Meet Trailblazing Partner David Schmaier of Vlocity

David Schmaier has known and worked previously with Marc Benioff since before Marc created Salesforce. He's also known other Salesforce executives like Parker Harris for a long time. However, David never really worked with Salesforce until founding Vlocity, and once he did, he said to Marc, "You made enterprise software fun again." David is passionate about the cloud. He makes change happen in enterprise software, and is excited about the future. This mentality and approach to making technology stronger each day is why he's a trailblazing partner. Learn more about David in this interview.

Tell us a bit about Vlocity.

David: Vlocity is among the first multi-vertical industry applications company ever built that’s 100% on the Salesforce platform. We deliver industry-specific cloud and mobile software for five verticals at the moment: Communications and Media, Insurance and Financial Services, Health, Energy and Utilities and the Government. How do we do it? We extend Salesforce the #1 CRM by building our apps on Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, Communities, and Marketing Cloud. Together, with Salesforce, Vlocity Industry Cloud Apps enable companies to achieve faster business agility and time to value from the cloud. Simply, we help Salesforce customers in our industries become transformative trailblazers!

That’s exciting. What else excites you about Vlocity?

David: Vlocity was just named, for the second year in a row, to the Forbes Cloud 100 list of top private cloud companies. We are also one of Salesforce’s top and fastest growing strategic ISVs. Our growth and success is due in part to our strategy, to build compelling industry-specific apps and deliver customer success in partnership with Salesforce, the global leader in CRM. Our apps have been available on the AppExchange since day one, and now we are on the 19th release of the software. And our software is always 100% in sync with every Salesforce release. That’s what excites me about what we are building. We have delivered 19 releases across our five verticals in that last four and a half years. It may sound tiring, but it's been an incredibly fulfilling journey. All of us at Vlocity including myself are having a fantastic time building cloud software at a company that we are truly proud of. But what excites me the most? The amazing success our joint Salesforce-Vlocity customers are having with our industry cloud apps.

What do you love about your job? How does it fulfill your career passion?

David: I enjoy helping our customers capture the full value potential of their move to the cloud and their Salesforce deployments in our industries. Working with Salesforce and Salesforce partners like Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, Cap Gemini, PwC and others, we can deliver all the benefits of the cloud faster, at a lower total cost, with high satisfaction and financial returns for our customers. And I love it most when those customers celebrate their own success that we helped enable. At Dreamforce, we had 12 blue chip customers on stage this year talking about their Vlocity experiences and deployments -- companies like Verizon, T-Mobile, New York Life, TXU and Anthem to name a few. And they were cheering and celebrating. I love that. You might not think of enterprise software as something people cheer about. But when I visit our customers and tour their contact centers and their agents and managers thank me, well, that touches my heart, that technology can make such a difference in people’s lives. We are helping industries that are consistently rated with the worst service significantly improve the customer experiences that they deliver.

I also find the future exciting. Keith Block talks about speaking in the language of the customer. He's 100% right. He's been an early pioneer on this focus on industries and the architect of Salesforce’s industry strategy. Going vertical is a natural evolution of cloud. Companies want the cloud tailored and extended to the way that they work. Every member of our Vlocity team around the world speaks in the language of the customer, and feels that what we’re doing is meaningful and important.

It's been a fabulous experience working with Salesforce. From Salesforce Ventures investing in the company, to the advice on how to best use the platform, to providing the technology, to help moving our headquarters into the Salesforce Tower, to collaborating on events like Dreamforce and the World Tours, Salesforce has been an incredibly supportive partner. I love building software and love building software companies, so I could not imagine a better job.

What does being a Trailblazer mean to you?

David: I consider it an honor. Thank you very much for thinking of me. Part of being a Trailblazer is blazing a new path. We're helping Salesforce add the industry content that our joint customers are asking for, so that we both win. Any time that you start out doing something that hasn't really been done before, you have to evangelize it. You've got to really believe, down in your soul, that you're right and convince everybody else that you’re right, that what you are doing is important and meaningful.

Being a Trailblazer, how are you continuing to learn, grow, and identify those possible trend lines?

David: We get our best ideas from our customers. I travel to visit customers 80 percent of the time, and I go see our customers from the C-suite to the people and teams using our software. The customers are smart. Customers are our greatest teachers. Focusing on the customer is how you build great a company. Salesforce has done that, and I am driving that singular focus on customer success at Vlocity, too.

How do you blaze trails outside of work?

David: I'm a family guy. I like to do two things outside of the software business: spend time with my family and friends, and exercise. When you work long hours and live on airplanes, keeping alive via your workouts is definitely an important part of the journey!

Learn more about Vlocity on AppExchange, and check out more from David Schmaier in this post.