Eoghan McCabe is the CEO and cofounder at Intercom, an AI customer service platform. Intercom has raised over $240M, and was last valued at $1.3B in 2018. After spending 9 years building the company, Eoghan left Intercom in 2020, but he’s since returned, reshaping Intercom and pioneering its pivot to an AI-first service. This episode highlights his unabashed takes on leaning into your intuition as a founder, and his perspectives on the critical junctures in company building.

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In today’s episode, we also discuss:

Eoghan's reflections since leaving Intercom
The value of intuition and first-principles thinking
The changes Eoghan made upon returning to Intercom
How Eoghan increased Intercom's productivity by 41%
Tactical advice on hiring top talent
Why you can't make small improvements in big categories
Crafting a culture of ruthless honesty and transparency
Why software branding is in crisis

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Referenced:

37signals: https://37signals.com
Basecamp: https://basecamp.com
Brian Halligan (HubSpot): https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan
David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heinemeier-hansson-374b18221
Intercom: https://www.intercom.com
Jason Fried (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fried
Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com
Marc Benioff (Salesforce): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbenioff
Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com

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Where to find Eoghan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/eoghan

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Where to find Brett Berson:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

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Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

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Timestamps

0:00:00 - Founder intuition vs. standard practice

0:25:00 - Silicon Valley knowledge loops

0:28:13 - Building an executive team

0:36:38 - Eoghan’s return to Intercom

0:42:02 - Transparent and honest leadership

0:46:42 - Changing Intercom’s strategy

0:54:22 - AI and category disruption

1:03:17 - How Intercom thinks about brand

1:10:40 - Eoghan’s inspirations

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