What we cover in Episode 38?
There is a misconception that high growth companies are overnight successes. You often don't hear the real story on how it took years and a lot of hard work to build that success.
Today, we're joined by founder and CEO of ActiveCampaign Jason VandeBoom to talk about their growth story.
We cover:
- How ActiveCampaign grew from 1 to 20 people in the first 13 years, and then to over 400 employees in the next 4 to 5.
- Why Jason decided to take on funding in 2016 to expand growth
- How Jason believes customer experience is a company's real moat and how you can build an exceptional one.
- The reason ActiveCampaign got rid of their freemium tier.
We hope you enjoy learning from Jason.
Happy Growing!
Time Stamped Notes:
[2:34] Jason covers the important topic of his favorite pizza toppings :) and we go deep on the best toppings.
[4:40] Jason talks about his journey into entrepreneurship
[6:10] ActiveCampaign grew from 1 to 20 employees in their first 13 years. They were profitable.
[8:20] Jason talks about ActiveCampaigns early years as on-premise software and how no one buys it during the holidays :)
[10:00] ActiveCampaign switched to a monthly license payment model to make it more affordable for SMBs.
[11:00] Jason talks his rule of not wanting anyone customer to account for more than 0.5% of their revenue.
[14:20] We talk about how a lot of businesses who focus on SMB get stretched upmarket by their customer's success.
[17:00] Often making decisions quickly and being wrong is better than overthinking the decision.
[21:10] Why did Jason decide to raise money in 2016? It was an optimal time, ActiveCampaign had a lot of inbound interest, Jason valued the additional pressure raising money would bring and their goals are big, so the capital allows them to make big bets.
[26:10] How has Jason's role as CEO changed as the number of employees has grown to such a large number?
[28:35] Jason shares his thoughts on why customer experience is so vital for companies with products for SMBs and gives examples on how to build an excellent one.
[32:15] Customer experience and being authentic are companies real moats.
[33:30] Jason talks about ActiveCampaigns decision to get rid of their freemium offering because they wanted to reduce their time to value.
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