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HubSpot’s Michael Redbord on staying in touch with your customers as you scale

Intercom, Inc.

In a company’s early days as a lean, mean, business machine, it’s fairly easy for leadership to stay in sync with their users. If you’re a leader, he says, don’t try to scale your job. We coined the term way back in 2006 when we founded the company, and a lot of our story, historically speaking, has been around marketing.

Scale 188
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My Top 10 Year One SaaS Mistakes. Save Yourself Some Pain & Just Don’t Make Them Yourself.

SaaStr

Scaling Too Slowly — and Too Quickly. But I also tried to scale up too quickly after our Series A. SaaS eSignature Market: From $1 Million in 2006 to $1 Billion in 2018 to $5 Billion in 2023. A minimal sellable product is. It wasn’t clear which we were building for our 1.0. That was a mistake. But it’s not.

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CX pioneer Jeanne Bliss on building customer-centric businesses

Intercom, Inc.

Jeanne is one of the leading voices on customer-centric leadership. Your leadership style, the way you conduct your business, even the kind of person you are, year after year, will define how you’ll be remembered. One-company accountability, leadership, and culture. The lesson? Ditch the reactive approach.

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5 Business Books I Wish I’d Read Sooner

OpenView Labs

However, it’s hard to argue that something is genuinely new in human endeavors like leadership, politics, and business. The chances are high that SaaS companies that have reached Salesforce’s scale follow the same pattern (regardless of whether they’re following Benioff’s advice). Building products that scale is hard.

Business 101
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Benchmarking Netsuite's S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up

Tom Tunguz

In 2006, according to the company’s S-1, the business shifted from longer term contracts to one year contracts. Most companies, as they scale, tend to move in the other direction. Over the past decade, Netsuite has grown 37% per year, starting at about 51% in 2005 and in recent years, consistently sustaining 25% annual growth.

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Run Less Software

Intercom, Inc.

I’m referring to the full spectrum of business execution, from product management to design to engineering to marketing to sales to support and all the other functions needed to scale a business. Basic marketing and selling at a global scale is becoming easy too. Since 2006 the era of “Everything as a service” has advanced quickly.

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Subscription Rockstars: How HubSpot Went From Zero to $500+ Million in Annual Revenue

Chargify

In 2006, Brian and Dharmesh started HubSpot with the aim of helping people grow their businesses through a less intrusive, more human approach to marketing. How to start a cult like HubSpot” , using the Internet to promote your product wasn’t a new idea in 2006. HubSpot employees: 2006: 3 employees. 2007: 48 customers.