How Techstars Disrupted the Help Desk Market

I sat down with Nick Francis, the Co-Founder and CEO of Help Scout. A few years ago I worked directly with Nick and his team to tighten up their positioning and brought him on to share their story. Together we discuss:

• What the positioning of Help Scout looked like during the early days

• How their positioning evolved over time

• Why they utilized outside help

• How he took the sales narrative he worked on with me and turned it into a pitch

• How their strategy has changed as they’ve moved upmarket

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In This Episode, I Cover:

(00:00) About my guest, Nick Francis

(02:05) The origin story of Help Scout

(04:50) How Techstars informed their messaging early on

(06:00) How they differentiated themselves from other help desk companies

(08:28) Where early inbound customers came from

(09:58) Copycat competitors, and how Help Scout thinks about competition

(11:57) Identifying key differentiators

(13:20) Why they decided to bring in outside help (me) and what they learned

(15:29) The evolution of their sales pitch

(18:42) Why you should always test your sales pitch first

(20:27) Who was responsible for building the sales pitch

(21:24) Signals it was time to revisit the pitch

(24:58) The future of Help Scout

(26:27) How the product itself reinforces their positioning

(28:42) How their strategy has changed as they’ve moved upmarket

(30:17) Why positioning is so important

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Where To Find April Dunford:

Podcast Website: https://www.positioning.show/

Personal Website: https://www.aprildunford.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprildunford/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford

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Where To Find Nick Francis:

Website: http://nickfranc.is/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickfrancis1/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickfrancis?lang=en

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Referenced:

• Help Scout: https://www.helpscout.com/

• Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/

• David Cohen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgcohen/

• Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com/

• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/

• Front: https://front.com/

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/