Ask Me Anything: Intercom Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder Des Traynor
Hey, I’m Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Intercom, a fundamentally new way for internet businesses to communicate with customers, personally, at scale. We’ve raised $66M, and we have have over 8,000 happy customers. You can learn more about Intercom here.
I write and speak a lot about making products, specifically how to think about product strategy, and how to manage a product once it’s out in the wild. You can see some of my writing here. I’ve also authored three books on product management, customer engagement, and customer support.
I studied computer science in college, am a designer by trade, and of late I’ve worked on all sorts of areas, including Marketing, Events, HR, Recruitment, Product Strategy, Company Values, and much more that I’ve forgotten. I mix my time between San Francisco and Dublin, though I consider the latter “home.” My favorite/only hobby is soccer.
Please don’t ask what my “regular day-to-day” is, as there really isn’t one. Aside from that one, go ahead and ask me anything!
This AMA originally appeared on Product Hunt LIVE and has been slightly edited for clarity.
1. How do you think “Lifecycle Messaging” will change in the next few years? What are some old best practices that don’t work anymore?
I think we’re at “Peak Behavior-Driven Email Software,” to paraphrase Eoghan, Intercom’s CEO. Most of the new solutions are barely incremental on the existing solutions, which is such a waste of human capital.
I think this is a case where better targeting will continue to drive results, and better contextual messaging will out-perform “ye olde ‘day 3’ mail.” So I think in the short term we’ll (hopefully) see badly targeted messages, or emails that should have been in-apps, start to drop off as companies learn there are far better ways to engage customers and prospects.
Speaking of customer engagement, here’s a book we wrote.
2. During your career to date, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? What’s the worst?
Good question. As a disclaimer, I don’t really believe the quality of advice is unrelated to the situation you’re in. I really believe, as Clay Christensen says, “Questions are places in the mind where answers fit.” So you can really only receive advice when you’re in a position to do so, on a topic that you’re actively concerned about.
I think I’ve received lots of gems, but here’s a couple of recent ones that don’t get praised enough:
https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3...
This post resonated with me, because at the time I was chasing something (a PhD) simply because I had said earlier I wanted it. I was seemingly hell bent on pissing away the best years of my life, simply to make good on a declaration made three years ago, rather than pursuing something I actually wanted.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/set...
This single-sentence blog post by Seth Godin is very powerful and taught me many lessons throughout my career, both as a founder and as a consultant.
3. Are there typical mistakes you notice product makers making — and do you notice different typical mistakes in the EU/rest-of-US and SF/rest-of-world?
The biggest strength of product makers is there is nothing they believe a better product won’t solve. The biggest weakness of product makers is there is nothing they believe a better product won’t solve. Every strength is a weakness.
I think what this means is they focus way too much on over-polishing something, when the key to a successful company might lie in unlocking something else. Sometimes it’s sales, marketing, support, finance, etc.
I don’t really know how to answer your second question, but at a basic level, I think the biggest difference is the scale of thought is much bigger in SF, and again that’s a strength and a weakness. Not every product idea needs to be scaled to change the world on a global level, and many break when you try to force that. But if you have a very big idea, I think SF is the right place.
4. If you weren’t involved with Intercom what other ‘area’ do you see as needing disruption?
I guess it comes down to pains I experience frequently that I can imagine a solution to.
For example, I like to watch soccer, and that whole world is a shit show right now. Someone is going to come in and do a Spotify. I’ve long thought, and tweeted, that “Spotify for Soccer” is a great idea, and honestly I’m surprised it’s taking so long for someone to get on it. It’s likely related to the fact that only a small percentage of, for example, Silicon Valley, would appreciate the challenge (as they likely don’t watch/play soccer) and the scale of the opportunity (it’s not very well known that soccer is way bigger than any other sport).
But the opportunity, to me, is this: The biggest sport in the world can’t easily be watched online, so the vast majority are turning to piracy and dodgy sites to watch instead. The parallels with music pre-iTunes are pretty staggering.
5. How did you get your first 100 paying customers?
Hmmm, our first 100 specifically is kinda easy. We asked people we knew through the industry. Prior to Intercom we had a consultancy (Contrast), a product (Exceptional), and built an audience for our old blog (now gone). So I think our first 100 customers came from the audience we had been building since ‘08.
However, we didn’t start charging straight away for Intercom, so if you mean the literal “100 people who paid us first” it’s harder to tell.
6. What have you learned from speaking at so many conferences over the past few years? Any advice for those who struggle with the stage?
Hmmm…I’ve learned lots of things: avoid flying through Heathrow. ORD in the winter is tough. Learn how to pack your toiletries well.
Jokes aside, whilst I speak at many conferences all over the world, I rarely get a chance to fully immerse myself in them in such a way that I can really learn from the other presentations. Typically I’m working on slides up until I speak and then after I speak I’m talking to attendees. I’ve started to ease off the fancy dinners and after-parties as it’s not a healthy lifestyle when you do it very often.
Fun fact: I started as a lecturer at Maynooth University (as part of an abandoned PhD, which I left to start a tech career), where I would regularly speak to 200–300 teenagers.
Lecturing is a great way to prep yourself for a conference stage. It puts you in the hardest position you could imagine.
You have 300 folks in a room who’d rather be partying, or sleeping, or doing anything other than being there. You have to make it interesting. So when you go to a conference, you have people who’ve flown and paid to see you on stage. It’s a different environment.
Aside from that, rule one of a great presentation is that it doesn’t start with slides. It starts with a good story, or set of stories, or principle or set of principles. Slides should be the very last thing to happen. Regularly I’ll see people freak out about their slides two weeks in advance, when in my opinion they should freak out about their content first.
7. There’s a frequent discussion in SaaS that companies are charging too little for their products. Do you think you can build a $100M run rate business with a $500 ACV? What do you believe is a good strategy to change that/raise prices?
It’s a hard answer, re: $100m run rate with $500 ACV. It all comes down to your market size and go to market model. There’s no physical law that says you can’t, and I’d suspect there are a few companies who have done so already.
If you have a large market with a blended high-touch/no-touch model I think you can go pretty far, but I’m not the right person to answer such questions about this in detail. One thing I consistently see is people underestimate the amount of internet businesses that exist today and will exist in the future. For example, Intercom can sell offerings to literally every website and software there is, and all the future ones too. It’s a big, big, big market.
I wrote more about pricing here.
9. I saw you talk at LaunchSCALE last year and was inspired by your insight on products and business. Who is one person that you’ve looked up to and been inspired by, and why?
I’ll assume you mean outside Intercom, though honestly I look up to the team here more often.
Outside of Intercom, I haven’t many new names to add. The usuals are Jason Fried, Ryan Singer, Bret Victor, etc. There’s absolutely loads of folks though, and I already feel bad about folks I’ve not listed.
10. If you were ever to DJ in front of employees at Intercom, what would be your opening song?
It would depend on the occasion, naturally. Specifically the job-to-be-done of the song if you like. That said, if I ever end up DJing in front of Intercom people, it’s a safe bet something has gone sideways :)
I think I’d go with “In Bloom” by Nirvana (as my safe choice) and **** * ** * **** *** ****** as my non-safe-for-work choice ;)
11. What is your absolute number-one tip for entrepreneurs on how to build a successful startup?
Maintain a relentless focus on solving a clear problem that …
- you understand very well,
- and you know exists for a lot of people who you can reach,
- and who are actively attempting to solve it today
There’s lots in there to chew on, but a piece people miss is number three. They solve problems that people don’t really want to solve or problems people just don’t really care about.
12. We’re looking at integration of a partner like Intercom. How much customization is there in iOS? Could we customize, e.g. branding and UX, for our various clients?
Short answer is yes. We 100% appreciate that our mobile solutions need a great degree of customization so we fully support it. Mail team@intercom.io with specific questions and you should hear back quickly!
14. In your experience and knowledge would you recommend any idea validation method above all others?
Honestly I don’t believe in pseudoscience around idea validation, so this answer might disappoint, but generally it’s some version of “understand the crap out of the problem” and then “build a solution and bring it to people.” That’s all we did.
We directly, personally and frequently experienced a problem and built the best solution we could think of for us. Turns out we weren’t alone :)
15. What steps did you take to gain initial traction? What would be your recommended approach if you were to do it again?
If we were to do it all again I think the only change is that I’d advocate for a bit more reluctance to build or do anything that solves a problem we don’t yet fully understand.
16. What marketing channel did you find worked best for Intercom to get the word out there at the start? Did you start with any free plans?
We launched free, on Hacker News, back in 2011. We were free for a year.
17. Any great tips on growth strategy for a product that is just coming to market?
It really depends on the product. There’s no generalizable “growth strategy,” or at least there’s none I know of. If someone tells you they have one, they’re likely trying to sell you something, or promote themselves. Caveat Emptor.
18. How do you convince companies that Intercom is a service they need? What pain point do you emphasize solving?
So, there’s a long answer and a short answer. The short answer is that I would use a specific instance of a pain point that Intercom solves, and to find this I ask the person about their role, their product or site, and what type of things are frustrating them or limiting their growth. Most companies have similar problems (at the right level of abstraction). They struggle to acquire, or engage users, or they have a hard time delivering great support. Once we talk through their main pain points, I’ll introduce how we tackle those problems explaining our products, which are called Acquire, Engage, Learn and Support.
I guess the reusable lesson here is understand your customers pains and then, to paraphrase Billy Corgan, “speak to them in a language they can hear.”
19. Love your product and your team is A+. Can you share your perspective on the role that teams and culture play in building great products?
I agree, our team is A+. In terms of the role that teams and culture play, my answer is honestly “all of it.” We’re a product first company, the team build the product, the team build the culture.
Weak team = weak product and weak culture. I’ve never seen otherwise. And the reverse is usually true. Quality is fractal.
For more about what it’s like to work in Intercom, try here.
20. What do you think is one of the most important ingredients in creating a healthy and productive culture?
I think the biggest mistake startups make is they mistake culture for perks, and this becomes a negative feedback cycle.
They ignore what the experience is like when you’re actually working (i.e. the majority of your working day hopefully), and thus they fail to provide what makes this great (good environment, easy to focus, great teammates, rewarding work, self-actualization, all the equipment you need). Instead they focus on things that are easy to Instacart (fancy snacks, drinks, etc). Of course the more they do this, the worse the work gets, and as a result they try to make up for it by going even harder on perks.
Intercom is a platform that makes it easy for web and mobile business to communicate with their customers, personally and at scale. To learn more about our mission and experience how we think about design, customer support, marketing, and more, check out our blog.
