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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

So today I have a guest returning to the hot seat here on the 20 minute VC. Our first episode

0:04.2

was recorded over four years ago and so much has changed since then. And so with that,

0:08.0

I'm thrilled to welcome back to the hot seat, Owen McCabe, a technology entrepreneur who has

0:11.9

started a number of companies, the most notable of which, Intercom, the conversational relationship

0:16.6

platform. He was CEO of Intercom for nearly 10 years, during which he grew the company to

0:21.1

hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, nearly 700 employees, and raised nearly 250 million

0:26.5

dollars from the lives of Kleiner Perkins, Index, Bessemer and Iconic. He's also invested in

0:31.5

dozens of companies, including Stripe, Figma, Superhuman and Coder. In the summer of 2020,

0:37.0

he moved to the role of Chairman of Intercom.

0:38.8

And I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Anna Khan at CRV, Abhijit at Zero Down, Kieran Lee at

0:43.7

Intercom and Mamun at Kline for providing some fantastic question suggestions today.

0:47.7

I really do so appreciate that.

0:49.6

But before we move into the show today, I want to take a moment to mention HelloSign, a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on user experience.

0:58.0

HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions to securely send and request

1:03.1

legally valid digital signatures and agreements. They raised a total of $16 million in funding

1:08.1

and recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million.

1:12.4

Check out HelloSign.com forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders

1:17.7

who value fast, secure and simple e-signatures.

1:21.3

And if HelloSign helps you sign that term sheet, you need to get the term sheet in the

1:24.9

first place.

1:25.6

And I want to give a mention to Drapererisbury,

1:32.3

a publicly listed VC fund that invests in high-growth European tech companies with global ambitions.

...

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