Mark Benioff’s leak of the imminent Salesforce Analytics Cloud announcement probably peaked your interest. Check out these thoughts from our head of marketing, Jamie Grenney, about whether this move will shake up the predictive space.

Salesforce’s recent acquisition of RelateIQ is sure to be another hot topic at Dreamforce. Read what our CEO, Vik Singh, had to say about it in VentureBeat. Feel free to share your thoughts below about whether Salesforce is really ready to integrate predictive capabilities.

Vik also recently expounded upon the “Predictive-First” revolution in TechCrunch, addressing how this new era of applications is changing enterprise software. His article is a great read for anyone following this space.

Of course Dreamforce is not just all about Salesforce, it’s also about the ecosystem and legacy the company has built. BusinessInsider recently ran a great story about eight enterprise startups founded by ex-Salesforce employees – all of whom are doing interesting things, and many of whom you’re likely to run into at Dreamforce.

The Infer team will be partying at #DF14 in the Cloud Expo again this year, so we hope you’ll drop by our booths (N1010 and W537 ) to say hello! And of course, feel free to contact us @InferInc before the event and we’ll be happy to set up a time to connect.

Infer Inc., a leading provider of predictive applications that help companies win more customers, today announced a 130 percent increase in its employee base since the start of 2014. This year, Infer has brought on experts with deep, data-centric operations experience at leading consumer and enterprise companies in order to scale its powerful predictive lead scoring solution to thousands of companies.

Infer’s predictive-first approach uses external signals from the web and advanced data science to help companies prioritize the sales and marketing leads that are most likely to convert to buyers. As the company continues to expand its client base, it is building a stellar customer success group to help these businesses implement new predictive models and leverage Infer’s applications across their organizations. New Infer team members bring industry experience from Google, LinkedIn, HP, Deloitte, McKinsey & Company and Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as undergraduate and M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

“We’ve built a proven solution to many of the sales and marketing problems that are plaguing today’s B2B companies, and we’re making major investments in Infer’s data-driven DNA in order to help our customers truly leverage predictive applications to the fullest,” said Vik Singh, co-founder and CEO of Infer. “Our exceptional new team members are making a significant impact by helping every Infer customer ensure that our models fit their needs and are driving real top and bottom-line results.”

Infer also continues to grow its brilliant engineering team, of which sixty percent hold doctorates from or dropped out of competitive Ph.D. programs at Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at San Diego and the University of Michigan. This team is optimizing machine learning algorithms, extracting signals from the web and scaling Infer’s infrastructure to pioneer new predictive sales and marketing solutions.

To learn more about predictive-first applications, join Infer and SiriusDecisions for their upcoming webinar about evaluating predictive lead scoring vendors, or download Infer’s recently published Guide to Predictive Lead Scoring.

About Infer

Founded in 2010, Infer delivers predictive business applications that help companies win more customers. It leverages proven data science to rapidly model the untapped data sitting in enterprises, along with thousands of external signals from the web. Customers include several large businesses and numerous high growth companies like AdRoll, Cloudera, New Relic, Optimizely, SurveyMonkey, Tableau, Xactly and Zendesk. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Infer is funded by leading investors, including Redpoint Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Social+Capital Partnership, Sutter Hill Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. For more information, visit www.infer.com or read the company’s blog at blog.infer.com.

Infer invites you to join one of the authors of SiriusDecisions’ new Field Guide to Predictive Lead Scoring for a free educational webinar.

Wednesday, September 24, 10:30 – 11:30am PT

The presentation will cover:

• The difference between predictive and traditional lead scoring
• Key questions to ask when evaluating predictive vendors
• Pitfalls to avoid when selecting a predictive lead scoring partner
• Real-world predictive lead scoring success stories and use cases

Speakers:

• Ashley Paris, Research Director at SiriusDecisions
• Rishi Kumar, Head of Customer Success at Infer

Can’t make the time? Not to worry. Everyone who registers for the webinar will receive the recorded presentation and a tip sheet.

They’re feeling the impact across sales, marketing, and customer success. Recurring revenues are up 50%, they’ve cut their payback time in half, and they’ve been able to bring in customers with higher lifetime value.

Mindflash turned to Infer’s predictive scoring solution, and began to benefit from the instant, data-driven identification of it’s best leads.

Infer joined the Marketo Launchpoint ecosystem just under a year ago, and we’ve seen great success amongst joint customers like AdRoll, New Relic, Optimizely and Xactly, who use Infer with Marketo to instantly and accurately predict which of their incoming leads are the hottest.  One of the great things about using our solutions together is that we’ve already developed pre-built connectors, so Infer can quickly tap into important signals from your Marketo system in order to make the best predictions and power always-on marketing optimization.

We’ll be celebrating the Marketing Nation as a platinum sponsor this year, so please drop by our booth the afternoon of Tuesday, September 23rd at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel. Or feel free to contact us @InferInc before then and we’ll set up a time to connect.

Over the past several decades, enterprise technology has consistently followed a trail that’s been blazed by top consumer tech brands. This has certainly been true of delivery models – first there were software CDs, then the cloud, and now all kinds of mobile apps. In tandem with this shift, the way we build applications has changed and we’re increasingly learning the benefits of taking a mobile-first approach to software development.

Case in point: Facebook, which of course began as a desktop app, struggled to keep up with emerging mobile-first experiences like Instagram and WhatsApp, and ended up acquiring them for billions of dollars to play catch up.

The Predictive-First Revolution

Recent events like the acquisition of RelateIQ by Salesforce demonstrate that we’re at the beginning of another shift toward a new age of predictive-first applications. The value of data science and predictive analytics has been proven again and again in the consumer landscape by products like Siri, Waze and Pandora.

Continue Reading on TechCrunch

We’ve added some of our best customers through referrals, so in order to show our appreciation to customers who refer Infer, we’ve rolled out a fun program. If you make an introduction to a person or company who’d be a good fit for Infer, we’ll send both of you a pair of our custom Nike shoes.

Here’s How It Works

Send a note to greatprospect [at] infer.com to tell us who you think would be a great prospect for Infer. We’ll score the contact with our internal predictive model to make sure they are a good fit and check Salesforce to make sure there isn’t an active opportunity. Assuming we’re good, we’ll ask that you make a quick email introduction and we can run with it from there. Then we just need your shoe size and we will put the order in right away. If you already have our Nikes, feel free to order a new pair or a pair for one of your colleagues. We’ll also surprise your referred contact with shoes at the conclusion of the sales cycle. Even if they don’t move forward with Infer, we’ll send the shoes to show our appreciation for their time. We appreciate all your support and are thrilled to watch our community grow!

Links You Can Share

• Impact of Predictive Scoring (60 Seconds)
• Product Demo (2 minute)
• AdRoll, Mindflash, Zendesk Success Story

“How can I ensure that I’m working the right leads from my Free Trial channel?”

• Faster Contact: By filtering down their focus to only A-Leads, Mindflash reps make contact with the best new trial customers faster and get a jump on the competition.
• Better Perseverance: Even if a customer isn’t ready to try or buy the product right away, sales reps know which leads are worth cultivating over time.
• Fewer Missed Opportunities: Mindflash’s marketing team can pinpoint hot prospects even if they never start a free trial (i.e. from events or white paper downloads).

Infer Inc., a leading provider of predictive applications that help companies win more customers, today announced a 150 percent increase in its customer base over the past quarter. Infer is now computing thirteen million predictions every month for some of the fastest-growing companies on the planet, including new customers such as Cloudera, Mixpanel, Optimizely, Yesware and ZipRecruiter.

“We’re organizing for rapid scale, and Infer’s predictive scoring is critical to our success,” said Matt Cooley, chief revenue officer at Mixpanel, a leader in mobile analytics. Rafael Alenda, vice president of online and brand marketing at software analytics company New Relic, added, “Infer scales nicely with our hyper-growth business. In short order, it has generated hundreds of thousands of predictions that have helped drive net new customers and revenue.”

Infer uses external signals from the web and advanced data science to help its customers prioritize the sales and marketing leads that are most likely to convert. “Infer is able to automatically research and identify our marketing-qualified leads (MQLs),” said Ash Alhashim, director of sales enablement at Optimizely, a leading web optimization platform. “That saves our sales reps time and energy, but just as important, it gives us an objective way to measure lead quality.”

Another new customer, Mindflash, uses Infer to predict loyal customers for its online training platform. In under a year, Infer has helped the company increase monthly recurring revenue 50 percent by better prioritizing incoming sales leads and optimizing marketing tactics. “Since bringing in Infer, our whole business has pivoted around predictive lead scoring and it’s enabling us to create a better customer experience,” said Randhir Vieira, vice president of products and marketing at Mindflash. “Rather than spreading our resources thin, we can focus on the relationships that add the most value.”

More information on Mindflash is included in Infer’s new customer case study, and additional data-driven plays and ROI frameworks are detailed in Infer’s recently published Guide to Predictive Lead Scoring.

About Infer
Founded in 2010, Infer delivers predictive business applications that help companies win more customers. It leverages proven data science to rapidly model the untapped data sitting in enterprises, along with thousands of external signals from the web. Customers include several large businesses and numerous high growth companies like AdRoll, Nitro, SurveyMonkey, Tableau, Xactly and Zendesk. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Infer is funded by leading investors, including Redpoint Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Social+Capital Partnership, Sutter Hill Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. For more information, visit www.infer.com or read the company’s blog at blog.infer.com.

No one in my group was a specialist in big data – we had a person who worked for a family office, a mayor’s office, an investment bank, a major consulting firm, an online advertising company, a hospital, the DEA, and of course I was there as the token enterprise software guy. Prior to the seminar, we had all studied a set of fascinating readings that ranged from the story of Socrates struggling with the advent of the written word, to the implications of a world where every detail is known.

There were two general directions the conversation went. One centered on the negative externalities brought on by big data. Things like information overload, dependency on technology, and privacy risks. The other direction focused on the incredible opportunities that big data was opening up, like:

1. Autonomous, Ubiquitous Presence

All kinds of services are working for us, even when we’re not thinking about them. Your LinkedIn profile is generating value by connecting you with career opportunities. Having Siri on your wrist means you’ve got an assistant listening for your cues and monitoring your health. And for businesses, it is all about listening to your customers so you can better anticipate their needs.

2. Transforming Chaotic Environments into a Self-Healing Society

In the future, problems will be predicted and resolved before we even think about them. Self-driving cars will navigate around traffic. The airline industry will adjust bookings and communications based on weather and flight delays. And many business transactions will move from console transactions typed into a computer to programmatic transactions, which involve weighing many signals before automatically optimizing for good outcomes.

3. Deadweight Loss Redistribution

There are massive inefficiencies we can eliminate by listening to data, which can in turn free up and repurpose energy for the most critical endeavors. As an example, 30-50% of water and electricity use in cities could be cut with big data projects. And since 50% of crime takes place on less than 5% of street segments, it’s relatively easy to reduce crime with predictive policing.

For me, this discussion clarified that big data is about way more than just the exponential growth of sites like Twitter or the 1.3 billion transactions logged into Salesforce each day. Those apps just capture the perception we actively want to create in a small snapshot of time. The really big data is the product of passive listening and actual behavior. It’s data from the web, your credit card transactions, your mobile phone, and your medical records. It is going to come from a new breed of connected, wearable devices that monitor our environments.
Our cars, our home thermostats, and our clothing are all becoming  “aware.” These devices are able to measure location, speed, sound, temperature, light, vital signs, and any number of other inputs from our environment. With all the new sources of always-on information pouring in, there’s clearly an immense amount of data being collected. The questions become:

• How will we make sense of it all?
• What are big data’s practical applications?
• Who is going to emerge as winners and losers?
• And ultimately how will it change society?

As I’ve pondered these observations and questions in the context of my work in the enterprise software arena, I’ve identified three key takeaways for the average business:

1. Get on Board

Big data is a mega-trend every bit as powerful as the alphabet, the printing press, or the Internet itself. It will inevitably transform the competitive landscape, and it will happen faster than you think. It took only 2.5 years to sell 100 million iPads, so how long will it take before 100 million people are wearing an Apple iWatch or Google Glass? And how long before your industry feels the effects of the shift from console transactions to programmatic transactions?

2. We’re in an Arms Race Powered by Data

To remain competitive you need to be relentless in your pursuit of data. Is there data you can collect about your prospects, customers, products or employees that’ll give you an edge over the competition? And just as important, do you have a real-time framework to turn that data into action, so you’re able to programmatically increase the probability of good outcomes for your business, while decreasing bad outcomes?

3. Partner with Vendors Who Understand Predictive

While some companies have the resources to collect big data and build their own proprietary applications, it is likely that best-of-breed vendors have better end-to-end solutions. We’ve already seen this for A/B Testing, Search Optimization, Display Retargeting, Lead Scoring, and Product Adoption. In each of these categories, companies can ride the big data wave without having to hire a single data scientist.

We’re living in an exciting time, especially for those who can embrace being awash in data. We need to find ways to profit from it rather than drown in it. By eliminating the deadweight in your business, you can shift energy to more productive initiatives and blow past the competition. Being a data-driven business means more quickly anticipating customer needs, and finding new ways to meet them so you can guarantee the most profitable outcomes.

So whether we like the term big data or not, there is little doubt that it will fundamentally change how businesses operate.