Good news in the Salesforce ecosystem can sometimes seem hard to come by, but DevOps platform Gearset eagerly revealed some just a few months ago.
On April 24, the platform reported an impressive 49% year-over-year (YOY) growth for 2024, along with a number of other significant milestones, including 800 new customers added, net revenue retention of over 110%, and a workforce expansion of 33%.
This brings the company to nearly 320 employees, and more than 1,000 enterprise clients are now using Gearset.
We caught up with Gearset Co-Founder, Kevin Boyle, to discuss what exactly this success means for the Salesforce ecosystem.
What Does This Mean for the Salesforce Ecosystem?
Kevin said that Gearset’s recent success signals several important things about where the Salesforce ecosystem is heading.
He said: “First, it reflects just how mission-critical Salesforce has become. The scale and complexity of how it’s used across organizations – especially at the enterprise level – keeps growing.
“Salesforce continues to evolve rapidly to address an ever broader range of problems, most recently with innovations like Agentforce.
“That kind of platform growth introduces new challenges, and teams need tooling that can keep pace. Gearset thriving shows there’s demand for robust, scalable solutions that can handle that complexity.”
Second, it is a sign of a maturing ecosystem, with a deeper understanding of what good development and DevOps practice looks like, Kevin added.
“Teams expect more – from tools, from process, and increasingly, from talent,” he said.
“There’s possibly a higher bar for people entering the ecosystem too, as expectations around quality, velocity, and reliability rise. That shift towards maturity is why Gearset resonates – we’re opinionated about what great looks like, and we’ve built the team and platform to help others achieve it.”
The third factor is that macroeconomic uncertainty has forced companies to rethink how they work.
Over the last few years, the technology sector has seen reductions in force, tighter budgets, and a stronger focus on efficiency, and teams no longer have the option to just “throw more people at a problem,” Kevin said.
“Instead, they’re looking to extract more value from the people and solutions they already have. That means reassessing processes end-to-end – not just layering tooling on top of what exists.
“It’s also led to consolidation: organizations are trying to reduce vendor sprawl, simplify integrations, and increase ROI. Gearset fits naturally in that environment because we offer a comprehensive platform that spans the DevOps lifecycle – fewer tools, more impact.”
So it’s a Positive Sign for the Wider Community?
Kevin believes that Gearset’s success is “definitely” good news for the Salesforce ecosystem as a whole.
The CRM giant is still growing, even if it’s not at the “sky-high” rates of the coronavirus pandemic, but the focus of the ecosystem has shifted from pure growth to “sustainable, value-led progress,” Kevin says.
“We see more teams asking: Are our current processes still fit for purpose? Are we getting a strong return from the tools and vendors we’re using? That reassessment is healthy. It pushes the ecosystem forward and elevates the solutions that genuinely help teams succeed, and it’s what we’ve seen drive progress in other ecosystems in the past.
“Gearset’s growth is a byproduct of that evolution – a sign that the ecosystem is becoming more discerning, more mature, and more focused on long-term effectiveness.”
Kevin attributes several core factors to his company’s recent success.
“It seems almost trivial to say, but we talk to our users, and our prospective users, all the time,” he said.
“And I think lots of teams say or even think they do, but the reality is different. Gearset’s early growth was driven by a strong inbound motion from SMB and mid-market teams – segments that remain a huge and important part of our business. We’ve taken the same product-led, customer-obsessed approach into the enterprise, and it’s paid off.”
He added that enterprise teams are either under pressure to deliver more with fewer resources, or have reached a stage of maturity where they are rethinking how everything fits together.
In both cases, they’re no longer looking for tools to prop up old ‘legacy’ processes – they’re looking for partners to help build new, better ones.
The Bigger Picture
On the question of whether growth has been consistent in recent years, or if they had felt something of a slowdown, Kevin said: “If anything, we’ve seen an uptick.
“Despite a tough macro environment, we’ve continued to expand across all segments, particularly in enterprise. The economic conditions have actually sharpened the case for what we do – when teams need to do more with less, effective DevOps becomes non-negotiable.
“And because we’re so focused on delivering real value – not shelfware – we’ve seen strong retention and continued expansion within existing customers. That’s what fuels sustainable growth.”
Speaking about larger trends impacting how Gearset is growing, Kevin said a number of them are working in tandem.
One of the most impactful trends is that teams are no longer just adopting tools to support the way they’ve always worked; they are instead reassessing whether those processes are still fit for purpose.
This is especially true in larger organizations, where technical debt, team scale, and the pressure to deliver compound the challenges, Kevin says.
And with generative AI and Agentforce in particular, teams are not just reassessing their development workflows – they’re reassessing workflows across their entire business, which means there’s anticipation of significant change across the whole organisation.
All of this change, whether driven by process improvements or gen AI, needs to be managed.
Kevin said: “As a result, we’ve been putting a lot of energy into making sure that Gearset is the best solution for teams to deliver Agentforce by working closely with customers and partners who are adopting it in anger today.
“Alongside all of this, organizations are trying to reduce the number of vendors they rely on.
“Whether it’s to simplify procurement and infosec processes or to gain more negotiating power, there’s a clear shift towards choosing fewer, more capable platforms.”
There is also a shift away from legacy tooling, with teams increasingly churning off older platforms in search of modern, reliable, intuitive solutions – to the benefit of Gearset.
Final Thoughts
In more recent times, the Salesforce ecosystem can sometimes express feelings of pessimism about the future, so it’s somewhat refreshing when a big player reveals some major good news.
While Gearset’s success is its own to enjoy, it is nonetheless a positive sign, meaning there’s still plenty of value in the ecosystem.
