certification Course by Udemy

What Makes a Great Salesforce Certification Course?

Taught by an Experienced Salesforce Trainer

Interactive and Includes Resources 

Self-Paced

Choose the Right Salesforce Certification Course

Frequently Asked Questions

Thesis

Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) has grown past sales automation to become a top provider in CRM, which is one of the biggest and fastest-growing areas in enterprise software markets. Salesforce stands out from the rest because it was one of the first companies to use cloud computing. It has also become a true multi-product success story by riding on the shoulders of several large and growing products. I think that the company will continue to grow in a healthy way and that new products like Integration Cloud and Analytics will create good cross-selling possibilities. Moreover, the stock is trading at a discounted multiple to its historical average, which I believe provides a good buying opportunity. Hence, I assign a buy rating to the stock.

Q3 Review and Outlook

Salesforce posted strong results for the third quarter, posting both top- and bottom-line beats. CRM posted slightly higher than expected revenue growth (11.3% vs. 11.2% expected) and much better than expected in terms of cRPO growth (14.4% reported vs. 10.9% expected). The company posted an operating profit of 31.2%, which led to an EPS beat for the quarter.

The management's forward guidance for Q4 was in the range of $9.18 billion and $9.23 billion. Moreover, the company expects to post revenues in the range of $34.75 billion to $34.8 billion in FY2024, expecting an increase of 11% YoY. The adjusted operating margin is expected to be 30.5% for the year and the operating cash flow growth has been raised to 30-33% for the year. Hence, I believe the management continues to be confident in the demand environment even though the macro environment currently remains unstable. This confidence can be attributed to the company's vast product portfolio and healthy demand for its recently launched products like the Einstein 1 platform.

Growth Potential Still There Despite Large Scale

CRM is the biggest player in the public-cloud customer service market (over six times bigger than its closest competitor, Oracle). The company has grown faster than the overall market over the past few years, and I expect this trend to continue in the near term. In most industries, customer service is quickly becoming the thing that sets one business apart from another. This is especially true as more and more deals happen online. Salesforce has one of the most complete product lines in this segment, and it is especially useful for online stores that sell goods through many channels. Moreover, the company has continued to innovate and integrate AI into its product portfolio, which will keep pushing revenue growth in the medium term. The company has started to see the benefits of its focus on AI over the past year, with 17% of the Fortune 100 now being Einstein GPT Copilot users. It's only been a few months since this feature was made available, so this early interest gives an idea of the potential of the product.

Owing to the need for clean and organised data for this new feature and the company's strong multi-cloud sales momentum, CRM should have a big chance to cross-sell more, especially Mulesoft and Data Cloud. The business has already seen this start to happen; Data Cloud was a part of six of the top ten deals in the previous quarter.

Financial Outlook & Valuation

Although sales growth has remained in-line with expectations, Salesforce has made profitability gains consistently, and I expect the company's margins to continue to Strengthen going forward in 2024. The management's success in improving margins provides some relief to the company as it looks to spark sales growth, which has been affected by macro headwinds. I expect a rebound next year, combined with margin expansion, that would continue to drive solid earnings growth in the near-term. For 2024, hiring will probably be slow, and companies will continue to try to keep sales and marketing costs low. Because of this shift in focus on profit, I believe there won't be any big acquisitions in the near future.

Salesforce has traded at a relative discount to other mega-cap software names, which I view as somewhat warranted, given the lower margin profile and execution risks. However, the stock is currently trading below its five-year average EV/Sales multiple of 7x (as per Capital IQ). CRM's comp group companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Oracle have been successful in posting non-GAAP operating margins of over 40%, and I believe with CRM's M&A strategy now on hold, the company can also continue to Strengthen its margins to that level. I believe that will cause the multiple to re-rate upwards towards its comp group. Hence, I am positive on the stock and assign a buy rating to the stock.

Risks

Salesforce's growth in billings has slowed down over the past few quarters, which is keenly observed by investors. If the year-over-year billings' growth rate keeps slowing down, it could be bad for CRM stock. Moreover, Salesforce has continued to grow as a company, in part by taking business away from older companies like Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP. Even though competitors haven't yet gotten as much attention from investors as Salesforce has with its product portfolio, new products and offerings from legacy vendors can slow Salesforce's growth and market share, which will lead to a downside in the stock price.

Conclusion

Salesforce has become a true multi-product success story by riding on the shoulders of several large and growing products. The company is set to grow with its Integration Cloud and Analytics and has the potential to continue to Strengthen operating margins and move closer to the 40% range of its peers. The stock is currently trading at a discount to its five-year average, and I believe this provides a good buying opportunity. Hence, I assign a buy rating to the stock at current levels.

The salesforce services market is set to top US$ 13 Billion in 2022 and is predicted to expand at a stupendous CAGR of 14.4% to reach a valuation of US$ 33.5 Billion by 2029. Salesforce services currently account for a 2% share in the global IT services market. Market development is mainly forced by the increasing adoption of salesforce services in the BFSI industry.

As Salesforce services defy the ‘one-size-fits-all’ concept, service providers are offering end-to-end assistance to help end-users get services that are best suited to their requirements. With thousands of Salesforce implementations across multiple enterprises, the Salesforce service providers are extensively focusing on creating impactful experiences to generate substantial profits.

Opportunities galore for manufacturers with the increasing focus of businesses on improved customer engagement and interaction – key imperative driving growth and profitability amid competitive spaces.

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Some of the highly-effective Salesforce offerings- marketing cloud, commerce cloud, and community cloud to name a few- have gained immense popularity over the years, which is further nudging businesses to choose Salesforce services for long-term returns.

North America – A Hub of Opportunities for Service Providers:
According to the report, the increasing adoption of Salesforce services in the BFSI sector is likely to continue, making it one of the most lucrative verticals for Salesforce service vendors. Over the years, the focus of BFSI has shifted toward fruitful customer engagement in real-time and across any device. This, in turn, is pushing the demand for the adoption of Salesforce services in BFSI, thereby giving new opportunities for the Salesforce service vendors to reap profits.

Growth prospects for the Salesforce services, as the report opines, are high in North America, particularly in the US. In addition, the adoption of Salesforce services in Western Europe is estimated to intensify by the end of 2029, which is likely to encourage the vendors to solidify their service capabilities.

As far as growth and expansion are concerned, strategic business partnerships and acquisitions will continue to be the best way forward for vendors. Those alliances will lay the foundation for bespoke innovations to come to the fore, thereby creating a ‘win-win’ for both parties involved. Considering the challenges enterprises face in terms of Salesforce deployment, key service providers active in the market will continue to focus on offering unmatched support and assistance in a bid to ensure client satisfaction and engagement.

In addition, Salesforce service providers will also continue to center on getting ‘Salesforce service certifications’ to reap benefits in the long run, as these certifications will not only help them strengthen their core competencies but also expand their client bases.

Leading Key Players:
Since there are so many companies actively providing salesforce services, the nature of the market has become quite competitive. SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Salesforce.com Inc., Adobe Inc., DXC Technology, Accenture PLC, IBM Corporation, Pegasystems Inc., Verint Systems Inc., Tata Consultancy Services Limited, and AT&T Inc. are some of the leading salesforce service companies.

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Salesforce Services Market Segmentation:

By Type of Service:

• Planning
  • Advisory Services
  • Change Management
• Implementation
  • Integrated Services
  • Custom Application Development
  • Application Modernisation and Data Migration
  • Testing Services
• Manage
  • Monitoring
  • Upgrade
  • Governance
  • Helpdesk
  • Training
  • BPO

By Application:

• Sales Cloud
• Service Cloud
• Marketing Cloud
• App Cloud
• Commerce Cloud
• Analytics

By Vertical:

• Salesforce Services in BFSI
• Salesforce Services in Healthcare and Life Sciences
• Salesforce Services in Media and Telecom
• Salesforce Services in Retail and CPG
• Salesforce Services in Government
• Salesforce Services in Manufacturing
• Salesforce Services in High Technology
• Salesforce Services in Energy & Utilities

By Region:

• North America
• Latin America
• Europe
• East Asia
• South Asia & Pacific
• Middle East & Africa (MEA)

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Unless you’ve been asleep since the last Bush administration, you’re probably aware that employers are having a hard time finding qualified talent for jobs which demand tech skills. Qualified talent means having the requisite skills and – increasingly – relevant experience, which is turning the concept of an entry-level job into something of an oxymoron. The tech skills in question span way beyond coding. As the vast majority of good jobs now utilize software platforms for some or most functions, coding is the least of employers’ worries. Companies want talent that knows how to implement, integrate, configure, and run thousands of software platforms used to run 21^st century businesses.

As I’ve chronicled America’s skills and talent gap, I’ve focused on hot areas like cybersecurity and data science, new software platforms like Salesforce and Workday, and hundreds of other software-as-a-service companies providing digital functionality for specific industries or job functions e.g., finance hospitals (Epic), insurance agents (Applied Epic), home care (WellSky), construction (Procore), pharma (Veeva), sales and marketing (Hubspot), customer service (Zendesk), software development (Atlassian), low-code app development (Pega), cloud computing (AWS), and digital transformation itself (ServiceNow).

But Salesforce and Workday aren’t the most widely used software platforms – not even close. The platforms with the most users are enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like SAP and Oracle. One reason is that they’re much older; SAP and Oracle were founded in the 1970s. Another is that ERP systems were designed to handle the full suite of business functions, including accounting, budgeting, project management, and supply chain management. As a result, most large companies and organizations adopted ERP long before Salesforce was even a gleam in Marc Benioff’s eye; SAP has more than 425,000 clients across 180 countries – nearly 3x the number served by Salesforce.

SAP clients have always needed SAP certified talent on hand to maintain, adapt, and enhance their on-prem ERP platforms – SAP currently offers 145 certifications, many of which are specific to individual modules. But the need for SAP talent is growing dramatically due to a major shift. Due in part to companies like Salesforce, businesses now buy and consume software differently. Rather than installing and hosting on-prem instances, SAP is migrating clients to the cloud via its S/4HANA platform. The benefits to clients of running ERP in the cloud are many including scalability, feature availability, security, and cost savings. But migrating an entire ERP to the cloud is no small matter.

As SAP’s 2027 deadline for migrating legacy ERP systems to S/4HANA is fast approaching, clients have some major decisions to make. While S/4HANA works both on prem and in the cloud, the advantages of cloud adoption are steadily increasing, and clients who delay too long may face challenges with outdated infrastructure. So for most clients, the S/4HANA migration is synonymous with moving to the cloud.

All this requires talent. Back in 2020, a survey by the Americas SAP User Group found that only a fraction of SAP consultants were trained and prepared for the coming tsunami of S/4HANA work. SAP has since responded with the Partner Talent Initiative, offering training curricula 2-3-week-long free online bootcamps to SAP partners and aspiring consultants. But the talent gap is still massive. New research from the Americas SAP User Group found a 25% of users said the talent gap was holding up projects overall and 49% reported a lack of S/4HANA talent.

It's not only clients. According to the SAP User Group, the SAP talent gap is hitting SAP partners like systems integrators and consultancies at least as much as clients. As Geoff Scott, the CEO of the Americas SAP User Group told The Register:

We are going to feel the pinch of that skill gap. My word of caution is that as you think about moving to S/4 if you have not already, the ability for you to plan that migration may hit some turbulence related to skill gaps with your external partners. That's something that you absolutely positively should consider.

Thomas Michael, founder and CEO of Michael Management, a leading provider of SAP training, agrees:

According to our surveys of 1000s of SAP professionals, 4 out of 10 say they have not received enough SAP training to perform their job duties. This not only highlights a critical gap in professional development but also presents an opportunity for organizations to rethink their training strategies. The future of SAP lies in empowering professionals with the knowledge and tools they need to embark on the S/4HANA upgrade journey.

What are some options for closing the SAP talent gap? It’s unlikely that colleges and universities will come to the rescue. In an article a few years ago on Texas A&M’s effort to launch courses in cybersecurity, the Chronicle of Higher Education – American higher education’s paper of record – reached the following conclusion: “Work-force demand can lead some institutions to teach students the skills needed for today’s entry-level jobs. But those tools may well be obsolete five or ten years from now.” The implication – one that is absolutely in the mainstream of college and university thinking – is that updating curriculum to reflect near-term technology needs may not be a worthwhile pursuit because such needs will change. And even if colleges, universities, or – more likely – bootcamps did offer S/4HANA training, it wouldn’t do much to close the growing experience gap.

The most promising solution is one that delivers not only training but also experience. I’m talking about apprenticeship. Apprenticeships are jobs with built-in training and experience, allowing for the hiring of apprentices without either. As I discuss in my new book, Apprentice Nation, apprenticeships have the potential to close the talent gap across hundreds of sectors as well as to reinvigorate socioeconomic mobility. SAP is no exception.

If apprenticeships are the best solution for the SAP ecosystem, where will they come from? Don’t look at SAP clients. They’re unlikely to solve this problem themselves. In a reaction to the higher cost of bad hires and increased employee churn, employers are increasingly insisting on the perfectly qualified candidate. If job applicants don’t check all the boxes, they won’t be considered. Peter Cappelli of Wharton has observed this phenomenon: “Employers are demanding more of job candidates than ever before. They want prospective workers to be able to fill a role right away, without any training or ramp-up time. To get a job, you have to have that job already.”

My best guess is that new S/4HANA talent will come from one or more SAP partners that decide to get into the business of providing trained, proven talent to clients and other partners. By deploying newly trained talent on migration projects or directly to clients and partners via staff augmentation, enterprising SAP partners can stand out in a mature partner ecosystem, and in so doing, launch thousands of remunerative SAP careers.

Over the next few years, I expect to see SAP partners launching new initiatives to provide trained, proven S/4HANA talent to SAP partners and clients. With so many clients and partners in need of talent, the opportunity is far too vast to remain unfilled for very long.

I've written about ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) a couple of times, and I am continually impressed every time I revisit them. I first bought shares in 2018, with that lot up 280% from purchase. I've added to that position, and the company is in my kids' long-term portfolios. Among software companies, NOW ranks with Adobe (ADBE) and Salesforce (CRM) in relative safety while maintaining double-digit revenue growth. The strength of the company's growth combined with its wide-moat and financial stability commands a premium in the market.

The performance has been incredible, and the metrics look great, so what could go wrong?

What I am looking at is an ultimately inevitable growth cliff. When a company like NOW hits 85% of customer penetration in the Fortune 500, the next question is where the company goes next.

For one thing, as new software launches in generative AI bolster the company's offerings in areas like HR, customer service, and operations, upsell continues to be a strong suit for NOW. Typically, successful software as a service (SAAS) companies operate on a land-and-expand strategy, where the initial offering (in this case, IT services management) gets the foot in the door and the company continues to roll out and upsell.

Looking above, with a historical 97-99% retention rate for customers and high net revenue retention, early customer cohorts have continued to grow their subscriptions over time. This provides a nice tailwind to revenue growth to make up for any churn and smooth out new customer acquisition.

Looking over the past 10 years, though, revenue growth has slowed. It's inevitable, and as NOW has grown into a mega-cap, it's highly likely we see revenue growth rates continue to trend down slowly over the medium-to-long term.

However, accurate deal flow has remained impressive. The company reported in its most accurate quarter closing 83 deals with over $1M in annual contract value (ACV), with 14 of the top 20 deals including all 7 workflows (ITSM, ITOM, ITAM, security and risk, customer, employee, and creator). There's no stronger sign of a company's reputation than new customers' willingness to dive in on the whole stack. Additionally, the company closed 19 Federal deals >$1M in ACV with 3 of those over $10M including a deal with the Air Force ranking in as their third largest in company history. Although opportunities with the government aren't going to break open a company-altering growth avenue, churn is negligible with a 99% retention rate.

With that deal flow, subscription revenue growth came in at 24.5% yoy, with Federal growing 75%. Management discussed opportunities in industry-specific solutions like legal, finance, and procurement. I think industry-specific solutions are nice, but they also aren't going to set the world on fire for growth, considering the company's size at this juncture. However, internationally, the company generates around 26% of revenues in EMEA and 11% in APAC at this point, so strong traction outside the US is good to see for long-term growth. Some additional color from the earnings call:

You know, one thing that might be of interest to you is, in America, the number of 5 million-plus deals actually more than quadrupled year over year. And the number of 10 million-plus deals doubled year over year. And I think, as CJ laid out beautifully, technology and employee workflows were enormously successful. And in EMEA, our 1 million-plus deals grew 70% year over year, which means that the platform and multiple components of the solutions that are great engineering team builds is resonating.

And we're seeing particular uplift now in government and manufacturing. And one, you know, interesting fact, we have these world forums coming up in London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Rotterdam, and we have a billion-plus pipeline that's registered for those events. So, we feel good about that. And APJ, when you think about it, the 1 million-plus deals increased 40% year over year.

And Japan is continuing to impress us with the unprecedented opportunity of the world's third-largest economy, as -- Germany as well. So, we're seeing lots of real growth opportunities on the global stage, and I think Gina pointed that out earlier as well.

The company's incorporation of generative AI into its offerings is good to see for maintaining its edge going forward. All the talk about growth would be for naught if NOW's offerings lost their lead against the competition. The company's website has some good videos showing use cases, but it's about what you'd likely expect. Customers, employees, etc. are able to use a chat box (AI assistant) to accomplish tasks that may have required scrolling an FAQ page or talking to a live person before. Additionally, they are leveraging AI to auto-summarize tickets, articles, etc. which I think could have some pretty substantial productivity gains. Here's some discussion on AI from the earnings call:

What's unique about ServiceNow is digital transformation can deflect so many of the cost-intensive, labor-intensive procedures that companies have to deal with to properly serve their market. On top of that, you have one-third of the productivity of knowledge workers getting torn apart by swivel-sharing between, on average, 13 individual applications a day. Now, you add the productivity tailwind of generative AI on this once-in-a-generation ServiceNow platform and you have achieved a very important business transformation. And I think, right now, CEOs are focused on business transformation. And when you can provide them one common UX that is consumer grade that integrates with the half-a-century-old legacy mess that they have to contend with, and we can get the actions that they need done done done to achieve cost out productivity and the growth on, they're all about ServiceNow now. And that's why you're seeing these results, and they are sustainable.

All that is to say NOW continues to impress me. My main concern as the company branches out into customer service and HR is the specter of competition from other major software companies, notably CRM. I think NOW has proven itself capable of competing, but growth will not be as easy against entrenched SaaS-native operators as it was stealing share from the legacy offerings.

That being said, I don't see a growth cliff in the near term. Deal flow remains strong, and the company's new offerings continue to push out the TAM further and further.

Looking at valuations across the space, the high-growth cohort has ticked back up into the tail end of the year, but overall valuations are about average compared with the long-term averages. NOW falls into the mid-growth cohort (just shy of the 25% cutoff for this grouping).

Looking at the scatter plot of growth versus valuation (against sales) above NOW falls out above the mean, but deservedly so. For one thing, the company is actually profitable on a GAAP basis, which is not the norm. Looking at some comps, the company is growing way faster but is priced about the same as ADBE. It's also growing faster and priced about the same as PLTR and TEAM, as well. NOW's operating metrics against PLTR's aren't even comparable, but I'll leave you to draw whatever conclusions you want from that. Most of the companies residing below the curve are more speculative and less safe.

As far as profitability, NOW's GAAP operating margin is only at 8%. The company still spends 37% of its revenues on sales and marketing and 24% on R&D, which are aggressive but relatively in line with other SaaS companies. Its G&A expenses are at 10% of revenues against the median of 16%, which is a good sign of cost controls. However, stock-based compensation of 18% of revenues is still pretty substantial and shows the company is heavily investing in personnel to maintain its growth rates.

I'd anticipate there are many levers the company can pull to Strengthen profitability further once growth slows down, but ultimately the company is still trying to dominate as many areas as it can. I am happy to see management has a $1.2B share repurchase authorization in place to offset dilution for shareholders from SBC.

Earnings growth rates have been strong from a small base, and the company has historically traded for high-flying 100X earnings.

The concern with a company trading for such a lofty multiple is the ease with which it could compress. In the blink of an eye, the company could go from trading at 67X earnings today to 30X earnings, and some would still call the company expensive. This is a risk you'll have to swallow to invest in many of these types of companies, and it's a very real one. All it takes is a big enough speed bump in the company's growth rates or a bad outlook. However, at current projections, if the company maintains its current P/E ratio, earnings should grow at around a 20% per year clip.

In order to illustrate the valuation risk, if the company were to trade at 47X earnings in 2025, despite the incredible earnings growth rates, investors would get zero return out of the stock.

Despite that risk, NOW is a great growth story. I've got the company in all my portfolios, and I intend to continue holding it for the long term. The valuation has ticked up a little in the accurate past, but it's a buy with the long-term in mind.

Welcome to “How I Made My First Million,” Fortune’s latest series in which we interview today’s most powerful people about how they amassed their wealth. You’ll hear from founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and creatives across the globe on how they joined the seven-figure-club, what they’d do differently, and their best piece of advice for building wealth.

• Age: 39

• Career highlights: Create dating app The League and sold it to Match Group in 2022 for undisclosed amount a reported $30 million

• Approximate net worth: $10 million

• Age at first million: 37

• Prior debt: $200,000 from business school

Amanda Bradford has high standards.

When the 39-year-old was earning her MBA at Stanford, she found herself unenthused and let down by the current crop of dating apps, which she called “essentially a game of hot or not.” So, the computer science buff and Salesforce alum took matters into her hands; she reimagined the parameters of online dating by adding an extra emphasis on selectivity and an unmistakable air of prestige.

In 2014, in the heyday of the Silicon Valley startup boom, that app, The League, was born. It’s designed for “ambitious, high-achieving people who want a partner that's equally motivated,” she told Fortune—the very app she wanted for herself.

Bradford, who graduated with $200,000 of business school debt, has since built The League into a top-tier dating app. Last year, she sold it to the Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, for a reported $30 million. That sale made her a millionaire many times over; Bradford and her team netted more than $10 million from the sale, by Fortune's calculations. The first thing she spent it on was a down payment for a retirement community for her parents—and finally paying off her student loans.

“I definitely learned at a young age to work and work hard, and I really wanted to be able to make my own mark in the world,” she says. She talked to Fortune about what she learned working under Marc Benioff, what went into designing her app, how it made her millions, and her biggest splurge mistake. The biggest takeaway: “a bias towards action.” It’s how she approaches both dating and work.

The following transcript is lightly edited for clarity. 

Where did you grow up? What did your parents do?

I grew up in Silicon Valley; Austin, Texas; and North Carolina. My dad worked for IBM, also known as “I've Been Moved.” We moved around a lot. My mom worked part-time, but mostly raised the kids.

I was exposed to technology at a very young age. We were the first people on our block to have a computer, to use Prodigy, CompuServe ICQ, and AOL Instant Messenger. We had the Palm Pilot before everybody did, so I got to see the computer generation take off. And that was part of why I've always been interested in technology: I saw the benefits of social networking at a young age, and I could see how it could be relevant in the dating space.

What was it like, financially, growing up for you?

I worked really hard to get a scholarship to college [Editor’s note: Bradford says she got a full ride to Carnegie Mellon, where she studied computer science]. I did not have parents that would pay for my college, so they instilled in us a really good work ethic. I always had jobs in the summer and during the school year, so I definitely learned at a young age to work hard; I really wanted to be able to make my own mark in the world.

What was your very first job?

My first job where I actually got a paycheck was a lifeguard. You had to go through CPR training and do a lot of hours of classes, and then you had the best summer job ever.

My first entrepreneurial effort was selling friendship bracelets in third grade for very high prices. I would weave these very intricate designs, and my friends wanted them. I think I sold about five to 10 before I realized that it took so long to make them that it wasn't actually a very good business to be in. And so I retired.

My second entrepreneurial effort was selling mix CDs. It was back in the day of CD burners, so I bought a CD burner and would make all my friends mix CDs to play in our cars when we were 16.

I probably made a couple hundred bucks on it overall. In high school, that’s a lot. But again, it also took a long time. And this was back in the days of Napster, when we had to get the songs, and they take a really long time to download. Sometimes you'll go through the whole effort of putting it on a CD, only to find that one of them has mutated or is a corrupted file. So I decided not to make it a full-time business.

What was your very first professional job after college?

Working for Salesforce, which was in the era of the cloud where everything was going to the cloud and Salesforce was the pioneer there. I got front row seats to the whole software-as-a-service industry. Marc Benioff was an amazing CEO. I learned a lot just watching how he operates his business. From there, I decided that I wanted to stay in technology and keep growing as an entrepreneur.

Take us through the story of when you decided you wanted to start The League and what that journey was like for you.

I was in business school [at Stanford]. I was single and the dating apps were taking off—the Tinder revolution happened. Before that, there was a stigma where you're only on dating sites if you can't get a date in real life. There was this whole shift, and I was in the shift. So I dipped my toe in the water of dating sites and found myself frustrated with the fact that it was essentially a game of hot or not, and I felt like I wanted to know a lot more about a person than what they looked like.

So I tried to find them on other sites. I would go to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, trying to kind of social media stalk these people. That was really the inspiration for The League—you shouldn't have to do all this stuff. Let's just make people apply to join the community where it's an intentional community, people are there for the right reasons, they're there for a relationship.

You put in your LinkedIn profile as a means of admission, so you're gonna see what someone does in their career, their education, their background; all of this stuff, I thought, was very interesting when you're evaluating a prospective life partner. I wanted this information to be really contextualized within the app instead of having to dig for it after the fact.

I built The League for myself, to essentially find my life partner.  I wanted to find a relationship that would support me being ambitious, being motivated, being career-focused and not be intimidated or threatened by that. To do that, I felt like I needed to create my own community where that was really the ethos and the DNA. It was for motivated, ambitious individuals that wanted to find a like-minded partner.

How old were you when you first began to create The League?

I was 29, and I had just ended a five-and-a-half year relationship. I was looking for someone that wanted to be with an ambitious woman and wasn't scared of the fact that I was very career-driven. I worked a lot. I had big goals for myself, and I wanted someone that would support that, encourage that, embrace that about me.

When did you realize there was an opportunity for you to become a millionaire?

I first started realizing I could make a lot of money on this business when we started monetizing. I started out at $20 a month, because that's what everyone in Silicon Valley was doing at the time, that was kind of the standard model. I realized that we would need a much bigger user base for me to actually make a big business off of users’ pain and $20 a month wasn't gonna cut it.

I changed the business model to start selling yearly memberships for $179 a year. At that point, we started to see that the conversion rate actually didn't drop; people were okay paying that amount of money for dating. Once we launched in New York and Los Angeles, we saw growth in all of those cities. I realized that I don't actually need to fundraise anymore. I'm making enough money to cover the cost of the business. So quickly, we became profitable.

At that point, I was a majority owner of the business, and I realized I could put this profit anywhere. I could invest it back in the business, I could start paying my employees more, I could start paying myself more. At the time, I wasn't even paying myself. That's when I realized that this business has legs: People will pay for dating. Let's go launch in more cities and make it even more profitable. That's when we started making millions in revenue.

How did you make your first million dollars? 

I made my first million when I sold to Match Group. Prior to that we were making millions of dollars at the company, but I wasn't paying myself much. And the profit was going to the company and investing in the company, not in my own personal bank account. So it wasn't until I sold that I actually became a millionaire.

Why did you decide to sell to Match Group?

Because I wanted The League to be bigger than I could take it myself. I worked really hard for nine years building it as big as I could. But we needed significant financial investment if we wanted to compete with the big guys and go international. A partner like Match Group who's done this before, who's launched brands internationally and has taken a dating site from tens of millions in revenue to hundreds of millions of revenue—that was the aspiration I had for The League, to be a global premium brand.

When you made your first million dollars, did you spend it on anything?

I did not spend it on much, except I helped my parents put a down payment in for a retirement community that they were excited about.

When did you get your first big paycheck and think, holy cow, this is a ton of money?

When I was a top performer at Salesforce and I qualified to go to a sales club. I exceeded my quota by a lot, and that meant you got a really big bonus check. That was when I first realized you could make a lot of money in sales and if you exceed your quota and start hitting accelerators. That was when I realized how profitable it can be to be good at sales and to know how to sell technology.

When you got that paycheck, did you splurge on anything?

I paid off a lot of my student loans as fast as I could.

How did that debt build up, and how long did it take you to pay it off?

When I graduated business school, I was almost $200,000 in debt. I was starting The League, praying that it could be a real business, and that I would actually be able to pay off my student loans and not have to go get a regular job to pay the bills. Once I realized that The League could actually be a viable business, I realized that I might actually be able to pay off these student loans.

I didn't end up ultimately paying them off because I had a low interest rate. This was during the low interest rate period, so it didn't make sense to pay them off until I got close to exiting the company. One of the first things I spent money on after I sold the company: I paid off all my student loans. And that was a big milestone. I took my parents out to dinner, and we cheers’ed to the fact that I finally had no more debt.

What is the most expensive thing you've ever purchased for yourself?

A really cool car when I moved to LA—a 1974 Bronco that was fully restored, straight from Michigan, with people who worked at the Ford factory. I bought it from this very nice man and imported it all the way to California. And it's my favorite toy that I have right now. Its name is Bucky.

What makes The League stand out among other dating apps in a crowded dating app market?

We're the only application-based dating community, meaning you have to put together an application and get reviewed to get in. We don't just let everybody in. And because of that, people who are in the community actually really want to be there. It's intentional dating. People are there for long-term relationships, and there's also a community aspect to it. So even if you're not maybe looking to date right now, or you're single, but you're focused on something else with your business or your career, you can still join groups and events and go to meetups. And there's a whole singles community side to the app’s social network that allows it to be more than just a dating app. It's really a community for singles to find each other in real life and to form connections.

We only accept a small percentage of the people that apply and we require everyone to put together a really strong application in order to get in.

How are applications screened? Is it people screening them? Or an algorithm?

The League uses a combination of humans and algorithms to screen all the applicants. We look at things like: Did you complete your LinkedIn? Did you fill out all the fields? And some basic things: Do you have six photos? Do you have sunglasses on in your photos? Those are things that are pretty easy to detect with algorithms.

We also have a review board that sees the applicants coming in. These are humans that are actually saying, okay, these people would be a good fit for our community. It's really a combination of both, and I don't think it could work with just one or the other. The algorithms catch things that humans might not, and humans catch things that I don't trust algorithms to catch. We want to make sure we're always letting in the right people and not missing people by default.

What demographic is The League targeting?

The League is targeted to all motivated individuals, anywhere at this point. We are global, all ages, all sexual preferences. Really the common thread is ambition, a drive to be successful, and a drive to accomplish big things and change the world. It’s not really a demographic, it's more of an overall character trait that we're looking for.

Do you have any success stories that you know, or heard of from The League so far?

We're the number-one most-cited dating app on the New York Times wedding section, and we're really a fraction of the size of some of these other dating apps. People on The League are very intentional about finding their life partner when they come there. And oftentimes it's people's first or second match on the app when they meet their special someone.

The League is actually the only dating app entirely engineered and coded by a woman. How, or did, the female gaze shape the app’s design and functions?

I built and designed The League for myself as a user. I did do some focus groups, but for the most part, the focus group was me, and I built the features that I wanted. A good example of this is using the LinkedIn integration. By asking everyone to connect their LinkedIn, we were able to block you from your coworkers. That was super important to me, because I was just getting to a point in my career where I was having direct reports. The last thing I wanted was to have one of my direct reports see me on a dating app, or worse, have my boss see me on a dating app.

That's a feature that I don't think any man would have probably created, and none of the other dating apps have that. And when people complain about having to link their LinkedIn, I ask them, ‘Do you want me to match you with your boss?’ They usually say no. And then that's why they're like, ‘Okay, I get it.’

How much does membership at each tier cost?

The League has four different tiers. We have basic membership—that comes in at about $299 a month. If you go to the next tier up, that's the owner tier, and that’s $399 a month. If you go to the next tier up, that's the investor tier, you can see everyone who’s liked you. If you don’t like the algorithm and want to see more prospects, that's $999 a month. And then we go all the way to the VIP tier, which is basically do-it-yourself matchmaking with full access to the database. You can like or message anyone, and that's $999 a week. High prices, but not when you compare to what a matchmaker would charge you.

What is your favorite thing about The League?

Every time I come up with a new idea, or someone gives me a great idea, I can actually ship it and build it into the app and have people use it within a month or two—sometimes even weeks at this point. I love the ability to build, to iterate, and to be responsive to what's going on in the environment.

My favorite feature that we've built so far is this app called Party Scout. It's a tab on The League that tells you where in your city you should go if you want to meet people that fit your preferences. So if I'm going bar hopping with a girlfriend? Which neighborhood we should go to, which bar we should go to that gives us the best chances of running into someone that might be a potential match.

The future of dating is going to be this integration between online and offline and a much more elegant mashup of being smart about where to go out. But people want to meet in real life. We want to bump into someone at a bar, we want to have a meet-cute. So building features that help people have these experiences in the real world is what I'm most excited about building.

How hard do you think it is for people nowadays to just walk into a random bar, bump into someone and have it be a perfect match? 

One of the reasons I built The League is that I don't believe in serendipity, I didn't want to sit around and wait for the perfect match to drop down from heaven. I wanted to have a bias towards action and actually make an effort to go find him.

We’re thinking, how do we direct you in a way that you can almost have serendipity, but it's much more strategic and more tech enabled? Tech-enabled serendipity is one of the ways I think will be the future of dating instead of just sitting around and hoping. Really using the tools that we all have in our pocket to provide ourselves the best shot at bumping into someone in a bar, but being smart about it and not depending 100% on luck and happenstance.

What's the number one piece of advice you would provide to someone looking to build wealth?

Have a bias towards action. It's very easy to have a lot of ideas and to dabble in things and think about doing things.

What's hard is actually putting one foot in front of the other and building. It takes time, you have to go brick by brick, and you need to get started sooner rather than later, because everything takes a lot longer than you think it will. For me, The League is almost a nine-year project. And I would never have gotten here if I hadn't started as soon as I felt like the idea was there. And I think a lot of people get stuck in this analysis paralysis period.

Just try it. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out and you move to something else.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

PRNewswire

New Delhi [India]/ Sydney [Australia], December 20: saasguru, a leading global EdTech, announced that its Salesforce Bootcamp has been accredited by nasscom FutureSkills Prime. This accreditation is a testament to the high quality of skill development provided by saasguru, underscoring its mission to empower learners with job-ready skills in the digital age.

nasscom is the peak industry body that champions the interests of India's information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. FutureSkills Prime is a transformative ecosystem created between nasscom and the Ministry of Electronics and IT for digital upskilling in India. Its industry-backed certification programs align with National Occupational Standards (NOS) and the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), ensuring learners acquire skills highly valued by employers.

Amit Choudhary, CEO and Co-founder of saasguru, expressed his pride in this accreditation: "This recognition is a testimony to the high quality of Salesforce skill development provided by saasguru. We are not merely providing theoretical learning and certification; our AI-enabled Salesforce Lab helps the learners get true job readiness by completing hundreds of mini-projects co-created with leading Salesforce consulting companies. We are thrilled to be the only EdTech company to receive this recognition for a Salesforce skilling program."

The partnership with nasscom FutureSkills Prime brings several benefits to saasguru learners, including national recognition of the program through the NOS/NQF framework and certification from nasscom FutureSkills Prime upon program completion and SSC assessment. Learners who complete the program become eligible for a Government of India cash-back incentive of INR 8,000.

This accreditation marks a significant milestone in saasguru's commitment to digital upskilling in India. By providing learners with the skills they need to thrive in the digital economy, saasguru contributes to the vision of making India a Digital Talent Nation.

Please visit Salesforce Training for more information about saasguru and its accredited Salesforce Bootcamp Program.

About saasguru:

saasguru is a leading Ed-Tech company dedicated to transforming learners into job-ready professionals in the digital age. With a focus on Salesforce training and job readiness, saasguru equips learners with hands-on experience and practical skills, bridging the gap between certification and employment. It has helped over 70,000 learners from 56 countries discover, launch, and grow a career in Salesforce.

Press Contact:

Himanshu Joshi

Head of Growth / CMO

[email protected]

+ 91 974 2312806

(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)