Eoghan McCabe is the CEO and cofounder at Intercom, an AI customer service platform. Intercom has raised over $240M, and was last valued at $1.3B in 2018. After spending nine years building the company, Eoghan left Intercom in 2020, but he’s since returned, reshaping Intercom and pioneering its pivot to an AI-first service. This episode highlights his unabashed takes on leaning into your intuition as a founder, and his perspectives on the critical junctures in company building.
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In today’s episode, we also discuss:
- Eoghan's reflections since leaving Intercom
- The value of intuition and first-principles thinking
- The changes Eoghan made upon returning to Intercom
- How Eoghan increased Intercom's productivity by 41%
- Tactical advice on hiring top talent
- Why you can't make small improvements in big categories
- Crafting a culture of ruthless honesty and transparency
- Why software branding is in crisis
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Referenced:
- 37signals: https://37signals.com
- Basecamp: https://basecamp.com
- Brian Halligan (HubSpot): https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan
- David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heinemeier-hansson-374b18221
- Intercom: https://www.intercom.com
- Jason Fried (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fried
- Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com
- Marc Benioff (Salesforce): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbenioff
- Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com
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Where to find Eoghan:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/eoghan
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Where to find Brett Berson:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
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Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Founder intuition vs. standard practice
(25:00) Silicon Valley knowledge loops
(28:13) Building an executive team
(36:38) Eoghan’s return to Intercom
(42:02) Transparent and honest leadership
(46:42) Changing Intercom’s strategy
(54:22) AI and category disruption
(63:17) How Intercom thinks about brand
(70:40) Eoghan’s inspirations