SwarmSales Brings On-Demand Sales Force to Startups

By Hacienda Network Staff Writer

New Hacienda Company Looking to Reinvent B2B Selling Process

After over a year's preparation behind the scenes, a new Hacienda startup, SwarmSales, launched in September with a mission of revolutionizing the way that new companies go about selling their goods and services.

The idea behind the new venture is to connect startups with seasoned sales professionals who already have expertise in their chosen market as well as contacts at their target companies.

"We realized that too many great companies were failing very quickly and too much money was being lost by venture capitalists when they invested in the company because at the end of the day what really drives the company's valuation and their opportunity to exist is their ability to align with the right target account and to actually get their product purchased," explains Ankur Srivastava, SwarmSales CEO and, with Alex Limeres and Samir Rajguru, one of the company's founders. "In this on-demand economy, we give people the ability to activate a seller on a per account basis."

The professional experience of the three founders is what led them to the idea behind SwarmSales. "I have been in companies like Oracle and EMC in the past and Alex comes from IBM," Srivastava says. "We knew that the sellers that were covering these accounts had the relationships and the knowledge of the accounts but rarely had all the technology in their portfolio that would solve the problem they were addressing. It was a perfect impetus for us to create SwarmSales."

The relationships that SwamSales enables is intended to benefit all the parties involved. "We want to take these disruptive companies that are entering the market and align them with professional sellers who have sold millions of dollars into the account so they can collectively go to market and sell into these large enterprises that they're trying to break into," he says. "Having these sellers gives you a higher likelihood of success because of the fact that they know the account, so they are able to navigate it proficiently. They know where the budget comes from, they know who the decision makers are, they knew who will be negotiating with you on the contract, and they know how you get the procurement process approved."

The initial response from the market has been strong. Over 600 potential sales professionals applied initially and 90 of them were identified as meeting SwarmSales' requirements. "I think we're up to just about 100 sellers and we have 25 companies today on the marketplace," Srivastava says.

All three of SwarmSales' founders are excited about the opportunity they see before them: reinventing the way in which startups make their entry into the marketplace and begin forming relationships.

"We truly believe that the measure of success for any company out there today is their ability to align with the right type of sales professional and then being able to close the right type of an account with that person next to them," says Srivastava. "Those are the things that are really sort of a governing factor that we're putting out there. And in this saturated market, my vision and our goal is to give every company a chance to get to that stage of saying, hey, we found somebody that used our product and was able to solve a major business pain point. That's what we're really going after."

SwarmSales is located at 4464 Willow Road. For additional information, access the company's web site at www.swarmsales.com or call (650) 382-3827.

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