At Skilljar, we understand that your business relies on Salesforce as the source of record for all customer data. Our Salesforce integration puts the LMS data you need right into your CRM, in real time, to increase your team’s efficiency and create a flawless customer training experience. When your team runs on Salesforce, you can accelerate results by seamlessly integrating your LMS and CRM, with the ultimate goal of improving your product adoption and long-term revenue.

In this blog post, we discuss the specific benefits of integrating your LMS with Salesforce.

I'm very excited to welcome Adrienne Domingus to the Skilljar team as our Associate Software Development Engineer! Adrienne recently returned to Seattle from Denver, where she spent the first part of her career with the Denver-area public schools in operational and training roles. After several years, she decided to change careers and went back to the Turing School of Software & Design because she loved building systems and software. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Adrienne has already proven that she's taken to software development like a duck to water.

Adrienne will be managing technical relationships with our clients and assisting with their configuration, solutions, and setup. She'll also be supporting the engineering team on various development tasks, and will work directly with clients to troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve technical issues.

Welcome Adrienne!

In the world of high-growth technology startups, many people have weighed in on the ideal functional backgrounds for founders. Common models are:

• Hipster, Hacker, Hustler - The trio of designer, developer, and sales person.
• Technical Founders - Think Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. Founders get extra credibility for dropping out of college.
• Design Founders - The success of Apple and Airbnb show the potential world-changing impact of design thinking.

Strangely, product managers (PMs) almost never show up on this list. In my view, PMs are severely underrated in early stage startups - as Skilljar grows, I'm increasingly finding my personal background in product management to be a critical foundation for success. Read on for the 3 reasons why product managers make the ideal founders.

I'm very excited to introduce Matt Buchan, our new Director of Finance and Operations at Skilljar! I had the great privilege of working with Matt while at Amazon, and am absolutely thrilled to be doing it again. There is an incredible amount of back-office operations at a rapidly growing SaaS startup - financial planning and analysis, data and metrics, forecasting, bookkeeping and controllership, accounts receivable and payable, payroll, invoicing, income and sales tax, not to mention all the other corporate functions (HR, IT, procurement, facilities, compliance, and more). In just 1 week, Matt has already taken over these responsibilities and is making an enormous impact.

Matt is originally from Seattle and has spent the last year on sabbatical traveling the world. I have also recently learned that he is "virtually unbeatable at Bananagrams," and as a former Jeopardy contestant and American Crossword Puzzle Tournament participant myself, I heartily accept the challenge!

Welcome Matt!

In choosing an LMS, an important first decision is whether to build it yourself or to buy it from a vendor. In this blog post, we make the case for each.

Many companies offer a variety of education options for their customers and partners. Resources include self-serve knowledge articles, self-paced training, instructor-led training, discussion forums, in-app messaging, email newsletters, and conferences.

Since Skilljar helps companies create beautiful customer training experiences backed by data, we are frequently asked on best practices for seamless experiences. This article provides key tips and ideas for integrating training with communities.

A key challenge for startups that sell to enterprises is overcoming objections based on company size. As the saying goes, "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM." Startups carry unknown risks of product stability, financial viability, and business continuity.

Yet there are many powerful advantages for enterprises that choose to work with startups, of course, assuming that the product and team are reasonably proven. Skilljar is fortunate to already be working with the Fortune 1000, as well as outstanding mid-market companies and high-growth startups.

In this blog post, we outline the benefits of working with a startup and key ways to mitigate risks.

Customer training is an emerging discipline that combines a diverse set of skills. Successful candidates need to be able to craft a story, communicate effectively with their audience, produce quality content, and measure results.

In the context of training customers (as opposed to training employees), successful candidates must also be flexible, fast-moving, and capable of working cross-functionally with other business leaders.

At Skilljar, we have often debated the proper word (training, learning, or education) for describing how knowledge is transferred from companies to their customers and partners. Although it is certainly an exercise in semantics, the words we choose do have meaning and impact to our clients. Many are also launching their first "training" initiatives and are unsure what to call their team.

In this blog post, we discuss the pros and cons of using the words "training" versus "learning" vs "education."

If you've ever sat through boring compliance training that looks like it was made in the 70s, you might have been left with a bad impression of what training can be.

At Skilljar, we work with companies that take a fresh, innovative, and user-centric approach to enabling their customers. Many of them are reinventing training from the ground up, in a way that uses modern technology that appeals to today's self-paced adult learners.

In this blog post, we share 5 best practices on creating training content that people actually will want to take!