Five Years of Membrain: 5 Keys to Success

When I founded Membrain 5 years ago, it wasn’t because I thought I was great. It was because I knew I sucked. I sucked at helping salespeople succeed, and I wasn’t alone: Lots of companies sucked at helping B2B salespeople succeed.

I didn’t have venture capital backing, and I didn’t have an enormous bank account, but I knew that the industry was making some really bad assumptions and that the right tools could help correct those assumptions. Five years later, the product born out of my own failure is in 64 countries and 7 languages, and helps organizations all over the world increase their sales effectiveness.

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, here are 5 things you probably don’t know about Membrain, our team, and our journey.

One: Three Bad Assumptions Fueled Membrain’s Founding

Many sales organizations are still running on three bad assumptions that I identified five years ago as the source of my own failure:

1. Salespeople with a great CV "naturally" know how to sell.
2. Salespeople are disciplined and always will do what is needed.
3. CRMs are designed to help salespeople sell.

The truth is that even “natural” salespeople won’t necessarily know how to sell your product unless you train, coach, and enable them; the vast majority of people do not possess natural discipline; and most CRMs are designed as reporting tools and are useless or even detrimental to salespeople. Also, the world has changed. Buyers have changed. And too many salespeople (and sales leaders) are stuck in old ways.

I wanted to design a sales effectiveness platform to replace traditional CRMs, and make the salespersons’ and sales managers’ jobs easier, while reinforcing the training and behaviors that help them succeed. And that’s Membrain.

Two: I Couldn’t Have Done It Without The Team

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have an immensely talented team around me from the start, and to have had additional talent join along the way. Anders, our lead developer, has been instrumental in designing and producing the product. His background in game development fuels both the excellence of the product and its emphasis on being fun, fast and productive to work with. He continues to add value to the product with every iteration.

Henrik Öquist joined early and embraced the vision of Membrain immediately. Henrik is good at the things I’m bad at. He is now a partner and right hand in the business, running all of the day to day operations and orchestrates our development efforts. Membrain would not be what it is without him.

So many others have been crucial to our success that I can’t possibly name them all, but I do want to mention Björn, our designer who makes the product beautiful. In addition, our marketing, administration, customer success, and sales teams make this company what it is, and I’m honored to work with all of them.

Three: Our Partners Are Key to Our Success

Technology is only as useful as the strategies, processes, and people it enables. We work with a global network of consultants and strategy firms who help their clients put those crucial elements in place, and then recommend Membrain to help execute and iterate. Our partners share our interest in increasing sales effectiveness, and they’re out there every day making it happen for their clients and ours. And they keep us on our toes!

Four: I’m Proudest of This One Thing

One of the reasons we never went after venture funding is that we wanted to build the product on our own terms, based on the need we saw in the market. We’ve had a lot of successes and accomplished a lot of things I’m proud of, but I’m proudest of the fact that we never took shortcuts, or chased fool's gold. At every stage, our question has always been: How can we best enable companies to increase sales effectiveness? And whatever the answer is to that, that’s what we do. No shortcuts.

Five: Our Next Big Goal Is…

From the beginning, we’ve focused on making a product that is beautiful and easy to use. Our philosophy is that if a salesperson dreads logging in to the technology, then they won’t do it. But if the interface is cheerful, easy to use, and if it actually helps them achieve their goals, then they will. Last year, we unveiled a redesign that makes the product even more interactive, more customizable, smarter, and more beautiful than ever. This year, we have our sights on adding intelligent features that will make it even more compelling to use.

I am thrilled that we have made it this far, from absolutely nothing but an idea fueled by failure, to a product that is helping sales teams all over the world to consistently improve sales effectiveness. I want to thank everyone who has worked with us, partnered with us, or implemented our product. We wouldn’t be here without you.

We’ve just gotten started! The next five years will be so much fun!