Case study
Services → SaaS transition.
Leading the Salesforce implementation of the model shift at MFour Mobile Research — from inception to cutover.
- Accounts migrated
- 30K
- Salesforce users
- 100
- Inception to cutover
- ~6 mo
- Revenue reclassified
- $MMs
Context
MFour Mobile Research sells survey data and insights. Historically the revenue model was project-based — companies paid for custom engagements delivered as services. The business was substantial (30K accounts, 100 Salesforce users), but the economics read as professional services rather than software.
The executive team set a clear goal: reposition MFour as a SaaS business. A SaaS multiple on re-classified recurring revenue is materially higher than a services multiple on the same dollars. The transition required redefining the product, the motion, and the underlying systems.
The problem
Salesforce was built for projects — pipelines, stages, revenue categorization, and reporting all assumed professional services economics. Moving to SaaS required three structural shifts:
- Product architecture. Three tiers — differentiated on AI depth, research-project discounts, and service level — needed to exist as first-class objects.
- Revenue re-classification. Millions flowing through the business had to be reassigned from services to subscription revenue, cleanly enough that finance, sales ops, and the board agreed.
- Pipeline rebuild. Stages, forecasting, and territory alignment had to match a subscription motion, not a project-bid motion.
What I built
I led the Salesforce implementation end-to-end, from inception to cutover — roughly six months. Two dev freelancers reported to me (one Salesforce specialist, one full-stack); I partnered directly with the COO on scoping and sequencing.
- — Rebuilt the product object model to represent the three tiers and migrated accounts onto the new structure.
- — Coordinated the revenue re-classification with finance: which contracts qualified, how to define the new categories, how to reflect them in the pipeline.
- — Rewrote opportunity stages, forecasting, and reporting for a SaaS motion.
- — Managed engineering execution of the custom Salesforce work through the two freelancers.
- — Partnered with sales and product leadership on the operational surface of the new motion.
Services schema
SaaS schema
Project
Subscription
Opportunity (one-off)
Opportunity (tier-select)
Deliverable
Entitlement
Invoice (milestone)
MRR
Outcome
At cutover: millions of dollars of historical service revenue were successfully reclassified as SaaS revenue inside Salesforce and the company's reporting. The reclassification materially increased company valuation. Three product tiers live. Pipeline and reporting reflecting a subscription motion end-to-end. Clean handoff to ongoing operations.