Lars Dalgaard spent years as a manager at Unilever and Novartis before he started a software company. In most offices, performance reviews lived in binders and spreadsheets. His company, SuccessFactors, moved all of it into a browser. By November 2007 it had more than 1,400 customers and two million users in over 150 countries. It was still losing money when it went public.

A Unilever Manager's Fix

Dalgaard founded SuccessFactors in May 2001 and ran it from San Mateo, California. The product tracked goals, reviews, pay and succession plans in one place. Customers paid a subscription and used it through a web browser, with no software to install. The bet was that big companies would trust a young startup with sensitive data about their people. American Airlines was among the early names on its customer list.

SAP Buys a Cloud

SuccessFactors priced 10.79 million shares at $10 on November 19, 2007, and listed on Nasdaq as SFSF. The stock closed its first day at $13.25, up 33 percent. The company later moved its listing to the New York Stock Exchange. In December 2011, SAP agreed to buy SuccessFactors for $40 a share in cash, about $3.4 billion. The deal closed in February 2012, and Dalgaard went on to run SAP's cloud business.

Cover: The Summit, from Ascent of Mont Blanc, George Baxter. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for climbers reaching a summit (success).