How Intercom rose from the ashes by betting everything on AI | Eoghan McCabe (founder and CEO)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

00:00

Strategic Pricing and Organizational Transformation

This chapter explores the challenges and strategies behind the pricing decisions for a digital customer support service, highlighting the journey from financial struggles to a sustainable model of 99 cents per resolved ticket. It also discusses the significant organizational changes, including a shift in corporate culture and leadership dynamics, as the company transitions towards AI-driven service offerings. The narrative captures the emotional journey of a founder facing burnout and the importance of aligning employee aspirations with the company’s vision for success.

Transcript

chevron_right

Play full episode

chevron_right

Transcript

Episode notes

Eoghan McCabe is the founder and CEO of Intercom, a customer service platform that has successfully pivoted to become an AI-first company with its agent product, Fin. After stepping away from the CEO role in 2020 due to health issues, Eoghan returned to find the company’s growth had stalled. Just one month after his return, ChatGPT launched, and within six weeks, Intercom had a working prototype of what would become Fin. In this conversation, Eoghan shares the brutal reality of transforming a late-stage SaaS business valued at multiple billions into an AI-first company that’s now growing faster than most public software companies.

We discuss:

1. Why Eoghan believes most late-stage companies won’t survive the AI transition

2. The “founder mode” transformation that required firing 40% of staff and resulted in 98% employee satisfaction

3. Why having “nothing to lose” is the ultimate advantage in AI transformation (and why comfortable companies will fail)

4. How Intercom transformed from a plateauing SaaS business to an AI-first company growing at 300%+

5. How Intercom’s pricing evolved from “the most hated in SaaS” to a model that charges just $0.99 per resolved ticket

6. The cultural transformation required to compete with AI-native startups

7. How 12 years of therapy and a period of “ego death” shaped Eoghan’s leadership approach

—

Brought to you by:

Great Question—Empower everyone to run great research: https://www.greatquestion.com/lenny

WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny

DX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers: http://getdx.com/lenny

—

Transcript: ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-intercom-rose-from-the-ashes-eoghan-mccabe

—

My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/170710700/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation

—

Where to find Eoghan McCabe:

• X: https://x.com/eoghan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/

• Website: https://eoghanmccabe.com/

—

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Eoghan

(05:00) The state of Intercom

(09:53) The decision to pivot to AI

(12:33) Why Eoghan is "anti-bot" in customer service

(16:19) Pricing strategy evolution

(19:26) Implementing the AI transformation

(26:11) Cultural and organizational changes

(31:18) Surviving a coup attempt

(40:05) The future of AI and business

(45:11) AI's impact on jobs

(48:44) AI and human creativity

(50:26) The importance of young AI talent

(55:00) The cultural shift in AI adoption

(58:00) Personal growth and leadership

(01:04:34) Intercom’s success in producing product leaders

(01:11:05) Intercom’s unique company culture

(01:14:11) Lightning round and final thoughts

—

Referenced:

• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/

• Fin: https://fin.ai/

• Des Traynor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/destraynor/

• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan

• Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pricing-and-scaling-your-ai-product-madhavan-ramanujam

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach

• Behind the founder: Marc Benioff: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-founder-marc-benioff

• Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropic-co-founder-benjamin-mann

• Fergal Reid on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fergalreid/

• How Perplexity builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-perplexity-builds-product

• Yosi Amram’s website: https://yamram.com/

• (Nathaniel Russell) Ego Death Now: https://heythereprojects.shop/products/copy-of-nathaniel-russell-space-is-a-place

• Daniel Kahneman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/

• Stripe: https://stripe.com/

• Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/

• Paul Adams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauladams

• What AI means for your product strategy | Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-ai-means-for-your-product-strategy

• Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm

• N26: https://n26.com/en-eu