Acquired Episode 15: ExactTarget (acquired by Salesforce) with Scott Dorsey

Ben and David return to make their first foray into enterprise
software, covering Salesforce’s $2.5B acquisition of ExactTarget
in 2013 with the help of special guest and ExactTarget cofounder
& CEO, Scott Dorsey.   Technical note: due to an
issue we didn’t catch during recording, audio quality is
significantly lower than usual for this episode (especially
David’s voice). We apologize but hope you’ll give it a chance
anyway— Scott offers great wisdom & insights, and the
ExactTarget success story is a inspiring one underdog
entrepreneurs, especially (but not limited to!) anyone located in
the Midwest or elsewhere outside of traditional "Silicon
Valley-style” tech hubs.
 


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Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25






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Topics covered include: 

The decision to start ExactTarget post-internet bubble and in
Indianapolis, with zero software experience between Scott and
cofounders Chris Baggott & Peter McCormick

Raising initial money from friends & family, followed by
early investment and mentoring from Indianapolis venture pioneer
Bob Compton

Building and scaling a great sales organization within a
technology company

The importance of focusing early on a clearly defined target
market (SMBs in the case of ExactTarget), and then
“stair-stepping” up as the product and business scale grow over
time

ExactTarget’s unsuccessful first IPO filing during the
financial crisis

Building a "capital-efficient” early stage company, and the
value of raising growth capital at the right time to step on the
accelerator

The value of “secondary” investments allowing founders,
employees & early investors to “stay hungry” by achieving
some liquidity along the way

When and how to expand internationally and the importance of
strategic resellers

ExactTarget’s second successful IPO filing and life as a
public company with quarterly financial reporting to Wall Street

How the acquisition process played out with Salesforce and
other bidders (including reference to ExactTarget’s incredible
SEC filing detailing the entire negotiation—scroll down to
"Background and Reasons for the ExactTarget Board’s
Recommendation”, starting at the bottom of page 13)

Approaching the difficult task of integrating a major
acquisition involving thousands of people

The fun story of ExactTarget’s winning Microsoft as a large
customer—including actual sledgehammers

Scott’s new Indianapolis-based venture studio, High Alpha

Plus as always the "hard hitting" analysis across acquisition
category, what would have happened otherwise, tech themes—and
final grading



  The Carve Out 


Ben: The Talk Show live at WWDC 2016 with Phil Schiller &
Craig Federighi

David: The Score Takes Care of Itself by legendary 49ers
coach Bill Walsh, originally recommended by Jack Dorsey [no
relation to Scott :) ] at YC Startup School '13

Scott: 2016 Scipps National Spelling Bee, including one of
the finalists’ favorite words: indefatigable



  Followups: 


Instagram’s incredible user numbers announcement: 500M
monthly active users / 300M daily active users