The Cloud Revolution Begins

When Google Apps stormed onto the market, SADA systems was one of seven launch partners.

"That set in motion our direct and frontline participation in this massive paradigm shift called cloud," Safoian said. "It immediately turned our business into a national business."

The small shop in suburban Los Angeles closed its first Apps deal with Northwestern University. SADA kept rolling, building proprietary assets to add value to the product. In 2009, Google allowed SADA to become a true Apps reseller.

That year, SADA saw $2 million in sales. Six years later, that number climbed to $47 million with SADA designated as a Google for Work Premier Tier Partner.

"That's the benefits of recurring revenue," Safoian said.

But the rapid growth was also driven by another unexpected opportunity, and another risky pivot.

"Google loved us because of our Microsoft expertise," Safoian said. "But as we started getting good at Google cloud, Microsoft tapped us on the shoulder."

SADA, originally a Microsoft partner, had developed expertise delivering Software-as-a-Service through its relationship with Google. Microsoft didn't have many partners with that level of comfort selling cloud.

Microsoft urgently needed to start building such a channel. The software giant was developing a product to rival Google Apps.

"Microsoft's legacy partners in 2009 didn't want to touch it," Safoian said.

And that was how SADA Systems became an inaugural Office 365 partner, scaling that business as fast as the Google one, and pioneering a practice that allowed the two competing solutions to coexist.