Many large companies don't have 15 million customers, especially in a single year. In fact, most public software companies don't.

The difference between, say, Salesforce.com and 37signals is that nothing at Salesforce gets done without:

* a 10 person dev team

* a 5 person QA team

* a development manager

* a QA manager

* a director of engineering

* a VP/engineering

* a technical product manager

* a product manager

* a VP/product management

* 3 dedicated sales engineers

* an account manager

* a regional district manager

* a VP/sales

* an SVP/sales

* a marketing/communications person

* a marketing manager

* a PR person

* a VP/marketing

* an accounts receivable person

* a CFO

* and I could keep going...