I have to say it again. NetSuite is just an outright cool company that simply gets the world the way it should be gotten. Not only do they have an excellent product and great people working for them but they have STYLE. They are the epitome of Christina Aguilera's Basic To Basics "Ain't No Other Man" lyrics
"You got soul, you got class.
You got style, you bad ass..."
They got all that, and they are.
What makes me say such things?
Well, they went ahead and put Oakland A's General Manager, Billy Beane, he of "Moneyball" fame, on their Board of Directors. How cool is that? Though I personally would have put Brian Cashman, GM of the Yankees, (I tell this to all of you who reside on other planets or in other dimensions) on the NetSuite board and I hope then maybe that salesforce.com has the good sense to do it, but I have to admit, that NetSuite pulled off a good one here.
Not that they exactly had slouches on their Board of Directors before.
The management team that sits on the BoD now includes founder CEO Zach Nelson, who I think, no kidding here, one of the smartest CEOs of any company in the United States and one of the most vital personalities among them. Evan Goldberg, founder and CTO of the company who is a resident genius when technology is involved and, while quieter than Zach without a doubt, has a presence in the industry that is also good - and bigtime.
Additionally, they have a gaggle of others who I don't know well who are primarily tech guys and VC types who I presume are competent managers of the moneys they've invested in NetSuite - money that I trust when NetSuite goes public sometime this year, will be seen as very well invested. Though only the market will tell us the result of that later on.
But, Billy Beane is Billy Beane, a celebrity par excellence and a man who can make a genuine contribution beyond just being a really cool name added to the Board. He is one of the savviest baseball GMs around, much as I hate to admit it, keeping his spending down, getting good pitching and building contenders is a strong suit. NetSuite is a strong suite and I would imagine if they keep your spending down and build a contender, you'd be happy too, though I can't figure out how to bring in good pitching here (NetSuite sales people? To stretch the analogy beyond recognition....)
As I said, NetSuite is going public this year. In December, TechCrunch reported that NetSuite was looking for a $1 billion valuation which seemed premised on a BusinessWeek article that said that NetSuite was looking for $100 million for 10% of the company. Initially, I thought that this might be a high number but upon reflection realized that with $70 million in revenue and enormous promise including being highly savvy about what the business world wants, this is not an outrageous number by any means. Salesforce.com's current market cap is $4.5 billion on revenues in FY 2005 (ending on January 31, 2006) of $310 million. So this isn't a real stretch on NetSuite's part.
Adding Billy Beane to the Board at this time pre-IPO couldn't be smarter. NetSuite continues to drive up their sex appeal and that coupled with their top notch improvements with version 11.0 make them rock. Money Ball has a whole new meaning now.
NetSuite is not a "family, small business" friendly run software Suite. It is more for bigger companies. Its a lie and it costs wayy to much money for the average small business company. not worth it in my opinion
Posted by: Roy | May 24, 2009 at 03:35 PM
Actually, I've spent a lot of time with NetSuite applications as part of my responsibility to both review software and talk to customers. Though this article was on the style of the company and generally how they are a smart and customer-friendly bunch, I've seen the applications in action and they work. Recently, they were a finalist in my "Steppin' Out 2007" awards though they didn't win. However, I went through 81 companies to get to the six finalists and the process was pretty rigorous.
That said, if you have frustrations with NetSuite, please let me know what they are and I'll let the management team there know what bothers you. I'd be happy to. No company is perfect, but what makes companies like NetSuite what they are is how they handle the imperfections.
Posted by: Paul G. | May 14, 2007 at 03:23 PM
I am mystified as to why the author says "NetSuite...gets the world the way it should be gotten". Does the author use NetSuite? I used to design software and now I'm in the support world, and NetSuite frustrates the heck out of me...
Posted by: NetSuite User | May 14, 2007 at 03:07 PM
What happens to Netsuite & Friends when the next software company comes out with the most “forward” thinking fully integrated Internet based business application? What will happen to the billion dollars of investment money?
“Good is only good as what you know to be good, if you don’t know any better you won’t know how “good” really can be.” There are over 20 million small businesses in America today with 80-90 percent family owned. How many can afford the high cost of technology that Netsuite & Friends charge?
It’s only a matter of time. Stay tuned…
Posted by: Jonathan Cuyno | January 20, 2007 at 02:19 AM