A story of DESelect

What is DESelect, who invented it, how the idea went to life? 

DESelect is an app for Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC)  that makes segmentation easy for marketers. It was created by Jonathan van Driessen (our CTO) and I. The idea to create an app like this came to me in August 2018, when I still worked as a consultant at an automotive company. There, I noticed the troubles marketers were having with data and SQL queries in SFMC and came up with the idea for DESelect. Shortly after, we started working intensively on the app and began building relationships with potential customers and partners.

DESelect allows segmentation without the need to rely on SQL. Instead, we propose an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows users to create advanced segmentation in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Why Deselect, who is in a team, what is the final destination? How you found the resources to make it come true? 

Why DESelect? 

Because data has remained a challenge for marketers (and given its importance, likely the topic will remain key), because we really believe in the Salesforce platform, and finally because we are convinced that we can make a worthy contribution.

Our mission is to become the preferred segmentation solution for Salesforce Marketing Cloud. I’m glad to recognize the fact that we are confidently moving in this direction.

Who

I (Anthony) spent 7 years in CRM and Marketing Automation, leading projects for national and international organizations. Earlier I also founded a mentoring program for startups and a booking site for sailing trips, and I am a self-taught programmer. Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur who’s founded companies such as LeadZilla.io, LeadExporter.io, and InfinitySleeves and has published on the Salesforce AppExchange before. We co-founded DESelect and have taken the roles of CEO and CTO respectively. 

We got two teams: Our Customer team (marketing, sales, partnerships) and Product team (dev, support, customer success), both tasked with delivering great customer experience for DESelect customers and partners.

Resources

Although we seem to have sparked the attention of a few Angel investors and VCs, we remain bootstrapped until this day. For a long time, Jonathan and I kept contracting part-time and did not pay ourselves anything within DESelect so we could re-invest. In fact, employees started earning money before we did. 

It was brutal sometimes. There were several months in early 2019 when I was working 7/7 days a week while managing or being otherwise engaged in 3 consulting projects (not counting DESelect).

Now we are seeing traction and the Salesforce community reacts very positively to our solution. Today we are considering different financing options to accelerate our growth.

How hard it is to put an app for app exchange? Your 3 dos and dont’s for those who think of creating something cool for the community. 

Free of charge or paid app? Your personal view on it. 

Many underestimate the AppExchange security review which you must pass in order to be listed, which can take weeks to months end-to-end. We had the advantage that our team has done similar things before. From a business point of view: Start building the relation with Salesforce early on and show that you are serious. It helps if you can demonstrate you actually add value to the platform. From a technical point of view: Be diligent and follow the process. Don’t try to “wing” it. Our app was around from before we launched on the AppX and ‘Trust’ is our primary principle. As such, we already had high-security standards, passed Salesforce’s security review on the first go, and are now listed on the AppX.

Something cool from your side you can promote for readers-demo for example, free 2 week installation, etc 

To get a quick DESelect intro and demo, check out this video (1:54).

Readers who want to learn more about us can book a demo here.Finally, for SIs (system integrators) reading this: Know that we already work with partners and can enable you in several ways, including offering a DESelect partner account. For more information, contact partners@deselect.io.