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How did an innovative cloud platform become one of the world’s best CRM solutions?

Salesforce has been bringing companies and customers together for over two decades. It began as a Software as a Service (SaaS) company. Salesforce is now the fifth-largest software company in the world. They leverage cloud technology and build a variety of applications for businesses to help better give them key insights into their services through analytics and apps.

Salesforce has undoubtedly done so much for the advancement of cloud software and IT. But before this industry heavyweight became the behemoth that it is today, like most startups, they were just trying to make their mark in a highly competitive market.

Humble Beginnings in Telegraph Hill

In March 1999, Marc Benioff, with partners Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez, started Salesforce in a one-bedroom apartment in Telegraph Hill, San Francisco. They envisioned a business solution that would enable companies to improve their relationships and interactions with customers.

Salesforce founded the innovative idea of substituting conventional desktop CRM software with CRM in the cloud, making it available anytime from anywhere. But how does a small team compete with industry giants? In the year 2000, Salesforce was armed with an excellent product, a great team, a different perspective. They launched their product, albeit with a bit of controversy, but it paved their way in starting the Salesforce ecosystem.

Every year has been eventful for the Salesforce team. They launched parts of the Salesforce ecosystem, like the now iconic Dreamforce and Salesforce Ohana to industry-changing business software like AppExchange, Apex, and Visualforce. In 2012, Salesforce turned to a new market, and one of their key pillars came to be, the Marketing Cloud.

But staying true to their mission to improve the education of everyone in their ecosystem, Salesforce launched Trailhead, “a new way to learn Salesforce.” To this day, this is one of the most valuable resources in learning about the Salesforce platform. Through the years, Salesforce gathered accolades and awards, like being named Forbes World’s #1 Most Innovative Company in 2017. They also acquired, merged, and partnered with other companies to keep bringing the industry to new heights and continuously providing customers with better products and services.

From a small apartment in Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, Salesforce is now headquartered at the 1,070-foot Salesforce Tower. 

They envisioned a business solution that would enable companies to improve their relationships and interactions with customers.

An Ecosystem for Anyone and Everyone

More than two decades since its inception, Salesforce has now reached great success. They have an ecosystem of satisfied users and talented Admins, Developers, and Consultants, all inspired by the Trailblazer movement. The company aims to improve CRM and disrupt the software development industry, while continuously making an impact in the business world through equality and diversity.

Salesforce “Ohana” is built on four core values that inspire the people in the company to work together every day toward improving the world: Trust, Customer Success, Innovation, and Equality. Their proven track record in ensuring the company’s never-ending growth in sales, reputation, and the number is a testament to how successful they have been in maintaining these values.

The software became the champion for customer success and supported businesses in tracking their customer activity, market to customers, among many other services.

The list of companies aiming to merge and work with Salesforce is also continuously growing. A couple of the most notable ones, for example, are Google and Salesforce’s partnership in 2017, and in 2018, Salesforce and Apple teamed up to help improve apps for businesses.

It’s easy to see that the company has yet to reach its peak and will only continue to grow. So what do they have in store for the future?

Salesforce “Ohana” is built on four core values that inspire the people in the company to work together every day toward improving the world: Trust, Customer Success, Innovation, and Equality.

Going Bigger and Getting Better for the Future

Salesforce aims to create a workplace that reflects society. It’s their core to integrate equality into every step of their employee experience. To do this, they’re working on adapting the following strategies to take the company and its users to the next level: Leading with Data, Investing in Development, Empowering Equality Groups, and Adopting Inclusive Practices.

Marc Benioff said in 2018 that it’s still early in the history of Salesforce. They have much more to offer, more to achieve, and more to help. Their vision is to have 50% of their U.S. workforce made up of Underrepresented Groups by 2023, 4.2 million jobs in 2024, and to be a $60 billion company by 2034. And with their current progress, that goal is well within their reach.


Salesforce welcomes everyone to join their 'Ohana', an inclusive community of over 10 million innovators, disruptors, and community shapers called Trailblazers. Ohana is a Hawaiian term that means an extended "family". And that is what Salesforce Ohana is all about, a support system that is like a family. This inclusive community provides support to its members. It consists of Salesforce employees, customers, partners and developers. In this support system, not only they learn and work together but also gather together for events such as Dreamforce and World Tour to amplify their learning. Dreamforce is an event that unites the entire Salesforce community for a fun reunion. It brings together thought leaders, industry pioneers, and thousands of people within the Salesforce community for days of training, influence, and fun. While the Salesforce World Tour is a global information tour, where you can learn best practices on how you can maximize Salesforce platform and cloud services usage, it is also an excellent opportunity to network and make new connections.

Do you want to be part of this amazing community? You can be part of the Salesforce ‘Ohana’ and have all the support you need in your Salesforce journey.
Start your journey and develop your Salesforce career now!

Ohana is a Hawaiian term that means an extended "family". And that is what Salesforce Ohana is all about, a support system that is like a family.

Develop Your Career with Salesforce Training and Certification Preparation

Having Salesforce Certification – or many – holds many benefits. It helps boost credibility, opens new job opportunities, and takes professionals to a whole new level in their careers. Being well-acquainted with the Salesforce platform and learning the courses is a guaranteed way to level up in the workforce. But as the saying goes, anything that’s worth it is not easy. To pass the high standards of Salesforce Certifications, it’s critical to study and prepare for the difficult exams laid ahead. Great news: You don’t have to do it alone!

Focus on Force is the ideal preparation for your Salesforce Certification. We provide realistic, up-to-date practice exams, and study guides to help you have a deeper understanding of the Salesforce platform to succeed at work.

We ensure that you have all the information and resources you’ll need to get your Salesforce Certification. From detailed and precise practice exams to updated and easy-to-understand study guides, it’s easy to see why thousands of happy customers have chosen Focus on Force.

Our mission is to help Salesforce professionals learn more about Salesforce, develop their careers, and prepare for certifications through our practical study guides and practice tests. Take your journey with Salesforce to the next level with Focus on Force!

What Certification are you studying for now?

Focus on Force currently provide practice exams and study guides for nine certifications

Salesforce: How It Started and How You Can Be Part of the “Ohana”

How did an innovative cloud platform become one of the world’s best CRM solutions?Salesforce has been bringing companies and customers together for over two decades. It began as a Software as a Service (SaaS) company. Salesforce is now the fifth-largest software company in the world. They leverage cloud technology and build a variety of applications for businesses to help better give them key insights into their services through analytics and… Read More

Salesforce: How It Started and How You Can Be Part of the “Ohana”

Apparent Gender Bias Hampers Women’s Career Progression in the Salesforce Ecosystem

by Zoë Morris Flexible and home working are the most desired employment benefits among women working with Salesforce, but their entitlement to these benefits is actually lower than their male counterparts. This is having an adverse effect on gender representation in the Salesforce ecosystem.Mason Frank’s annual salary survey is the largest independent exploration of Salesforce culture. As well as being useful for benchmarking salaries and learning the best education and… Read More

Apparent Gender Bias Hampers Women’s Career Progression in the Salesforce Ecosystem

4 Salesforce Exam Writing Tips to Achieve Salesforce Certification Success

by Cary Walkin Do you have your eye on a Salesforce Certification to advance your career? Perhaps it’s your first certification. Maybe you’re challenging yourself with a difficult certification. I’m a 6x Salesforce Certified professional who has had a career full of exams, and the tips in this guide have helped me and my team pass all of the Salesforce Certification exams that we’ve written. I wrote this guide to… Read More

4 Salesforce Exam Writing Tips to Achieve Salesforce Certification Success

Top 10 Tips for Taking a Salesforce Online Proctored Exam

So you’ve decided to take a Salesforce exam? Congratulations! You’re now one step closer to becoming a Salesforce certified professional. But with the COVID-19 outbreak, taking onsite examinations at a testing center are now not possible.Undergo a safer, more convenient option and take an online proctored exam instead. This is now the perfect time to take these tests especially if you’re worried about the online testing requirements. Because of the… Read More

Top 10 Tips for Taking a Salesforce Online Proctored Exam

Focus on People: Damian Galbally – Maximizing Sales with Salesforce

Damian Galbally became curious about the potential of Salesforce when he was met with some limitations while using it. In this interview, he talked about the challenges he had experienced and how these challenges had shaped the way he helps SMEs maximize Salesforce as a consultant for small businesses today. My name is Damian Galbally, and I am a consultant. My first contact with Salesforce was with a former company I… Read More

Focus on People: Damian Galbally – Maximizing Sales with Salesforce

Get Certified: 91% of Salesforce Professionals Consider Certifications a Factor Impacting Earning Potential

When you work with a technology as fast-moving as Salesforce, it’s incredibly important to read independent research on the ecosystem to ensure you’re steering your career in the right direction.As a Salesforce education provider, it’s really helpful for us to find out where a typical professional struggles in their learning journey and how we can help. Focus on Force was recently featured in the 2019/20 Mason Frank Salary Survey as… Read More

Workflow Rules vs Process Builder – When to Use What

Before diving into the differences between Workflow Rules and Process Builders, I do want to call out that in some Trailheads from Salesforce, there have been callouts to moving away from Workflow rules entirely. Be that as it may, Workflows are still up and running and in some cases can be simple, faster, and easier to apply than a Process Builder. However, please do keep this in mind if you… Read More

Focus on People: Jim Vineyard – From Zero to Hero

Jim Vineyard knew nothing about CRM before he explored Salesforce, as part of an account he took on for Customer Service. Working with his son in the same company, doing the same job, he navigated through Salesforce and learned a whole new world of custom CRM, and Customer Service functionalities, never before possible for him, in the last decade of his career. I began with Salesforce as a result of the… Read More

Our Top 10 Salesforce Certification Exam Prep Tips

Salesforce is fast becoming the business platform of choice for many companies. With around twenty-seven (27) certifications and counting, you’d know there’s a real – and rather lucrative – career path with Salesforce. It’s true that It takes a lot of work to climb the Salesforce Certification Pyramid, but we all think it’s worth the effort. And If you keep consistent with a system that works for you, you will be… Read More

Focus on People: Donna Hudson – Never Too Late for Salesforce

Donna chanced upon Salesforce only AFTER RETIRING from her career in higher education. In this interview, she talked about the steps she took to keep up with this all-new, fast-paced tech career as Salesforce Business Analyst. She tells us about her all-women ‘Ohana’ and the benefits of doing non-profit work, to become a better Salesforce professional. I’m not your typical early starter for Salesforce. I’ve been in the work world… Read More

Lightning Replacement to JavaScript Buttons

Prior to the release of Lightning, Javascript buttons got users pretty far with their large variety of use cases. Today, in Lighting, however, Javascript buttons are a thing of the past. Below I am going to walk through several different use cases that, may have been previously handled with Javascript, using one of the Lightning ready ways.Before we begin, here are the Use Cases and the tools in Lightning we… Read More

Focus on People: Mark Hilmer – Secret to Exams is Being ‘Fast and Curious’

Mark Hilmer built a consulting business out of the Salesforce knowledge he gained through the past 6 years. He specializes in helping medium-sized businesses to improve their customer service.Combined with hands on experience, he shares in this interview his strategic approach to preparing for the certifications. He thinks through which certification he needs to get, determines the right timing for his actual exam schedule and tells us his secret for… Read More

Top 10 Best Practices to Follow as a Salesforce Business Analyst

In the Salesforce hemisphere, there are many different roles one could hold. One of those roles is that of a Business Analyst. Though it can seem to be a confusing and vague title, it is a significant role in the successful delivery of any Salesforce project. Generally speaking, a Salesforce Business Analyst is someone who will help run a project from start to finish and will take on tasks like… Read More

Focus on People: Adam Schoolsky – From Employee to Consultant

Adam was a Salesforce user, then worked on Salesforce projects internally in his company and even worked for Salesforce itself. He quit Salesforce to fix motorcycles (which he loved) because he just couldn’t stand the pressure. Coming back to Salesforce after a few years, in a different environment – as a consultant outside of organizations, doing contract work and shifting gradually to the more advanced Developer side, he found a better,… Read More