Today, Salesforce $CRM purchased Assistly.

When we moved to San Diego/Coronado a few years ago, the first people I was told to meet were @dmitry and @alexbard so I did.

We all hit it off like brothers and they told me to buy Facebook stock in the private market. I said fuck that. Woops.

More importantly, I wanted to back both of them in whatever they were starting next. Alex was starting Assistly with his long time partners and Dmitry has since started AnyBeat (I invested).

In March 2009, I bought some Salesforce stock. That was the day the market bottomed. I love Salesforce and we Wallstripped it back in 2007. Sadly, I flipped out of the stock in the $40’s as the world was supposed to end. The stock has tripled since I sold it, but I have been hedged with Assistly :) .

I love the customer service/support space and have been blogging about it for a few years and own $LPSN and $RNOW. I was excited at the opportunity to be an investor with True Ventures in Assistly back in 2009.

Facebook and Twitter have completely disrupted the way companies and their brands interact with customers. Stocktwits will further disrupt this for Investor Relations. While the media worries about how Facebook and Twitter will profit from the craze, a slew of companies have been funded and thrived off the shift.

Alex and his partners had great domain expertise, insane drive, great experience as entrepreneurs and a superb product vison. I was confident in the industry trends. If I see these things and the valuation is in my zone I just invest. They were heads down and relentless for two years. They made it happen.

They are enjoying the moment today and they deserve it.