Emergence Capital Industry Cloud Forum: Recap

On November 12, 2015, we hosted “Going Vertical,” our 2nd Annual Industry Cloud Forum in San Francisco. The forum provided an opportunity to engage with fellow entrepreneurs and industry executives at vertically-focused cloud companies.

The day opened with a welcome keynote from Gordon Ritter, Co-founder & General Partner at Emergence Capital, where he discussed two primary ideas: Industry Enablers and Industry Disruptors. He also touched on customer intimacy for industry cloud leaders, and closed with ten questions a company should ask itself to determine if they are truly an industry cloud leader.

Gordon Ritter, Emergence Capital

We also heard from a variety of market leaders as they took the stage to share insights and best practices on building industry cloud companies.  Here were some highlights:

• Peter Gassner, CEO, Veeva Systems spoke about how to become the most important strategic partner for your customers. He noted that “industry specific solutions increase speed to value,” and shared how Veeva has become an increasingly important tech partner to their clients over time.  He ended by stating his goal for Veeva Systems is to have 1 billion dollars in recurring revenue by 2020.

Peter Gassner, CEO, Veeva Systems

• Rich Boyle, Former CEO, LoopNet shared lessons learned from LoopNet’s vertical ascent, albeit bumpy. In his talk, he candidly shared, “imminent bankruptcy clarifies priorities.”  He also underscored the importance of building great relationships with clients.  He noted, “Like and trust are important themes in building customer relationships.”

Rich Boyle, Former CEO, LoopNet

• A panel discussion of vertical go-to-market strategies then took place with Charles Thornburgh, CEO, Civitas Learning, Katy Keim, CMO, Lithium and Santi Subotovsky of Emergence Capital.  The three discussed how pricing is a mixture of art and science, with Katy emphasizing the point that in cloud companies there is often no clear standard of pricing. Charles shared his perspectives on  offering customers ‘pioneer pricing’, which for him, were the early adopters who helped him shape his product. On the topic of how to get to the c-suite, both Katy and Charles underscored the importance of solving a big enough industry problem. Finally, on the topic of hiring talent, Katy shared that it is more important for your team to be able to articulate clear value; interestingly, category expertise is second to that.

 

• Marcus Ryu, CEO, Guidewire closed out the morning session with a talk on reaching the end-customer: strategies for the “Last Mile." In it, he stressed the importance of being a system of record that everyone needs to use in your company day in and day out. “The art of sales is overcoming cognitive dissonance of innovation and inertia.”

Marcus Ryu, CEO, Guidewire

We then broke for lunch, which included power networking within industry cohorts.  New connections were made and old colleagues caught up.  Following the lunch break, additional speakers took to the stage, including:

• Aaron Levie, CEO, Box, talked with Jason Green at Emergence Capital about leveraging platforms to build vertical solutions. He shared updates about Box’s initiatives in sectors such as financial services and healthcare.

Aaron Levie, CEO, Box with Jason Green, Emergence Capital

• Greg Smirin, Former COO, ClimateCorp talked with Jake Saper from Emergence about moving from horizontal to vertical, while sharing details about how ClimateCorp made the transition, ultimately selling to Monsanto for $930 million.  The path was not as easy as it might have looked from the outside; When talking about building the team, Greg noted, "It’s much easier to learn about a specific domain than it is to teach experts to think in a disruptive way."

Greg Smirin, Former COO, ClimateCorp with Jake Saper, Emergence Capital

• Nima Ghamsari, CEO, Blend Labs was interviewed by Alison Wagonfeld from Emergence about building credibility as a startup in the mortgage industry, an industry which has been slow to adopt new technology.  He shared his strategy of working with advisors and industry experts to gain access to the key players in the industry.

Nima Ghamsari, CEO Blend, with Alison Wagonfeld, Emergence Capital

• Andy Hurd CEO, MedeAnalytics closed out the afternoon sessions in a talk with Brian Jacobs of Emergence by speaking to the idea of fostering partnerships across an industry. He noted the importance of working with everyone and stated that you couldn’t have too much reliance on any one particular customer or partner.

Andy Hurd CEO, MedeAnalytics with Brian Jacobs, Emergence Capital

All in all, it was a great day with lots of insights from the leading industry cloud companies.  See our full round-up of photos here  and read Gordon’s recent article on industry cloud leaders here.

Emergence Capital team at Industry Cloud Forum