2 min lesson
A schema that survives new segments
Imagine this comes up at work: "You're told 'Salesforce is our single source of truth for everything.' Why is that a problem for a PLG company like Cursor and what's the better framing?" Start with the practical move.
Step 1 of 3
A schema that survives new segments
The role explicitly asks for systems that extend as new geos, segments and program types are added. A schema hard-codes that future or fights it.
- Model program membership as a row in a join table (
account_program), not a boolean column per program - so adding a partnerships program is data, not a migration. - Keep firmographics, technographics and usage as separate field groups with their own freshness timestamps, since they decay at different rates.
- Store the reason a field has its value (which provider, which run) so you can debug coverage later.
- Give every object a stable internal id that survives CRM record churn, so usage events captured before a lead is created can attach retroactively.
When the craft screen asks you to "design the data model for our startup program," resist drawing tables first. Open with the grain - "most logic runs at the account level, but the buying signal is per-user product usage, so I need both and a clean way to roll usage up." Then name source-of-truth boundaries. That framing tells them you've operated a real GTM stack, not just configured one.