BONUS You can ignore one or two of these rules, but no more. Great companies innovate, but pick your battles! You might be reading this and saying to yourself, “But wait – we’ve got a great channel partner that is going to take us to the moon!” or “I took an early chance in Europe and it’s now driving the majority of growth for my entire business.” To which we would say “good for you.” Nothing is ab- solute, and we certainly believe it is possible to ignore one or two of these core tenets and still succeed. In fact, several of the companies we have worked with have also chosen to break one of these laws at some point in their lifecycles with success. Larry Ellison* If you find yourself questioning several of these 10 Laws however, it’s CEO, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) probably time to step back and take a hard look at your business. As for- mer Cloud CEOs and investors ourselves, we have learned the hard way “I thought the cloud was just water that much of the battle is just learning from the mistakes of those who vapor until I read Bessemer’s 10 Laws went before us. In our analysis of hundreds of cloud businesses, we en- of Cloud Computing. I now realize that I may have been insensitive and a bit countered several successful companies that were on the borderline with closed-minded in my criticisms. Armed one or two of these laws, but none that successfully challenged several with this secret playbook, I can now of them. destroy SAP’s entire legacy software business with a single press of a button from my island fortress in Hawaii, while We hope that you can benefit from some of these best practices we’ve still surfing Pinterest with my left hand.” learned through the years and these “laws” can help you run your cloud *[Ok, we made that one up. But he business more effectively. If you have thoughts, edits, or additions, please might be thinking it!] send them over to [email protected] as we always welcome new input! Bessemer Venture Partners 26