In 2003, a Silicon Valley software company said it had $15 million in prospects. A look at the phone records reduced that figure to $256,000 - and showed its new chief executive where the real business might be.
David Schmaier went to Dreamforce looking for the next great vertical-software company. He could not find it. So he built Vlocity - and six years later, Salesforce bought the answer for about $1.33 billion.