The Exchanges

Q Des Traynor at Intercom, I'd love to hear your thoughts. You use OpenAI to power FIN in many respects. Where do you think that the value is going today? How do you think about the commoditization of these models? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A Right now, a lot of value is going straight into the infra, like as in we're handing it all out the back door to open AI, and we actually torture test all of the LLMs. It's not yet the case that they're all equal. I'd be wary of Amazon. So like, I could see Amazon just like flat up like buying Anthropic and being like, let's just make this part of the EC two cluster. I think Apple will make massive, massive strides forward with AI. I feel like Bard fortunately felt like we had to release this because ChatGPT was getting a lot of traction. They need to have that Jay-Z, like, allow me to reintroduce myself moment. I think it's a really important attribute to be able to transition from one LLM to another, because if somebody does unlock new power, you'll want to be able to use it very quickly. Winning involves more than just simply being agnostic about your LLM.

AI assessment note: “a lot of value is going straight into the infra”

Q Des Traynor at Intercom, I'd love to hear your thoughts. You use OpenAI to power FIN in many respects. Where do you think that the value is going today? How do you think about the commoditization of these models? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A Right now, a lot of value is going straight into the infra, like as in we're handing it all out the back door to open AI, and we actually torture test all of the LLMs. It's not yet the case that they're all equal. I'd be wary of Amazon. So like, I could see Amazon just like flat up like buying Anthropic and being like, let's just make this part of the EC two cluster. I think Apple will make massive, massive strides forward with AI. I feel like Bard fortunately felt like we had to release this because ChatGPT was getting a lot of traction. They need to have that Jay-Z, like, allow me to reintroduce myself moment. I think it's a really important attribute to be able to transition from one LLM to another, because if somebody does unlock new power, you'll want to be able to use it very quickly. Winning involves more than just simply being agnostic about your LLM.

AI assessment note: “Right now, a lot of value is going straight into the infra”

Q That's so interesting to hear about the concentration of value going to those three core providers in the infrastructure layer. Des, obviously with Intercom, you sit at the application layer. How do you think about this question of where value accrues, infrastructure versus application layer?

A I think right now, a lot of value is going straight into the infra, like as in we're handing it all out the back door to open AI in this case, right? In your first question about commoditization, if that happens, then the value starts To reduce there, right? Because if there's more competitors offering the same thing, that's the beginning of commoditization, or at least you go from monopoly to an oligopoly to ultimately perfect competition where you, you know, and price goes down on each step. That's how I expect that'll play out. Unless openly I can continue to find mass market differentiation, which is always a hard thing to find, right? Like, like it was in the differentiation that all the customers care about, not just specifics, right? So let's assume over time, I believe that like just, you know, the amount of people investing in the space means that I think the infrastructure layer will gradually Get a lot more AWS like, right, which is like razor thin margins. Well, sorry, not razor thin margins. That's the wrong way to frame it. Price mixed with strength of a product as a competitive weapon, if you know what I mean, right? Like Amazon make good money off intercom, you know, but they're also like, we're all in on them and we're very, you know, we're very committed to them. So that's what the competitive battleground. There'll probably be three or four big providers is m…

AI assessment note: “Value just generally follows differentiation around the stack.”

Q Yeah, I totally agree. With that in mind, if you project out the next 10 years, will more value accrue to startups or incumbents?

A With AI, a lot, um, a lot was made at the start of like, ooh, everyone's in trouble. And I remember when we first released our first wave of AI features, which was just AI in the inbox, it was things like summarization, expansion, change tone, like, you know, take this blunt reply and make it polite. Somebody, I can't remember who, somebody like one of the big dogs, uh, you know, use it as a showcase of like, uh, this is why there won't be new startups built on this. All the value will go to the incumbents. And I think the hypothesis there is that if the value Is available on top from open AI. It's on top in our earlier example, it's on top for Mailchimp and it's on top for the new startup too, right? So the thin integration where you're shelling out for your differentiation to a third party, it does not create a wave of disruption. The disruption comes from, as we were saying earlier, like it's, it's when you would build the entire thing differently in a world post AI. If you put a gun to my head, I'd say, I'd say incumbents will probably do better out of AI than like startups thinking they can displace incumbents. But that's not the same thing as, uh, saying that like startups have no business in AI. I think there'll be loads of new stuff in new areas that no one's ever seen before because of AI.

AI assessment note: “incumbents will probably do better out of AI than like startups”

Q Not at all. I do want to start there with a little bit of context. We see Intercom in all of its glory today. What was that founding aha moment for you and the team with Intercom?

A I think we had a few different ideas. So we were originally a consultancy building software for other people. There was a few ideas on the go. Ones that like, you know, at times looked hilariously bad. Like we had an idea for like a whiteboarding product and, uh, and that like, you know, ultimately looked like not a good idea, contrasted with Intercom, but then something like Miro comes out like years later and you're like, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. Um, however, with Intercom, uh, we were building an actual way to communicate with our customers from our previous product. Uh, and we wanted to communicate inside the product and The real sort of spark was like when we realized how much more effective that was and how more people were just quite excited about that. I remember Owen at the time, our, our, uh, former CEO, current chairperson, saying to Ciaran, like that this could actually be a huge idea by itself. This little talk to customers in your product type thing. And, um, and when I heard that my response, whenever I think, Ooh, could this be an idea? I just immediately go into like, let's like, what's the actual strongest, like iron man case we can push to support this or a steel man case. So I was like, right. What are the trends? Uh, whether it's messaging or whether it's like, uh, the rise of web software, whether it's the rise of SAS and the need for relationships…

AI assessment note: “The real sort of spark was like when we realized how much more effective that was”

Q Do you agree with the notion, just raise prices? Mark Andreessen's often said on a billboard, raise prices. Do you agree with that? Dharmesh Shah from HubSpot on the show the other day said, no, it's goodwill to actually underprice your product in a lot of cases.

A I think, uh, so, like, I think, um, Marc Andreessen's point is just, is just, like, unnecessarily blunt, and, uh, and I think Dharmesh's point is more, um, pointy, like it's, uh, there's substance in it. Like, you're always trying to capitalize on the value you deliver for customers, and you don't want to, like, uh, squeeze every last drop out of it, uh, for sure, and that's Darmesh's point. At the same time, I think there's a danger of, like, if you end up doing a lot of, like, like, so a hard adopter of Intercom, let's say somebody uses us for everything, we are their onboarding guide, their customer support, where, like, how they route sales leads to, like, uh, to the reps to close deals, We're how they do in-app feature adoption. We're how they launch things where, you know, and like we're, they're also their knowledge base and we're like sending SMSs and WhatsApps for them as well, right? You have to kind of like, you know, if you want to sustain a product that's that large a footprint, it needs to be paying you back in a way such that you can reinvest and maintain the health of the product. Otherwise you, you do end up in a world where like, um, you basically can't afford to work on your product in a sense, right? So you have to kind of like, you know, on HubSpot, I know a stranger to a price increase either. Um, but I do think like the idea of like just raise prices is s…

AI assessment note: “the idea of like just raise prices is silly. I think align price to value”

Q users aren't the same, do we try and hit them both with the same one? Go back to that billboard, go back to that landing page. Do we hit them both With it, do we say, fuck it, we're not going to go for the buyer, we're just going to go for the user. Fuck it, we're just going to go for the user. How do you think about that?

A The challenge there is really like, what is the typical adoption path for a product? So like, if we take, uh, if we take Intercom, we've been trying to avoid it so far, but like, um, We have a beautiful inbox. We re re re released it like a couple of weeks ago. It's next generation, like fanciest piece of, uh, I would say customer help support, customer support inbox product on the market. But the person who's buying Intercom and adopting Intercom, they're not actually the frontline user of the product. They're not actually, you know, they're like the VP of support in a 2000 person company. They actually don't even see the inbox half the time. They might see the reports that come out of it, but honestly, even in those cases, they're probably looking at that in Snowflake or something. So they're really not that in the loop. All they care about is what can you do for me? And like what, what, like what slightly upmarket like where when the buyer doesn't equal the user, the buyer's questions are basically one of it. This is going to sound quite reductive and it kind of is, but I have two numbers to worry about Harry. Uh, are you going to make me money or save me money? And if so, how, and why should I believe you? And that's what the buyer wants to know. Cause they're just trying to like run their own P and L and get promoted forever. The user has a different set of concerns, which…

AI assessment note: “The challenge there is really like, what is the typical adoption path for a product?”

Q I don't believe in defensibility on day one. As you said there, I think anyone can have an idea, and there's lots of people who have relevant backgrounds, but I think, like, I see with my own media business, defensibility is built over time in the processes that we do, in the products that we build subsequent. Do you agree with, like, defensibility on day one doesn't really exist?

A Like, real defensibility, no, it does not exist. I think, um, Like there are a few apps. I mean, like, I'm just trying to give a good example. Like Figma might be one, or, you know, like Zenly, the, the, the Snapchat, ah, things where it's like really beautifully crafted, really high end engineering, and really hard to copy. Like those sort of products, when you see them first, you're like, hmm, it's going to take a long time to get to where these people are today. And like the way I described that in like startup, you know, when I'm talking to startup companies who are looking for me to invest, Is I described the length of the road to the starting line, and I would call, if you say you want to compete with Figma, I'd say, Jesus, Perry, that is a long road to the starting line, which basically means.

AI assessment note: “Like, real defensibility, no, it does not exist.”

Q If you, if you look at those ones, they've absolutely blown it away. Is there one company where, and one CEO, which has shown you the most and what they've shown you?

A So, um, I, I, I'll answer this, uh, in a slightly different way. So like, like I've invested in companies like, let's say like, you know, Stripe is on one end, right? Like of just like a total absolute outlier, but I'm not going to say blah, blah, blah. Cause like everyone knows Stripe and it's, it's kind of too easy. Um, but a company where I've seen is that had had say more close access and watched it take off with say Miro with, uh, with, uh, Andre, uh, Cusid is the CEO there. They have just been an execution machine. Uh, for a really specific problem, and they kind of stood up against, um, an external, what could have been a threat in FigJam, and they've done really well through that as well. Uh, so that, that's a company where I've just watched it pretty much from early doors really do well. Um, another one, which is like earlier.

AI assessment note: “say Miro with, uh, with, uh, Andre, uh, Cusid is the CEO there.”

Q Have you not been impressed by Baud? When BOD came out, everyone was like, oh, I'm an AI.

A Um, I, I played a part a bit, and I wouldn't, I wasn't unimpressed with it. It felt like another version of a ChatGPT. I'm more, um, underwhelmed by, like, their, like, their leadership in this area. Like, they don't, it feels like Google, who kind of owned all this at the start, bear in mind with the original paper on Transformers, feels like they have, like, rescued defeat from the jaw of victories, in a sense. Uh, from the jaws of victory. What we saw on Tuesday of this week, I don't know when this will go out, but like, uh, from my mind was like Sam and to some degree even Satya, uh, out there, like talking from a leadership position, from an authoritative position about where we are, where we're going, what's happening, uh, what the future holds, et cetera. And I don't think we've had that yet from Google. I think that's the sort of, to take a leading position, I think you need to like do that thing where you walk out on stage and say like, Here's our mission. Here's where we're going. Here's where the whole world is. Like, we have a big wide-eyed vision. Like, think of, like, Elon Musk saying he wants to terraform Mars ultimately. Like, you know, like, it's like that is like leading a company in a certain direction. You're saying here's where we're, here's the end goal. I feel like Bard unfortunately felt like we, uh, we had to release this because ChatGPT was getting a l…

AI assessment note: “I wasn't unimpressed with it. It felt like another version of a ChatGPT.”

Q Why did you make Bobby at Equals write a blog post a week?

A Basically Bobby asked me to invest and I said I will, but, uh, I was scarred by too many businesses who forget to tell people what they're all about. And what I mean by that is a lot of companies launch And they kind of have this kind of weird, um, incel-like vibe of like, why isn't anyone paying attention to me? And oftentimes, and I, and I think I had just, uh, an investment I'd made had just finally wrapped up and I had died. It was really frustrating me that they had kind of forgotten to launch. And I was like, and to me, launch isn't like, oh, we've put up, we've put up like an alpha page or something like that. Launch is like when you're laying it all out there. Here's what we think. Here's our vision for the future. Here's our product. Here's how our product matches our vision. Here's where our product's going. Here's why you should use our product. Right. When I'm looking through my own portfolio and I was like, huh, lot of these companies that died never really launched. I was like fearful of that, like of that in that period. And I said to Bobby something along the lines of like, what's the plan for telling the world about this? Like, I mean, simply having a better Excel, you could find yourself just sitting at the bar wondering why is no one paying attention? You know, like what's the actual plan for putting yourself out there? And being in great shape. He talked thr…

AI assessment note: “you probably need to tell people that, like, hundreds of times.”

Q Where does value accrue most? Is it the application layer? Or is it the infrastructure layer? And how does that change over the short and long term?

A The only parallels we have to go by here are what's happened in other areas, right? Generally speaking, I think right now, a lot of value is going straight into the infra, like as in we're handing it all out the back door to opening, in this case, right? In your first question about commoditization, if that happens, then the value starts to, to reduce there, right? Because, you know, if there's more competitors offering the same thing, that's, That's the beginning of commoditization, or at least you go from a monopoly to an oligopoly to ultimately perfect competition where you, you know, and price goes down each step, um, excluding collusion or price fixing, which are usually illegal. That's how I expect that'll play out unless, uh, unless OpenAI can continue to find mass market differentiation, which is always a hard thing to find, right? Like as in the differentiation that all the customers care about, not just specifics, right? So let's assume over time, I, I believe that like just, you know, the amount of people investing in the space means that I think the infrastructure layer will gradually get a lot more AWS like, right? Price, uh, mixed with strength of a product as a, as a competitive weapon, if you know what I mean, right? Amazon make good money off intercom, you know, uh, but they're also like, we're heavily, we're all in on them and we're very, uh, you know, we're v…

AI assessment note: “right now, a lot of value is going straight into the infra”

Q Was it close, or was there a why?

A Yeah, uh, it, close and narrowing, and, and like, it's also a work in progress. Like, uh, all of these things are moving targets, right? Um, there are better capability, you know, obviously, you know, we have been moving very fast in this space. Fin launched, I think, in June, maybe, um, July. Uh, It was in a sort of beta for three months prior to that. A lot happened since then, so like, we haven't even gotten around to maybe testing the latest and greatest of all the providers, which are increasing in number. You mentioned Mistrial, there's also Glamour, there's Anthropic, there's like, you know, Cohere, like there's like a whole chunk of them, and, uh, and it's a bit of work to go around and constantly be trying to find out, has anyone got, we only really care about better, right? Right now we're not in cost optimization mode, we're just like, who's got the best?

AI assessment note: “close and narrowing, and, and like, it's also a work in progress.”

Q Why did you make Bobby at Equals write a blog post a week?

A Basically Bobby asked me to invest and I said I will, but, uh, I was scarred by too many businesses who forget to tell people what they're all about. And what I mean by that is a lot of companies launch And they kind of have this kind of weird, um, incel-like vibe of like, why isn't anyone paying attention to me? And oftentimes, and I, and I think I had just, uh, an investment I'd made had just finally wrapped up and I had died. It was really frustrating me that they had kind of forgotten to launch. And I was like, and to me, launch isn't like, oh, we've put up, we've put up like an alpha page or something like that. Launch is like when you're laying it all out there. Here's what we think. Here's our vision for the future. Here's our product. Here's how our product matches our vision. Here's where our product's going. Here's why you should use our product. Right. When I'm looking through my own portfolio and I was like, huh, lot of these companies that died never really launched. I was like fearful of that, like of that in that period. And I said to Bobby something along the lines of like, what's the plan for telling the world about this? Like, I mean, simply having a better Excel, you could find yourself just sitting at the bar wondering why is no one paying attention? You know, like what's the actual plan for putting yourself out there? And being in great shape. He talked thr…

AI assessment note: “I was scarred by too many businesses who forget to tell people what they're all about.”

Q I do want to discuss one final element. You mentioned before having a newborn, and it's your second. Children are such an impactful part of one's life, and you said before about the intersection of parenting and leadership. What did you mean by this intersection, and how do they come together?

A I think there's a lot of things that you have to be good at for both. Um, that's the first thing I'd say, uh, like what you realize with a kid is, um, you have to like, Be their, uh, how would you say, their willpower, you have to be their discipline, and unlike yourself, like let's say you're trying to obey a diet yourself, you have a very closed loop feedback mechanism there, overeat, gain weight, eat less, lose weight, whatever, exercise, feel good, don't exercise, feel bad, um, whereas when you're trying to like discipline a kid, uh, and not discipline, that's the wrong word, but like when you're trying to like raise a child, um, You're trying to say eat healthy, but it doesn't actually affect you whether or not you do it. And in fact, the feedback mechanism, you'll find out over five years, uh, not in the next like five days, right? Cause it's not your body. Uh, so it requires you to have a lot of like care and empathy and compassion for something that isn't directly felt like physically by you. And you're trying to make that happen over like many years, as opposed to like many days or like any sort of better feedback thing. And if you're trying to lead a group of people in a business, There's a lot of similarity there in that, uh, you're trying to get everyone on the same page and get them support and have them understand the principles by which you're trying to push towa…

AI assessment note: “if you're trying to lead a group of people in a business, There's a lot of similarity”

Q Um, if I could take one thing away from your current role, which would make it immeasurably better, what would I take away?

A Like the thing would be, um, like pressure in a sense. Uh, so like, um, The, like, you know, the, all of the employee head count, all of the, like the trials and tribulations, whether it's in the industry right now or whatever, uh, all of that kind of, um, it definitely like occupies like a reasonable chunk of my mind at any given moment. Like I can be in the cinema watching top gun, but at least 28% of my mind is thinking about things that might go wrong in intercom or might go wrong in the industry and how they might get better again. And I would love to be able to find a way just to dial that down by, like, you know, cut that in half, maybe. I don't mind, like, I always think about things the same way I think about, like, you know, is my daughter safe in school, and blah, blah, blah, and what will that be like tomorrow? But, like, I do think at times it takes an outsized percentage of my brain, uh, is just worrying about, like, stuff like that.

AI assessment note: “Like the thing would be, um, like pressure in a sense.”

Q I do want to discuss one final element. You mentioned before having a newborn, and it's your second. Children are such an impactful part of one's life, and you said before about the intersection of parenting and leadership. What did you mean by this intersection, and how do they come together?

A I think there's a lot of things that you have to be good at for both. Um, that's the first thing I'd say, uh, like what you realize with a kid is, um, you have to like, Be their, uh, how would you say, their willpower, you have to be their discipline, and unlike yourself, like let's say you're trying to obey a diet yourself, you have a very closed loop feedback mechanism there, overeat, gain weight, eat less, lose weight, whatever, exercise, feel good, don't exercise, feel bad, um, whereas when you're trying to like discipline a kid, uh, and not discipline, that's the wrong word, but like when you're trying to like raise a child, um, You're trying to say eat healthy, but it doesn't actually affect you whether or not you do it. And in fact, the feedback mechanism, you'll find out over five years, uh, not in the next like five days, right? Cause it's not your body. Uh, so it requires you to have a lot of like care and empathy and compassion for something that isn't directly felt like physically by you. And you're trying to make that happen over like many years, as opposed to like many days or like any sort of better feedback thing. And if you're trying to lead a group of people in a business, There's a lot of similarity there in that, uh, you're trying to get everyone on the same page and get them support and have them understand the principles by which you're trying to push towa…

AI assessment note: “And if you're trying to lead a group of people in a business, There's a lot of similarity”

Q What happens there? Because as I said, they don't end that end touchpoint. They're not, Amazon in terms of what they have with AWS.

A Yeah. I don't know how Facebook think about this at all, but what I would say is like Facebook have to look at their actual business, which is like Instagram and WhatsApp and it's like, you know, Facebook itself and it's Oculus. And I'm sure that the question I'd be scrambling to answer if I was them is just like, what does AI mean for all of these services? And what does the LLM advances mean for all these services? So I can imagine they might like have a bot that sits inside WhatsApp. Uh, like where you could actually say it could become a new way to like find me the nearest florist and like maybe WhatsApp will put you directly in contact with them. You can speak directly to them or speak directly to their bot. I can imagine them kind of interjecting from that point of view. Instagram, there's like loads of ways that could go. Like most of the ways I think we're like, um, AI applied to Instagram ends up in like deep fake territory. So I, you know, I don't know, like you're, I'm sure there's like other more like, yeah, valuable uses, if you know what I mean. Oculus has really obvious applications of AI, like infinite worlds and same games. I take, A combination of LLMs and Dolly and put on a headset and live in that world. It's fascinating to think of what's possible. And then facebook.com, I don't really know. Like, I mean, I feel like that's, that feels to me feels like it's…

AI assessment note: “Facebook have to look at their actual business, which is like Instagram and WhatsApp”

Q users aren't the same, do we try and hit them both with the same one? Go back to that billboard, go back to that landing page. Do we hit them both With it, do we say, fuck it, we're not going to go for the buyer, we're just going to go for the user. Fuck it, we're just going to go for the user. How do you think about that?

A The challenge there is really like, what is the typical adoption path for a product? So like, if we take, uh, if we take Intercom, we've been trying to avoid it so far, but like, um, We have a beautiful inbox. We re re re released it like a couple of weeks ago. It's next generation, like fanciest piece of, uh, I would say customer help support, customer support inbox product on the market. But the person who's buying Intercom and adopting Intercom, they're not actually the frontline user of the product. They're not actually, you know, they're like the VP of support in a 2000 person company. They actually don't even see the inbox half the time. They might see the reports that come out of it, but honestly, even in those cases, they're probably looking at that in Snowflake or something. So they're really not that in the loop. All they care about is what can you do for me? And like what, what, like what slightly upmarket like where when the buyer doesn't equal the user, the buyer's questions are basically one of it. This is going to sound quite reductive and it kind of is, but I have two numbers to worry about Harry. Uh, are you going to make me money or save me money? And if so, how, and why should I believe you? And that's what the buyer wants to know. Cause they're just trying to like run their own P and L and get promoted forever. The user has a different set of concerns, which…

AI assessment note: “when the buyer doesn't equal the user, the buyer's questions are basically one of it”

Q I, I, I, I totally get you, and thank you for that brilliant answer. So, do you think that they will continue to be commoditized?

A I don't know if it's actually happened yet, if I'm clear or right. Like, right now, it, at least, like, when we look at, like, how, um, how best to do the Fin thing, which is to, like, you know, and we see, we see staggering results for Fin. Some people are getting, like, very, very high percentage of total support volume resolved With satisfaction, like, like above 50% of times, right? Like, uh, I won't, you know, we'll, we'll do a proper roundup of numbers soon, we'll share it properly, but like the, you know, it's, it's staggering at times, right? So all we care about is like, who can do Finn the best for us? And we actually torture test all of the LLMs. It's not yet the case that they're all equal. I think they're all equal for like, what's the weather like? Or like, how are you today?

AI assessment note: “It's not yet the case that they're all equal.”

Q I'm so pleased you said there about, you know, bluntly the move up market. Cause I, I wanted to talk about this cause I see this so often making mistakes with founders that I work with today. And it's like fundamentally first, how do you advise founders on when is the right time To start thinking about moving up market, what are the signs that they should do it?

A I think if, um, like, It did this one kind of varies a bit, but generally speaking, uh, you have to look at like the, your successful customer growth and what's happening with your best customers. And that's the two variables you need to, you need to see. So if you think you just have loads of run room horizontally in the market, so you can just keep getting more and more customers like the ones you already have. And I mean, exactly like them, uh, then I, and you don't have to change your product to do that. Then I think you shouldn't move up market. You should just Carry that growth out. Uh, because I think like, you know, generally speaking in all software, we all want the smallest possible product we could possibly have. It doesn't work out that way. Like, uh, you're talking to somebody with like three different products across like three different use cases, but, um, but like, you know, generally speaking, if we could have our way, we'd all have just a piece of software. It's just one line of code and it has like no bugs and never, never needs anything. And it needs one engineer to maintain it. Right. That's like the dream state. Uh, the only reason you add the second and third line of code is to get more customers.

AI assessment note: “if you think you just have loads of run room horizontally... you shouldn't move up market”

Q What's your biggest investing miss and did it alter how you think today?

A I probably am more known for writing too many checks. So I'm probably more known for, uh, like, uh, sort of like too many bad checks, as opposed to any I'm turning what's like, there's a few, I couldn't get it together to do on time or did too late or, uh, or whatever. So, uh, poly work is one where I still think there's an interesting future ahead of them. Um, and I, uh, I basically just couldn't get the paperwork to get like, just, I want one of the downsides of being an operator genuinely, like as in somebody who has a job when you're trying to invest. Is you're just getting hit with like DocuSigns left, right, and center, or like due diligence things, or like, oftentimes it'll be like, hey, we have to form this other company, which is a special purpose vehicle to make this investment, and he just signed these seven things, and And also that sort of stuff is what we're more likely I'm, I'm, I'm likely to scupper because in general, I'm, I'm probably more likely to have a go than not. Um, I'm sure I think I've ever actually been like, that was a total miss. There's a few, I think will turn out to be a miss. There's a, there's a startup developer tool called Rowdy that I should have invested in when I was given the first chance. And I think that will work out. Uh, incident.io would be another one. Um, there's, there's been ones where because I invested in one area in one produ…

AI assessment note: “poly work is one... Rowdy that I should have invested in... incident.io would be another”

Q different staging of the companies and how people perceive the brand. I, I want to touch on that. You mentioned, obviously, the new product that you released there. Um, I think we learn from our mistakes often. When you think about the new products that you've released, what are some of the biggest mistakes you've made when releasing or contemplating releasing new products, and how did that impact your mindset?

A Um, I think one area that's most difficult to think about is what is a product versus what is, is just a paid upgrade to your existing platform. And like under what grounds should you say like, this is a new product or this is just an extra tab that you pay an extra few dollars to unlock. And I think in general, um, there are loads of arguments as to when you should do one versus the other. Usually it's around like, does it have a distinct buyer that for whom the other product wouldn't, wouldn't appeal to? And if so, do you have a cross sell upsell plan? Like how do you, how do you make sure that these people hear about each other and buy it such that it doesn't end up just being an entirely separate line of business? I think so. Like, so, and we've made mistakes here. We've definitely made mistakes there. We've confused parts of features and features of products, and we've, we've had to unroll that and fix that back again. And then I think.

AI assessment note: “We've confused parts of features and features of products, and we've, we've had to unroll that”

Q And it will convert. You have to have faith that it will convert. Do you know what I mean?

A Yeah. Like, it's a different approach. Like, I agree with you. Like, as in, I agree, That, like, hey, if you have a million readers a month, and, like, one percent of them are, like, your buyer, or if you're, like, you know, whatever, like, I can't do the maths on the fly here, but, like, if you have, like, 10,000 readers a month, and, like, and whatever, like, some same percentage that nets out the same numbers total, they're both valid strategies, like a small focused audience, or a big unfocused audience that contains in it the small focused audience. That works. I can't, like, I mean, you're asking me what I do again. I think I probably would have just Tried to be a bit more focused early on. An interesting thing we measure, like, when we look at, say, social, uh, stuff we share on social, like, it's easy to get, like, a viral tweet these days. Like, it's not easy, but, like, you can have a viral banger.

AI assessment note: “I agree with you. Like, as in, I agree, That, like, hey”

Q Des, final, final one. What's your biggest insecurity today? Like, mine is, I'm looking at, you know, my book value over the last few years, and I'm like, fuck, I'm a great investor. And then I'm looking at some of it today and I'm going, fuck, I may not be such a good fucking investor.

A I think, um, I guess I, I hope Intercom to be like one of max two, but possibly one of one, hopefully one of one businesses I ever like go to the mat on this hard for this long. And, uh, and I think the thing I care most about is like, At this point, like, it's not so much me, but it's just making sure that everyone who, everyone is taking the journey like that, uh, that they look back on it really fondly and that it works out for everyone. You know, it's a meaningful outcome for everyone. I think that's the, uh, that's the thing I, I probably like care most about. And it's the thing I'm also like, I always feel like, oh, you know, we have to fight harder. We have to do this. We have to do that or whatever. Like it's, it's like, it comes, it's back to the 28% worry thing I was describing. Like, uh, like, uh, I, I'm always paranoid of what can go wrong. And I think that's kind of, that bakes a type of insecurity into my mind, which is like, it's very easy to convince me that something bad is going to happen. Uh, cause I'm, cause I'll immediately get on board with it and I'll like, uh, you know, prophesize the worst version of it, you know? Uh, so I think that's, if I could click my fingers and take anything out of my personality. I think would be probably to have more, um, just robustness, but randomly as a side note, like, uh, like getting in shape and getting healthy and doing…

AI assessment note: “a type of insecurity into my mind, which is like, it's very easy to convince me”

Q different staging of the companies and how people perceive the brand. I, I want to touch on that. You mentioned, obviously, the new product that you released there. Um, I think we learn from our mistakes often. When you think about the new products that you've released, what are some of the biggest mistakes you've made when releasing or contemplating releasing new products, and how did that impact your mindset?

A Um, I think one area that's most difficult to think about is what is a product versus what is, is just a paid upgrade to your existing platform. And like under what grounds should you say like, this is a new product or this is just an extra tab that you pay an extra few dollars to unlock. And I think in general, um, there are loads of arguments as to when you should do one versus the other. Usually it's around like, does it have a distinct buyer that for whom the other product wouldn't, wouldn't appeal to? And if so, do you have a cross sell upsell plan? Like how do you, how do you make sure that these people hear about each other and buy it such that it doesn't end up just being an entirely separate line of business? I think so. Like, so, and we've made mistakes here. We've definitely made mistakes there. We've confused parts of features and features of products, and we've, we've had to unroll that and fix that back again. And then I think.

AI assessment note: “We've confused parts of features and features of products, and we've, we've had to unroll”

Q I, I, I, I totally get you, and thank you for that brilliant answer. So, do you think that they will continue to be commoditized?

A I don't know if it's actually happened yet, if I'm clear or right. Like, right now, it, at least, like, when we look at, like, how, um, how best to do the Fin thing, which is to, like, you know, and we see, we see staggering results for Fin. Some people are getting, like, very, very high percentage of total support volume resolved With satisfaction, like, like above 50% of times, right? Like, uh, I won't, you know, we'll, we'll do a proper roundup of numbers soon, we'll share it properly, but like the, you know, it's, it's staggering at times, right? So all we care about is like, who can do Finn the best for us? And we actually torture test all of the LLMs. It's not yet the case that they're all equal. I think they're all equal for like, what's the weather like? Or like, how are you today?

AI assessment note: “It's not yet the case that they're all equal.”

Q Do you think that's because they want to be really good at supporters, because they don't quite trust it enough yet?

A It's a good question. I mean, like, another way of saying it would be like, if in a year's time there's another market downturn, will they still hold firm on that? But I think that comes down to the degree to which they see great service as a competitive advantage, uh, which isn't the case for all businesses, but it's definitely the case for some. But like in general, I think his point about like, uh, consumption pricing outpacing, or like, you know, ultimately taking the place of seed pricing, I think is going to be true. I think a lot of work is going to get handed over to LLMs over the next Five years. And I think, uh, we're going to start trying to like price against the work that's being done, not price against the seats or the employees, but just say, how much is it worth for you to have all of your digital assets created dynamically? Or how much is it worth for you to have like your customers get sub-second replies to common questions? Like that's the actual right way to think about pricing in the future. I think the wrong way to think about it is, you know, you were selling work. We're not selling seats and we're not selling like, you know, incremental tasks. Completed. We're just like, what's the work and what does it cost to get done? And you'll see a lot of, a lot of these, uh, folks will start, like when somebody actually does a good job of an AI coach or personal t…

AI assessment note: “But like in general, I think his point about like, uh, consumption pricing”

Q I'm totally with you. Can I ask, do you do follow-ons? How do you think about reserves? It was interesting. I, I interviewed Dharmesh Shah and he said, I don't ever do a founder meeting. Takes too long. I never do DD. I never do follow-ons. My three rules.

A Yeah. I, I follow closely. I, I try to avoid meetings unless, unless someone tells me like, no, no, the dude will really sell you on the idea or whatever. Um, So I, uh, I, I try not to do those. Uh, I definitely don't do a due diligence at all, but like, but at the, at the same time, I always caveat my check and say like, I'm only doing this if there's a lead investor who is actually going to do due diligence, if you know what I mean? So like, as in, Don't consider this a commitment until you tell me that somebody is actually going to do the homework here. Like, prove to me the company exists type thing.

AI assessment note: “I try to avoid meetings... I definitely don't do a due diligence at all”

Q And it will convert. You have to have faith that it will convert. Do you know what I mean?

A Yeah. Like, it's a different approach. Like, I agree with you. Like, as in, I agree, That, like, hey, if you have a million readers a month, and, like, one percent of them are, like, your buyer, or if you're, like, you know, whatever, like, I can't do the maths on the fly here, but, like, if you have, like, 10,000 readers a month, and, like, and whatever, like, some same percentage that nets out the same numbers total, they're both valid strategies, like a small focused audience, or a big unfocused audience that contains in it the small focused audience. That works. I can't, like, I mean, you're asking me what I do again. I think I probably would have just Tried to be a bit more focused early on. An interesting thing we measure, like, when we look at, say, social, uh, stuff we share on social, like, it's easy to get, like, a viral tweet these days. Like, it's not easy, but, like, you can have a viral banger.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Like, it's a different approach. Like, I agree with you.”