At Dreamforce ‘18, CodeScience celebrated our 10th Anniversary helping AppExchange partners thrive. DF18 was one for the record books, including our new booth location in the Industry Lodge, connections with thought leaders, knowledge gained from impactful keynotes, a session with some of our friends, and our largest party yet!

Now that we’re back home and caught up on sleep, we wanted to share our favorite moments with you.

Tuesday

With our team assembled and the booth set up, there was so much to explore and learn.

Welcome to Dreamforce

CodeScience booth

DF18 kicked off with the AppExchange Partner Keynote, “Harness the Power of Network Effects & Ecosystems.” We explored the changes and updates in depth in our recent blog post, but here are some must-knows:

  • Network effects are in full effect — the ecosystem is growing at an impressive 48% and just surpassed 6 million installs! You can see the network effects supported by hard data in our 2nd Annual State of AppExchange Partners Report that we released at DF18
  • Partner Analytics allow organizations to have insights and data on all aspects of their AppExchange listings
  • Lightning Flows allow customers to automate complex business processes in their org in an easy drag-and-drop functionality

We were lucky enough to meet the newest addition to the Salesforce family, Appy. Just like some of our team, this was her first Dreamforce as well. Appy is the guide to all things AppExchange. She represents some of the newest features and capabilities of the AppExchange to help customers find the apps they need to solve their business problems.

Einstein, Molly, and Appy

Later that afternoon, Salesforce Co-CEOs, Marc Benioff and Keith Block, presented their keynote on how Trailblazers have the power to change the world. With the focus on changing the world, Marc Benioff set the stage with his rallying cry that “business is the platform for change.” From calling for leaders to commit to improving public school education by adopting one in their area, to decarbonizing Dreamforce ‘18, Mr. Benioff showed how Salesforce continues to live out their values.

Salesforce has a deep dive on Benioff’s 90-minute keynote, or you can watch the presentation in its entirety here.

Just in case we weren’t fired up enough already, Marc announced that they are opening the top floor of the Dreamforce tower, the Ohana floor, to the public in 2019.

We wrapped up our night at the Salesforce Ventures party and couldn’t have planned a better day to kick off the conference!

Wednesday

Wednesday was jam-packed with networking, pitching, and an evening that rocked. The HLS lodge was standing-room-only to take in the thought-provoking presentations and engage with the interactive demos.

HLS Lodge

One of the big anticipated announcements of Wednesday was the winner of the 3rd annual Dreampitch. This competition looks for the next great startup built on the Salesforce Platform. Three startups compete “Shark Tank”-style for a $250,000 investment from Salesforce Ventures. The panel included Will.i.am, musician and tech investor; Emily Chang, Bloomberg tech reporter; Andre Iguodala, NBA star; Guy Oseary, founder of Maverick; and Rebecca Lynn, co-founder and general partner at Canvas Ventures. This year’s winner was CarServ — whose technology is poised to change the auto repair industry and brands itself as the “The Operating System for Auto Repair.”

Wrapping up the day was the annual Dreamfest benefit concert — featuring Metallica and Janet Jackson. Dreamfest is a benefit for the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. Each artist rocked the house and the night ended amid a fireworks display.

Thursday

The penultimate day. While our ears were still ringing for part of the morning because of last night’s awesome concert, we knew we had to get focused because today was the day for CodeScience to present our thought leadership.

Our big launch at DF18 was our 2nd Annual State of AppExchange Partners Report, a report deriving insights from more than 100 senior-level executives currently on the AppExchange. To kick this off, we compiled a rich panel of seasoned AppExchange Partners and discussed key findings from each section of our report and how these business leaders benchmarked those findings. We were thrilled to have on stage with us Angela Carter, Senior Client Partner of Korn Ferry; Susan Hill, SVP, Global Products and Solutions of AHM (an IQVIA company); Laoise Murphy, VP Software Development of Fenergo; and Tom Martin, CEO of Glance Networks.

Just as Brian’s session was coming to a close, Salesforce MVP, CodeScience Technical Architect, and author of Learning Salesforce Lightning Application Development, Mohith Shrivastava was beginning his. Mohith discussed the power of using open source tools for advancing user experience, testing apps and components at scale, and doing continuous integration with Salesforce DX. We’ll have a post detailing Mohith’s great insights in the coming weeks, so be sure to subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss it. (Note – Mo’s book sold out quickly at the DF18 bookstore but you can still get a copy on Amazon.)

At sunset, we opened the doors at our Oktoberforce party. We had a record number of party-goers turn up, and even though it was the würst party at Dreamforce, everyone still had a güt time (sorry, we couldn’t resist). If you missed the party, or just want to relive the night, you can check out the galleries here.

Oktoberforce in full effect

Thursday’s party-hopping schedule included the AppBash, with a Camp Appyness theme, hosted by Salesforce and OwnBackup. It was a great chance to connect with others who are leading the way on the AppExchange and see the OwnBackup team celebrating their win of the 2nd Annual Appy Award.

Friday

After the crazy week, we rallied to say a proper goodbye to Dreamforce, truly one of our favorite weeks of every year. We can’t wait until DF19!

So what’s next for CodeScience? Spot us at Salesforce Atlanta and NYC World Tours in December and SaaStr Annual in San Jose next February.

Also, be sure to check out our 2nd Annual State of AppExchange Partners Report to understand how your company compares and learn proven strategies for success in the Salesforce ecosystem. Drop us a line if you’ll be at any of the events or have questions on our report!

About the Author: Jacob Rouser
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