SaaStr 839: Why Most SaaS Companies Will Fail at AI (And How to Avoid It) with Intercom's CPO
SaaStr 839: Why Most SaaS Companies Will Fail at AI (And How to Avoid It) with Intercom's CPO
The Brutal Truth About Transforming a SaaS Company into an AI Company
Intercom's Chief Product Officer, Paul Adams, shares the unfiltered story of how they transformed from a struggling SaaS company with 5 quarters of declining growth into an AI-first company with a breakthrough product (Fin) that now handles 1M+ customer resolutions per week.
What You'll Learn:
Why AI transformation requires "refounding" your entire company - not just adding AI features
The self-harming decisions you must make to win (including parting ways with ~33% of your team)
How to go from 0 to 6,000+ AI customers with 65% average resolution rate
Why demos ≠ products and the "marketing overhang" problem
The complete shift in how you build software (empirical evaluation vs. traditional product development)
Why designers now ship code to production at Intercom
How the buyer has changed (hint: it's no longer just the department head)
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This episode is Sponsored in part by HappyFox:
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Hey everybody, the biggest B2B + AI event of the year will be back - SaaStr AI in the SF Bay Area, aka the SaaStr Annual, will be back in May 2026.
With 68% VP-level and above, 36% CEOs and founders and a growing 25% AI-first professional, this is the very best of the best S-tier attendees and decision makers that come to SaaStr each year.
But here's the reality, folks: the longer you wait, the higher ticket prices can get. Early bird tickets are available now, but once they're gone, you'll pay hundreds more so don't wait.
Lock in your spot today by going to podcast.saastrannual.com to get my exclusive discount SaaStr AI SF 2026. We'll see you there.
DO repeat yourself! (Interview)
Prolific software blogger, Sean Goedecke, joins us to discuss why he believes software engineers need to be involved in the politics of their organization, how to avoid worry driven development, what is “good taste” in software engineering, where agentic coding will take our industry, why getting the main thing right is so important, and how to get your blog to the top of Hacker News.
Join the discussion
Changelog++ members get a bonus 4 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today!
Sponsors:
Tiger Data – Postgres for Developers, devices, and agents The data platform trusted by hundreds of thousands from IoT to Web3 to AI and more.
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Featuring:
Sean Goedecke – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
Is it worrying that 95% of AI enterprise projects fail?
How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
Avoiding worry driven development
What is “good taste” in software engineering?
Mistakes I see engineers making in their code reviews
Situational Awareness: the decade ahead
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
#295 Fergal Reid: Why Your Bots Fail and How Agents Fix Your Customer Support
This episode is sponsored by AGNTCY. Unlock agents at scale with an open Internet of Agents.
Visit https://agntcy.org/ and add your support.
Why do so many chatbots fail in the real world, and how can AI agents actually fix customer support?
In this episode of Eye on AI, host Craig Smith explores how teams move beyond scripted bots to production-grade AI agents that resolve real issues across chat, email, and voice. We look at what makes agents reliable at scale, how to configure them safely, and how to manage them like digital workers alongside your human team.
Learn how leading companies approach agent onboarding and governance, which pitfalls to avoid, and which metrics matter most for success, including resolution rate, CSAT, and cost per resolution. You will also hear how to enable actions like refunds and returns through secure procedures, design human handoff that customers appreciate, and build an omnichannel rollout plan that scales responsibly.
Stay Updated: Craig Smith on X:https://x.com/craigss Eye on A.I. on X: https://x.com/EyeOn_AI
The Customer Service Revolution: Building Fin, with Eoghan McCabe & Fergal Reid of Intercom
Today Eoghan McCabe and Fergal Reid of Intercom join The Cognitive Revolution to discuss building their AI customer service agent Fin, exploring how they achieved a 65% resolution rate through rigorous optimization and custom model training rather than relying on base model improvements, while pioneering outcome-based pricing at $0.99 per resolution.
Shownotes brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at: https://notion.com/lp/nathan
Sponsors:
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CHAPTERS:
(00:00) About the Episode
(03:43) Keeping Up With AI
(09:56) Evaluating Models and Evals
(13:04) Incumbents vs. Startups
(18:54) Product Risk and Judgment (Part 1)
(19:00) Sponsors: Linear | AGNTCY
(21:34) Product Risk and Judgment (Part 2)
(23:42) The Klarna Layoff Story (Part 1)
(32:11) Sponsors: Claude | Shopify
(36:13) The Klarna Layoff Story (Part 2)
(36:14) Driving Resolution Rate
(45:00) Intelligence Isn't the Bottleneck
(50:10) Closing the Automation Gap
(56:20) Human vs. AI Accuracy
(01:01:03) The Nuance of Speed
(01:04:48) Considering Paradigm Changes
(01:09:31) Outcome-Based Pricing Model
(01:19:12) Casual Hacking and Insights
(01:26:05) AI Adoption and Ambition
(01:36:00) Outro
From Aurora to PlanetScale: Intercom’s Database Evolution with Brian Scanlan
Brian Scanlan, Senior Principal Engineer at Intercom, the company building Fin.ai, joins Corey Quinn on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss Intercom’s move from AWS Aurora to PlanetScale’s managed Vitess after years of scaling challenges with their Ruby on Rails monolith. He explains how 13 Aurora clusters created operational pain and why PlanetScale’s white-glove, partnership-driven model won out over Amazon’s building-block approach.
The discussion also covers Intercom’s volunteer-based on-call system, their pivot to AI agents after ChatGPT’s launch, concerns about the shrinking pipeline of systems engineers, and how companies like PlanetScale and Snowflake are outpacing AWS by delivering superior user experiences.
About Brian: Brian is an engineer based in Intercom’s Dublin office. He fixes problems, builds things, and grows people.
Show Highlights
(01:34) The Digital Clippy Rant
(2:16) The Good Chatbot vs. Bad Chatbot
(03:51) The AI Chatbot Revolution
(04:33) Unexpected Consequences of Good Chatbots
(05:42) AI Support vs. Human Support
(05:59) The Alexa Problem and Feature Discoverability
(19:03) Amazon's Struggles Moving Up the Stack
(26:55) The Unix Networking Society Origins
(34:43) The Global On-Call Challenge
(42:09) LinkedIn: The World's Largest Porn Site
Links
Intercom: intercom.com
Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scanlanb/
Brian on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bscanlan.bsky.social
Sponsor
Wiz - Listen to Crying Out Cloud: wiz.io/crying-out-cloud
Inside Intercom’s AI Turnaround, Why Software Companies Must Train Their Own Models | Eoghan McCabe, Co-founder and CEO
Eoghan McCabe is the Co-founder and CEO of Intercom, building Fin.ai, the AI customer service company.
This was an extremely candid, two hour conversation going inside every detail of how Intercom was the first late stage software company to successfully re-architect itself to be AI-native.
Intercom just announced they’ve built their own customer service-focused AI models, and Eoghan explains why most software companies will have to do the same.
We also talk through the lessons he learned coming back to run Intercom in 2022 after stepping back in 2020, why many AI companies have strong negative gross margins despite the narrative, how Intercom designed AI’s first outcome-based pricing model, the challenges of buying AI software today, the importance of brand when building new products, and we get in the wayback machine, talking through the pain raising Intercom’s initial million dollar Seed round, and how venture capital has changed since then.
Thank you to Eoghan’s Co-founder Des Traynor for helping me brainstorm topics for the conversation.
Special thanks to Ramp for supporting this episode. It's the corporate card and expense management platform used by over 40,000 companies, like Shopify, CBRE and Stripe. Time is money. Save both with Ramp. Get $250 for signing-up here: https://ramp.com/ThePeel
Timestamps:
(4:18) We’re at peak SaaS
(9:11) Inside early days of Intercom’s turnaround
(16:43) AI will beat humans at everything
(21:17) Making trade-offs building AI products
(24:25) Why Intercom trained their own AI models
(28:33) Lessons from returning as CEO
(34:19) Overcoming initial AI skepticism in 2022
(40:02) Creating AI’s first outcome-based pricing
(45:15) Intercom’s best-in-class gross margins
(49:25) Why its so hard to buy AI software today
(51:28) Unpacking AI’s negative gross margins
(58:12) Being perfectly positioned for AI
(1:09:47) Why AI products need their own brand
(1:16:13) Founder CEOs vs Manager CEOs in AI
(1:21:29) AI startup opportunities
(1:24:57) Lessons running a team in Dublin and SF
(1:28:25) How media has changed over time
(1:37:32) Raising Intercom’s first $1 million Seed round
(1:43:53) Why there are so many VC’s
(1:47:38) Advice for investors
Referenced
Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
Fin: https://fin.ai/
Intercom Careers: https://www.intercom.com/careers
Eoghan’s website: https://eoghanmccabe.com
Intercom’s first pitch deck: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/intercompitchdeckpdf/253317574
Follow Eoghan
Twitter: https://x.com/eoghan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
How Intercom rose from the ashes by betting everything on AI | Eoghan McCabe (founder and CEO)
Eoghan McCabe is the founder and CEO of Intercom, a customer service platform that has successfully pivoted to become an AI-first company with its agent product, Fin. After stepping away from the CEO role in 2020 due to health issues, Eoghan returned to find the company’s growth had stalled. Just one month after his return, ChatGPT launched, and within six weeks, Intercom had a working prototype of what would become Fin. In this conversation, Eoghan shares the brutal reality of transforming a late-stage SaaS business valued at multiple billions into an AI-first company that’s now growing faster than most public software companies.
We discuss:
1. Why Eoghan believes most late-stage companies won’t survive the AI transition
2. The “founder mode” transformation that required firing 40% of staff and resulted in 98% employee satisfaction
3. Why having “nothing to lose” is the ultimate advantage in AI transformation (and why comfortable companies will fail)
4. How Intercom transformed from a plateauing SaaS business to an AI-first company growing at 300%+
5. How Intercom’s pricing evolved from “the most hated in SaaS” to a model that charges just $0.99 per resolved ticket
6. The cultural transformation required to compete with AI-native startups
7. How 12 years of therapy and a period of “ego death” shaped Eoghan’s leadership approach
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Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-intercom-rose-from-the-ashes-eoghan-mccabe
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My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/170710700/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation
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Where to find Eoghan McCabe:
• X: https://x.com/eoghan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
• Website: https://eoghanmccabe.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Eoghan
(05:00) The state of Intercom
(09:53) The decision to pivot to AI
(12:33) Why Eoghan is "anti-bot" in customer service
(16:19) Pricing strategy evolution
(19:26) Implementing the AI transformation
(26:11) Cultural and organizational changes
(31:18) Surviving a coup attempt
(40:05) The future of AI and business
(45:11) AI's impact on jobs
(48:44) AI and human creativity
(50:26) The importance of young AI talent
(55:00) The cultural shift in AI adoption
(58:00) Personal growth and leadership
(01:04:34) Intercom’s success in producing product leaders
(01:11:05) Intercom’s unique company culture
(01:14:11) Lightning round and final thoughts
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Referenced:
• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
• Fin: https://fin.ai/
• Des Traynor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/destraynor/
• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan
• Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pricing-and-scaling-your-ai-product-madhavan-ramanujam
• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach
• Behind the founder: Marc Benioff: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-founder-marc-benioff
• Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropic-co-founder-benjamin-mann
• Fergal Reid on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fergalreid/
• How Perplexity builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-perplexity-builds-product
• Yosi Amram’s website: https://yamram.com/
• (Nathaniel Russell) Ego Death Now: https://heythereprojects.shop/products/copy-of-nathaniel-russell-space-is-a-place
• Daniel Kahneman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman
• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/
• Stripe: https://stripe.com/
• Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/
• Paul Adams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauladams
• What AI means for your product strategy | Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-ai-means-for-your-product-strategy
• Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm
• N26: https://n26.com/en-eu
• Notion: https://www.notion.so/
• Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/
• True Detective on Max: https://www.hbomax.com/shows/true-detective/9a4a3645-74e0-4e4d-9f35-31464b402357
• 28 Years Later: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10548174/
• Trainspotting: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/
• 28 Days Later: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/
• Fellow: https://fellowproducts.com/
• Porsche 911: https://www.porsche.com/usa/models/911/
• Making Meta | Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth (CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-meta-andrew-boz-bosworth-cto
—
Recommended book:
• Nuclear War: A Scenario: https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-War-Scenario-Annie-Jacobsen/dp/0593476093
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
—
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com
Shipping projects at Big Tech with Sean Goedecke
Supported by Our Partner
DX → DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers
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In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Sean Goedecke, Staff Software Engineer at GitHub. Sean is widely known for his viral blog post, “How I ship projects at big tech companies.” In our conversation, he shares how to successfully deliver projects in large tech companies.
Drawing from his experiences at GitHub and Zendesk, Sean reflects on key lessons learned, and we discuss the following topics:
• Why shipping cannot exclude keeping management happy
• How to work on stuff the company actually values
• Why you should take on extra responsibility to get projects done
• Why technical skills are still more important than soft skills
• Soft skills you should learn: including learning the “management lingo”
• First-hand remote work learnings: advantages, disadvantages, and how to thrive in this setup
• … and much more!
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Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:50) An explanation of shipping
(05:35) Reasons management may choose to ship something customers don’t love
(09:20) A humbling learning from Sean’s time at Zendesk
(13:27) The importance of learning which rules need to be broken for good business outcomes
(15:28) Common obstacles to shipping
(18:13) DRI: Directly responsible individual
(23:06) The value of strong technical skills and why moving fast is imperative
(28:44) How to leverage your technical skills the right way
(32:16) Advice on earning the trust of leadership
(36:10) A time Gergely shipped a product for a political reason
(38:30) What GenAI helps software engineers do more easily
(41:08) Sean’s thoughts on GenAI making engineers more ambitious
(43:20) The difficulty of building AI tools
(46:10) Advantages of working remotely and strategies for making it work
(52:34) Who is best suited to remote work
(54:48) How the pandemic provided a remote work trial for Sean
(56:45) Rapid fire round
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The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Software Engineers Leading Projects https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineers-leading-projects
• Shipping to production https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/shipping-to-production
• Paying down tech debt https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/paying-down-tech-debt
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe
EP 123: Intercom CEO on Endorsing Trump, Reinventing The Company, and the Future of AI in Software
Eoghan McCabe returned to the CEO seat at Intercom with a mission to shake things up. Over the past two years, he's been reinventing the company’s culture, leading with zero apologies, and transforming Intercom into an AI-driven powerhouse.
In my latest conversation, we dive into Eoghan’s journey back to Intercom after a two-year break, his blueprint for turning a software company into an AI leader, and the tactics he uses to keep Intercom running like a high-intensity startup. Eoghan also shares his thoughts on personal freedom and his controversial endorsement of Donald Trump.
[0:00] Intro
[1:33] Eoghan McCabe's Return to Intercom
[3:01] Challenges and Learnings
[10:44] Cultural Reset at Intercom
[29:23] AI and the Future of Customer Service
[31:11] Adapting to AI and Market Changes
[43:00] Competitive Landscape and Strategy
[48:29] Future of AI in Customer Service
[50:24] The Evolution of Work
[52:18] Challenges and Rewards of Leadership
[56:45] Media and Public Perception
[1:00:40] Political Endorsements and Reactions
[1:10:11] Freedom Club and Cultural Influence
[1:12:33] HR and Company Culture
[1:29:35] Fundraising and Investor Relations
[1:33:01] Final Reflections and Advice
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
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20VC: Why Most AI Investments Will Do Worse than the S&P 500 | Why Early Stage VC is F******* | The Danger of Kamala Harris and Why Trump and Vance are Best | Freedom of Speech, Censorship and Government Control with Eoghan McCabe @ Intercom
Eoghan McCabe is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Intercom, one of the largest private software companies in the valley with hundreds of millions in revenue and thousands of customers. To date, Eoghan has raised over $238M from Index, Kleiner Perkins, ICONIQ, GV, Bessemer and more incredible firms. Intercom's goal is to reinvent customer service with AI agents replacing human agents over the next 10 years.
10 Questions with One of the Largest Private Company CEO's:
AI Investing: Why will most AI investments not do better than the S&P 500?
Building SaaS Tools with AI: Why is it crazy for companies to follow Klarna and use AI to build their own tools?
Going Public: Why is Bill Gurley wrong that more later stage companies should go public? Why did Intercom shelve plans to go public in 2022?
Early-Stage is F*******: Why is the early-stage venture ecosystem as an asset class f******?
Founder Mode: Why does Eoghan believe all of the best founders are unbalanced? What is the difference between Founder vs Manager mode?
Political Voice: Why did Eoghan decide he had to voice his political opinions now?
The Danger of Harris: Why does Eoghan believe a Harris administration would rob the US of immense freedom, democracy and civil liberty?
Why Vote Trump: Why does Eoghan believe that Trump will regain immense freedom for the sovereign individual?
Freedom of Speech: How does Eoghan determine right vs wrong when freedom of speech leads to harm and injustice?
Middle East and Nuclear War: Why does Eoghan believe that nuclear war is much closer than we think? Will we see the Middle East descend into war?
Great Builders & Success First with Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe | E1962
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Todays show:
Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe joins Jason to discuss: the state of the business at Intercom and his return as CEO (8:33), the future of customer service with AI (24:28), what makes a great manager (59:36), and more!
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe joins Jason.
(1:50) Family history of the two McCabe’s: Jason and Eoghan.
(5:49) The kindness and dedication of Intercom’s co-founder Des Traynor.
(8:33) What Intercom is, the state of the business and Eoghan’s return as CEO.
(10:41) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups
(12:37) Looking at overlap and adjacencies when you are building SaaS products.
(16:36) The brilliance of the pre-seed pricing model, and is it broken?
(19:47) .Tech Domains - Apply for the “Jam with JCal” contest today at https://www.jamwithjcal.tech
(22:16) What is next for companies with. SaaS-based pricing.
(24:28) The future of customer service and AI.
(30:30) Northwest Registered Agent - For just $39 plus state fees, Northwest will handle your complete business identity. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today.
(36:09) Expectations from AI one year from now.
(45:23) Breaking down the negative press and social reaction to the Humane Pin.
(52:34) What the world will look like as conversational AI develops.
(59:36) What makes a great manager and the “return of the king” at Intercom.
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Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp
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Check out Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
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Follow Eoghan:
X: https://x.com/eoghan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
*
Follow Jason:
X: https://twitter.com/Jason
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
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Thank you to our partners:
(10:41) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups
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Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
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20VC: OpenAI's Sam Altman, Mistral's Arthur Mensch and more discuss: Will Foundation Models Be Commoditised | Which Startups Are Threatened vs Enabled by OpenAI | Is the Value in the Infrastructure or Application Layer?
Sam Altman is the CEO @ OpenAI, the company on a mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI is one of the fastest-scaling companies in history with a valuation of $90BN and $2BN+ in revenue.
Brad Lightcap is the COO @ OpenAI and the man responsible for the incredible scaling of sales, GTM, partnerships and business to today being over $2BN in revenue.
Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion.
Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Today Des leads all of Intercom's R&D efforts, and parts of Intercom's marketing.
Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa).
Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner @ Theory Ventures, just announced last week, Theory is a $230M fund that invests $1-25m in early-stage companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages.
Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
Will foundation models be commoditised?
What is the end state for the foundation model landscape in 10 years?
How will large cloud provider incumbents approach M&A with smaller foundation model providers?
When will we see marginal revenue exceed marginal cost in the foundation model business model?
Where is the value: the application layer or the infrastructure layer?
How can startups know whether they will be threatened by OpenAI?
What are good tests/questions to know if you are in the path of one of the large foundation models?
How does the business model of SaaS fundamentally change in a world of AI?
Will we see the end of per-seat pricing in a new world of AI?
What is the right way to approach pricing in a world of AI? Consumption? Tokens?
#191 CEO & Co-Founder Intercom, Eoghan McCabe: Second Beginning
Guest: Eoghan McCabe, CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder of Intercom
“We are not ready for the degree to which our world is going to change,” says Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe, “in insane and incredible ways.” When he co-founded the company in 2011, the Irish-born entrepreneur was making it easier for companies to offer human customer service to their customers. But Eoghan believes “every single type of knowledge work” will soon be done by AI, and Intercom is well on its way to that destination: 45 percent of all tickets are being answered by bots now, and he expects that number to climb to 70 percent by 2026. “The agents no longer have to do the repetitive, painful, boring work,” Eoghan says. “They can focus on the more human, creative, interesting work that requires their empathy and creativity.”
In this episode, Eoghan and Joubin discuss fitting in, Archana Agrawal, authentic comms, taking risks, returning to the company you founded, politics at work, celebrating innovation, therapy for founders, and Ram Dass.
Chapters:
(01:04) - Insecurity and success
(06:16) - What Intercom does
(08:20) - Reinvention and “big company values”
(15:50) - Becoming an AI company
(16:53) - 2011 vs. 2024 in San Francisco
(21:03) - AI for customer service — and more
(25:07) - “The shitty gift that being attacked brings”
(30:25) - Expectations vs. reality, part one
(33:16) - What success means now
(36:08) - Running away
(39:56) - Coming back
(41:58) - Being busy is BS
(44:10) - Expectations vs. reality, part two
(45:44) - Self-mastery
(50:38) - Sanding off the rough edges
(55:08) - Who Intercom is hiring and what “grit” means to Eoghan
Links:
Connect with EoghanTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
20VC: AI's Biggest Questions: The Commoditisation of LLMs, Open vs Closed: Who Wins, Model Size vs Data Quality, Why Google are Vulnerable and Apple are the Dark Horse
Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support.
Yann LeCun is VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta and Silver Professor at NYU affiliated with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences & the Center for Data Science. He was the founding Director of FAIR and of the NYU Center for Data Science.
Emad Mostaque is the Co-Founder and CEO @ StabilityAI, the parent company of Stable Diffusion. Stability are building the foundation to activate humanity's potential.
Jeff Seibert is the Founder & CEO @ Digits, building the future of AI-powered accounting. Digits have raised funding from the likes of Peter Fenton @ Benchmark and 20VC.
Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner @ Theory Ventures, just announced last week, Theory is a $230M fund that invests $1-25m in early-stage companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages.
Douwe Kiela is the CEO of Contextual AI, building the contextual language model to power the future of businesses.
Cris Valenzuela is the CEO and co-founder of Runway, the company that trains and builds generative AI models for content creation.
Richard Socher is the founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Before that, Richard was the CEO/CTO of AI startup MetaMind, acquired by Salesforce in 2016.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
Foundational Models: Analysis
Will foundational models become commoditized?
Who are the major players? What are their different strengths?
Who will win? Who will lose?
How important is the size of the model vs the quality of the data?
2. Open vs Closed:
What are the biggest pros and cons of an open ecosystem for LLMs?
Why is it naive to think that open-source LLMs will prevail?
What will determine which method wins?
3. An Analysis of the Incumbents:
Why is Google the most vulnerable? What can they do to regain ground?
Why is Apple the sleeping giant? How could they win the next wave of AI?
What should Amazon do today to compete with Microsoft?
4. The Future: Doom and Gloom?
Why is it ridiculous to assume AI systems want to dominate?
Why will AI create a renaissance of creativity and human freedom?
What role should regulation play in the advancement and progression of AI?
20VC: How to Survive and Thrive in a World of OpenAI, Are LLMs Being Commoditised, Where Does the Value Lie; Infrastructure or Application Layer, How Apple Could Win in a World of AI, How Amazon Could Threaten OpenAI and Why Google Struggle with Des Trayn
Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Today Des leads all Intercom's R&D efforts, and parts of Intercom's marketing.
In Today's Episode with Des We Discuss:
1. From Consultancy to Founding a Unicorn:
What was the founding a-ha moment for Des and the team with Intercom?
Why does Des believe that most startup advice is BS and outdated in 5 years?
What does Des know now that he wishes he had known when he started?
2. LLMs: The World is Not Equal:
What does Des mean when he says the world of LLMs is not equal?
How do the different LLMs very in quality, price and speciality?
Does Des agree with Alex @ Nabla, "the best companies in the future will work with many LLMs at the same time and switch between them for different things"?
To what extent does Des believe LLMs will be commoditised and it will be a race to the bottom?
Would Des be a buyer of OpenAI at a $90BN price? Why not?
3. How to Survive in a World of OpenAI:
What two simple questions will determine if Open AI will kill your existing business?
What 3 criteria will determine if there is a new business to be built on top of OpenAI?
What is the different between a thin layer on top of an LLM and a thick wrapper with real value?
Which traditional incumbents are most vulnerable? What should they do in this new world?
How long does it take for incumbents to really be impacted?
4. The Titans of Tech: Who Wins:
Why does Des believe that Apple could be a massive winner in the next wave of AI?
Why does Des believe that Google have not been impressive and failed to keep pace?
Why does Des think OpenAI should be wary of Amazon? What could they do to threaten them?
What opportunity does Facebook have here? How could Instagram and Whatsapp win?
5. Startup and Investing 101:
Why does Des believe that every founder should write a blog post per week?
Why does Des believe that most B2B marketing sucks? What makes great B2B marketing?
What are Des' biggest lessons from the Hopin journey?
How has Des' angel investing changed in the last year with the rise of AI?
What AI means for your product strategy | Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom)
Paul Adams is the longtime chief product officer at Intercom, where he leads the product management, product design, data science, and research teams. Before Intercom, Paul was the global head of brand design at Facebook, a senior user researcher at Google, and a product designer at Dyson. He’s also a best-selling author, a podcast host, and a public speaker. In today’s episode, we discuss:
• Practical advice on integrating AI into your organization
• Tips and tools for learning AI as a PM
• Hilarious stories from Google and Facebook
• How to build conviction with skeptical coworkers
• Lessons learned from pricing at Intercom
• How Intercom implemented JTBD
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Brought to you by Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments | Hex—Helping teams ask and answer data questions by working together | HelpBar by Chameleon—The free in-app universal search solution built for SaaS
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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-ai-means-for-your-product-strategy-paul-adams-cpo-of-intercom/
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Where to find Paul Adams:
• X: https://twitter.com/Padday
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauladams/
—
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
—
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Paul’s background
(04:09) Freezing onstage in front of 8,000 people
(07:28) Insights from Google+ days
(12:31) Learning from failure
(13:56) Intercom’s “ship fast, ship early, ship often” principle
(15:17) Integrating AI into product strategy
(17:31) Making time for AI learning
(19:37) AI in new-product development
(21:16) Questions to ask about your product
(23:33) How Intercom pivoted after the release of ChatGPT
(25:13) Intercom’s AI chatbot, Fin
(26:45) The early impact of AI adoption at Intercom
(28:53) Mind-blowing capabilities of AI
(34:27) How to structure teams around AI products
(37:57) Why all teams should be involved in AI
(39:04) Staying up to date on emerging technology
(42:44) Hurdles implementing AI at Intercom
(45:52) Building conviction around AI
(49:52) Why you shouldn’t fear AI
(50:56) Paul’s “before-after” framework
(51:54) Pricing lessons from Intercom
(54:54) Paul’s “differentiation vs. table stakes” framework
(59:22) What “swinging the pendulum” means and examples from Intercom
(1:05:21) Paul’s “product market story fit” framework
(1:08:23) His take on JTBD
(1:11:01) How Intercom uses the “four forces” framework
(1:12:54) Lightning round
—
Referenced:
• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
• The New ChatGPT Can “See” and “Talk.” Here’s What It’s Like: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/technology/new-chatgpt-can-see-hear.html
• Fergal Reid on X: https://twitter.com/fergal_reid
• Intercom’s AI chatbot, Fin: https://www.intercom.com/drlp/fin
• Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse | Lex Fridman Podcast #398: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYrJJNdrEg
• Black Mirror “Joan Is Awful” episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20247352/
• Mission: Impossible on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Impossible-Tom-Cruise/dp/B000X4IRE4
• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/
• Claude: https://claude.ai/
• Matt Rickard’s newsletter: https://substack.com/@mattrickard
• OpenAI’s blog: https://openai.com/blog
• The Rundown AI newsletter: https://www.therundown.ai/
• Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/
• Google Bard: https://bard.google.com/
• Rewind: https://www.rewind.ai/
• The Three Horizons Framework: https://medium.com/fact-of-the-day-1/the-three-horizons-framework-9d7ac0fbea21
• Sam Altman on X: https://twitter.com/sama
• Tableau: https://www.tableau.com/
• Kano model: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/kano-model/
• The ultimate guide to JTBD | Bob Moesta (co-creator of the framework): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-jtbd-bob-moesta-co-creator-of-the-framework/
• Hot takes and techno-optimism from tech’s top power couple | Sriram and Aarthi: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/hot-takes-and-techno-optimism-from-techs-top-power-couple-sriram-and-aarthi/
• Outcome-Driven Innovation: JTBD Theory in Practice: https://jobs-to-be-done.com/outcome-driven-innovation-odi-is-jobs-to-be-done-theory-in-practice-2944c6ebc40e
• The Four Forces Framework: https://thefourforces.com/four-forces-framework/
• It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be: https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-How-Good-Want/dp/0714843377/
• Principles: Life and Work: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124021
• The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f
• “Terry (Olivia Colman) and Richie peel mushrooms” scene from The Bear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7D8THR_osU
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change: https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-Powerful/dp/0743269519
• Guinness: https://www.guinness.com/
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
—
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Des Traynor - Real Talk about AI and Software - [Invest Like the Best, EP.340]
My guest today is Des Traynor. Des is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom - a customer service solution that helps businesses answer product questions, offer instant support, and automate sales. The business was founded in 2011 and its products operate within 25,000 businesses, including the likes of Amazon, Lyft and Atlassian. Our conversation is roughly split in half. First, we talk about AI and how it’s actually changing businesses like Intercom through products such as their OpenAI powered bot called Fin. We then talk about Des’s views as an investor, which includes an answer about software that I’ll remember for a long time. Please enjoy my conversation with Des Traynor.
Listen to Founders Podcast
Founders Episode 311: James Cameron
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
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Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
(00:03:42) - (First question) - Des's high level thoughts on Open AI and new technology
(00:07:07) - Advanced AI tech for existing businesses versus start-ups ventures
(00:11:14) - Where Intercom falls on the spectrum of existing and new AI technology
(00:13:16) - Training AI to be tailored to specific fields of work
(00:18:25) - The natural end point is for Intercom incorporating AI
(00:22:25) - Des's product philosophy behind this technology
(00:24:03) - Choosing an AI provider that best suited his customer service industry needs
(00:26:55) - The value comparison between using AI-led customer service versus human
(00:29:18) - Why outsourcing automated data is not for everyone
(00:31:15) - Des's advice for other companies beginning to integrate AI into their operations
(00:36:33) - What he is excited for as an investor in this area
(00:37:50) - The most common discussions he’s having about this technology
(00:41:21) - The inherent risks of using AI models that are not 100% accurate
(00:45:10) - Des's evolution as an investor
(00:48:25) - How Intercom solved it’s AI execution problems
(00:50:46) - Combating other companies that are trying to overtake the field
(00:53:44) - Counter arguments for using AI technology
(00:57:22) - His view on the best software out there
(01:03:00) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
20VC: Why Being First Does Not Matter, Why Defensibility on Day 1 Does Not Exist, Three Core Elements To Move into Enterprise Effectively and What Makes Truly Great Product Marketing Today with Des Traynor, Co-Founder @ Intercom
Des Traynor is a Co-founder and the Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom, the modern customer communications platform that unifies every aspect of the customer journey. To date, Intercom has raised over $238M from some of the best including Index, ICONIQ, Kleiner, GV, and Bessemer. As for Des, before co-founding Intercom, he was a UX consultant, a university lecturer in computer science, and also a Ph.D. researcher. Des is also a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Stripe, Algolia, Notion, Miro, and many more.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
1.) Origins of Intercom:
How did Des make his way into the world of startups and come to co-found Intercom?
When did they realize they really had something with Intercom and had to focus on it?
What does Des know now that he wishes he had known at the start of Intercom?
2. Two of the Biggest Myths in Startups: Being First and Defensibility
Why does Des believe that being the first does not matter? Why is it not an advantage?
Why does Des believe that no company has defensibility on day 1? How does Des believe defensibility is built?
What does Des mean when he says, when investing in companies he looks for a "long road to the starting line"?
3.) Product 101: A Masterclass on Product:
How does Des answer the question of when to release a second product?
How should the second product be resourced? MVP and lean or full budget and committed?
What are the biggest mistakes people make when releasing a second product? What mistakes have Des and Intercom made when releasing new products?
How does Des advise founders on when to stop working on a product? How do you know when it is not working?
How does Des determine between a feature and a product both when building and when investing?
4.) Moving to Enterprise:
What does Des believe are the three core things all companies need to scale into the enterprise effectively? Which should they do first? Which is most challenging?
How does Des advise founders on when is the right time to move into the enterprise?
How does the product need to change to meet enterprise needs and requirements?
5.) The Makings of Great Product Marketing:
What does Des believe makes truly great product marketing? Who does it well today?
How does your product marketing need to change as you scale from SMB to enterprise?
If product marketing to both an end user and a separate buyer, which persona should one prioritise their messaging towards?
How does Des advise founders on product marketing when they have a horizontal product with a very broad customer base?
6.) Angel Investing 101: From Stripe to Miro to Notion:
Why does Des believe it is beneficial for operators to also be investing?
What are the biggest lessons Des has learned from angel investing?
How does Des approach both market sizing and outcome scenario planning today?
How price sensitive is Des today? How has that changed over time?
Item's Mentioned in Today's Episode with Des Traynor:
Des' Favourite Book: How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen
SaaStr 507: On Shifting to the Next Gear: Proven Strategies to Accelerate Growth with Intercom CEO, Karen Peacock
When is the best time to find your next gear of growth? Now. Whether you are growing rapidly or seeing growth start to slow, this talk will share proven ways to accelerate.
Karen Peacock, CEO of Intercom and former SVP of Small Business at Intuit, will discuss how putting customers at the forefront of your business is the key to hitting that next level.
She'll cover how to segment your customer base and analyze the health of each part as input to strategy, design and package your product based on value and build highly contextual and personalized customer experiences that lead to happy customers, retention, expansion, and growth.
Karen will share stories based on her experience at Intuit building one of the world's largest SaaS product lines from $500M to $2.5B and in her current role leading Intercom's high growth on the path to IPO.
Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/shifting-to-the-next-gear-proven-strategies-to-accelerate-growth-with-intercom/
What startups need to succeed | Scaling Your Startup S2 E10 with Intercom’s Des Traynor | E1234
Intercom CEO Des Traynor discusses why startups need to grow fast (7:44), how to execute at speed (10:48), build an effective culture (33:35) & more!
Intercom’s Des Traynor on the importance of pricing, product-market fit metrics & more | Angel S5 E2
Check out Intercom: https://www.intercom.com
FOLLOW Des: https://twitter.com/destraynor
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis
20VC: Intercom Founder, Eoghan McCabe on How To Deal with the Weight of Expectation, Having Your Identity Tied To Your Company, How To Be Your Authentic Self Even with Stakeholders & Why There Are No Rules
Eoghan McCabe is a technology entrepreneur. He's started a number of companies, the most notable of which is Intercom, the conversational relationship platform. He was CEO of Intercom for nearly 10 years, during which he grew the company to hundreds of millions in annual revenue, nearly 700 employees, and raised nearly $250M from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, Index, Bessemer, and ICONIQ. He's also invested in dozens of companies including Stripe, Figma, SuperHuman, and Coda. In the summer of 2020 he moved to the role of Chairman of Intercom.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Eoghan made his way into the world of startups from Ireland and came to build one of the Valley's greats with Intercom?
2.) How does Eoghan thinking about living and thriving with a chip on one's shoulder? What does Eoghan advise in terms of one's search for their true selves? What were his biggest learnings in his search? What does Eoghan advise people who maybe feel they have lost themselves?
3.) Having been CEO of a $Bn company for close to 10 years, how does Eoghan think about dealing with the weight of expectation placed on shoulders? How did he manage it? How does he think about his identity being so tied to his company?
4.) In terms of being one's authentic self, how can one achieve this while also respecting their stakeholders who may hold different views? How does Eoghan think about being an authentic leader vs bowing down to the demands of your team? What is the right balance?
5.) Why does Eoghan think that vision can actually be limiting? How does Eoghan think about stress testing one's vision and ambition? What adversity from early VCs did Eoghan have to fight against? How does Eoghan encourage dissent and debate within his teams?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Eoghan's Fave Book: Breathe: simple breathing techniques for a calmer, happier life
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
SaaStr 223: Intercom COO Karen Peacock on Scaling from $1MM to $500MM ARR: 5 Strategies to Drive Your Next Wave of Growth with Intercom
Karen Peacock is COO of Intercom, one of the fastest growing SaaS businesses of all time. She has led businesses of all sizes through massive growth. Listen to her top 5 lessons learned building and scaling SaaS businesses from $1M to $500M in ARR including expanding to serve upmarket customers, moving from product to platform, and hiring to drive breakthrough customer experiences and business growth.
Missed the session? Here's what Karen talks about:
How should you expand your market?
How to move upmarket
The steps to building a product and creating an end to end experience
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
SaaStr
Karen Peacock
SaaStr 202: Intercom COO Karen Peacock on Lessons Learned Running A $2.2Bn Line of Business at Intuit, The Most Important Metric You Probably Aren't Tracking & Why, When and How To Hire Your COO
Karen Peacock is the COO @ Intercom, the company that provides a new and better way to acquire, engage and retain customers. To date, Intercom have raised over $240m in VC funding from some of the very best in VC including GV, Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer, ICONIQ and then individuals such as Mark Zuckerberg, John Collison, Biz Stone and Andy McLoughlin. As for Karen, prior to Intercom, she spent an incredible 17 years at Intuit leading all of Intuit's small business products and services worldwide, a $2.2B business including QuickBooks, Accounting, Payments, and Payroll. As part of that, Karen managed a team of 500 and helped build one of the world's largest SaaS businesses.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
How Karen made her way into the world of SaaS with Intuit and how that led to becoming COO @ Intercom today? What were Karen's biggest takeaways from her time at Intuit?
What does Karen mean when she says "watch what customers do, not what they say"? How does Karen think about the difference between being customer driven vs customer informed? Why is it important to fall in love with the problem and not the solution as an entrepreneur?
Karen has grown Intercom from 350 to 600 in 18 months, what would Karen's biggest advice and learnings be when it comes to team assembly and hiring the best? What can one do to stress test the fit of the candidate pre-hire? What does Karen always find to be the most revealing questions to ask?
When does Karen believe is the right time to hire a COO? How does one know when they have the right COO fit? What are some best practices for onboarding a new COO? What is the optimal relationship between CEO and COO?
Karen has seen incredible scaling first hand both with Intercom and Intuit, what would some of her biggest takeaways and advice be on scaling? Where does Karen see many make mistakes in the scaling phases? What does Karen mean when she speaks about "the most important metric that you probably aren't tracking?"
Karen's 60 Second SaaStr:
What does Karen know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
What motto or quote does Karen frequently revert back to?
What is the most challenging element in Karen's role today?
Read the full transcript on our blog.
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Karen Peacock
#064 – The Path from Minimum Viable Product to $50M a Year with Des Traynor of Intercom
As Intercom's Chief Strategy Officer, Des Traynor (@DesTraynor) knows a thing or two about building a successful company. Over the past 7 years, he's worn almost every hat there is to wear. In this interview, Des explains how Intercom got to where it is today and what he's learned along the way, from marketing, to product development and feature prioritization, to hiring, sales, and developing an effective vision that people can believe in.
Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/064-des-traynor-of-intercom
SaaStr 183: Intercom CEO, Eoghan McCabe on The Right Way To Structure Your Org Chart, The Secret To Scaling From SME To Enterprise Successfully & How To Create A Culture of Experimentation Without Fear
Eoghan McCabe is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Intercom, one of the fastest growing saas companies of the day providing a new and better way to acquire, engage and retain customers. Due to their phenomenal growth they have raised over $240m in funding from some of the best in the world including Kleiner Perkins, Social Capital, Bessemer and Index, just to name a few. As for Eoghan, prior to co-founding Intercom, he founded an award-winning software design consultancy called Contrast, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 and now a part of Rackspace.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How did Eoghan come to be founder of one of the hottest growing startups in SaaS from founding a software design firm in Ireland?
What does Eoghan believe are the core pillars for success in making the move from SME to enterprise? How does one reinvent oneself to make this transition? How has Eoghan seen te org structure and internal decision-making change with the adoption of many more enterprise clients?
How does Eoghan determine between the decision to hire the young jack of all trades vs the much more experienced senior exec? Why does Eoghan believe you can never be too early to bring someone more senior than you onto the team? What makes Eoghan say, "we are all learning on the fly"?
How does Eoghan look to create a culture of experimentation and accountability without the fear of failure? What must the leader do to imbue this culture? Where does Eoghan see many going wrong in trying to make this happen?
How does Eoghan think about "transparency" with SaaS companies today? Why does he think that not only is it not healthy but also largely not possible? Instead, what is a better, more sustainable solution to transparency?
Read the full transcript on our blog.
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Eoghan McCabe
SaaStr 155: Intercom Co-Founder, Des Traynor on Constructing The Right Brand Architecture, The Right Way To Integrate Customer Feedback Into Product Roadmap & Why There Is An Inverse Correlation Between Quality & Market Size
Des Traynor is the Co-Founder, Chief Strategy Officer and VP of Marketing at Intercom, one of the world's hottest startups that simply put, makes communicating with customers easy and efficient. They have raised over $115m in funding from some of the world's leading investors including Social Capital, Index Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and then titans of industry with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and the Collison brothers at Stripe. Prior to Intercom, Des previously co-founded Exceptional (now a part of Rackspace), and prior was a UX designer for web applications.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How Des made his way from founding consultancy web design businesses in Ireland to founding SaaS superstar, Intercom, with Eoghan and moving to San Francisco?
Why does Des believe that "brand is the most overlooked element for new startups"? How must founders think differently when constructing their brand for a single product vs multi-product company? What is the right way to think about this brand architecture?
How involved should customers be in the development of product roadmap? Where are the nuances and challenges to this? When is the right time to start thinking about releasing a second product? What is the right and the wrong way for this to be marketed?
What does Des mean when he says, "there is an inverse correlation between quality and market size"? How should founders think about selling to both SMB and enterprise? How do their buying psychology and implementation process differ?
60 Second SaaStr
When I say success, who is the first person that comes to Des' mind?
Where do most startups go wrong with their branding?
What does Des know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Des Traynor
20VC: Intercom's Eoghan McCabe on What Makes A Truly Great CEO & What Founders Should Look For In Their Investors
Eoghan McCabe is the CEO and co-founder of Intercom. The customer communications platform that has taken the SaaS world by storm in the last few years with 116m in VC funding from truly some of the world's best including Bessemer, Social Capital and Index Ventures. Prior to Intercom, he founded Contrast, an award-winning software design consultancy, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 and now a part of Rackspace.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Eoghan came to found Intercom?
2.) Question From Andy McLoughlin: What were the biggest lessons from your previous startups?
3.) How did Eoghan find the early fundraising process? How did he come to meet his angel investors? How did he get them to look beyond the product and invest in him?
4.) Eoghan raised his Series B just 6 months after his Series A. Why was this so quick? How did he select his investors?
5.) What separates good from truly great CEOs? How has Eoghan seen his own management style changed over the Intercom journey?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Eoghan's Fave Blog: SaaStr, The Intercom Blog
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Eoghan on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Cooley are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world, with 50+ years working with VCs. They help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad issues that arise through a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the #1 most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public. Head over to cooley.comand also atcooleygo.com.
SaaStr 058: Intercom's Eoghan McCabe on Why There Are No Rules For Building a SaaS Company, How To Turn Every Challenge Into An Opportunity & Why You Will Never Have As Much Empathy For Others As You Do For Yourself
Eoghan McCabe is CEO and co-founder of Intercom. The customer communications platform that has taken the saas world by storm in the last few years with 116m in VC funding from truly some of the world's best including Bessemer, Social Capital and Index Ventures. He previously founded Contrast, an award-winning software design consultancy, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 and now a part of Rackspace.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How did Intercom break out in the early days with seemingly lots of competition and an install before you buy process?
In terms of category creation, in the early days how did Eoghan convince people of a product that had previously never existed? At what stage did Eoghan and Des stop selling the product themselves? When is the right time to hire your VP of Sales?
How did Eoghan establish a pricing mechanism for Intercom? Why is Eoghan such an advocate for value based pricing?
Why it is so important for founders and sales teams to have empathy for the customer? How can you practice empathy? How can you cheat empathy?
How does Eoghan manage a distributed workforce so well? What does he do to create links and culture between both the Dublin and SF office?
60 Second SaaStr
Biggest advice to SaaS founders?
Fave SaaS reading material?
Most proud moment of Intercom's journey?
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Eoghan McCabe
Episode 55: Des Traynor
Des Traynor is the co-founder of Intercom. In this episode we get deep into the weeds of startup land. We discuss product market fit, advice to entrepreneurs, hiring, firing, productivity, and a lot more. Des is one of the best growth and product founders in the game, and drops gems in this episode. Edited by @alexkontis Lavish Praise to @destraynor Constructive Criticism to @eriktorenberg
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