Ben Chestnut
26 statements across 3 episodes · 6 bullish · 3 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Jul 12, 2021 by Ben Chestnut · said 8 times in 2 episodes since 2023 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Ben Chestnut's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Tina Roth-Eisenberg (5), Lindsey Steinberg (3)
tap a year for its mentions
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2023 5 mentions in 1 episode
Everything said about Ben Chestnut, oldest first
Jul 12, 2021
Jul 12, 2021
Mailchimp Co-Founder Dan Kurzius Faked HTML Skills to Secure His Job
“He interviewed for the job thinking he was interviewing to write content about music. And halfway through his interview with, he realized that I was interviewing him to be a coder and he had no idea how to code HTML. And so he totally lied totally lied to me a…”
Jul 12, 2021
Jul 12, 2021 negative
Jul 12, 2021 positive
Jul 12, 2021 negative
Chestnut: Early VCs Relied on Identical Scare Tactics to Push Funding
“And then by the 10th one, I realized they were all saying the same thing. They were all using the same playbook. And it was always a scare tactic. Like, if you don't take our money, you're just gonna peter out and die. And so we just, I guess, more stubbornly …”
Jul 12, 2021
Chestnut Abandoned $20,000 Agency Projects to Chase $25 Mailchimp Transactions
“The web design projects are like 20,000 dollars by this time. We had gotten pretty good at sales. And so, it was a really hard thing to convince my co-founders. Like, hey, let's abandon the web design business where we're making 20 grand, sometimes 35 grand a …”
Jul 12, 2021
Mailchimp Pivoted to SaaS Because Chestnut Ran Out of Check Deposit Slips
“I ran out of check deposit slip, and I said, I do not want to go inside the bank. We've got to find a way to bill our customers online, and that was how we actually installed the credit card system, and that was when Mailchimp became an official SaaS business.”
Jul 12, 2021
Jul 12, 2021
Jul 12, 2021
Jun 1, 2023 positive
MailChimp co-founder Ben Chestnut offered to sponsor CreativeMornings four months in
“Four months into launching. So apparently he read my blog and he emailed me and says, hey, my team, like literally, It said my team would poop their pants if they saw us team up. So can I support you? And I remember sitting there going, I don't know. And I jus…”
Aug 25, 2025 positive
Aug 25, 2025
Chestnut: Turned down Cox corporate job out of fear of regret
“Cox being the good company that they are, you know, they offered a bunch of us jobs back at Cox corporate. And I declined because I felt like if I take the job, I will probably do very well. I will probably eventually become a vice president, but forever, it w…”
Aug 25, 2025 neutral
Mailchimp co-founder Dan Kurzius lied about coding skills to get hired
“Dan's he's into, he was a DJ, he's a music producer, he's into electronic music, and so he interviewed for the job thinking he was interviewing to write content about music, and halfway through his interview with, he realized that I was interviewing him to be …”
Aug 25, 2025 negative
Chestnut: Mailchimp rejected venture capital due to uniform scare-tactic pitches
“You know, for the first two, I started to think about it, because I really believed their pitches, and then by the 10th one, I realized they were all saying the same thing, they were all using the same playbook and it was always a scare tactic, like, if you do…”
Aug 25, 2025 neutral
Chestnut: Mailchimp made $25–$50 per transaction versus $20K–$35K per web project
“The web design projects are like 20,000 dollars by this time we had gotten pretty good at sales. And so it was a really hard thing to convince my co-founders like, Hey, let's abandon the web design business where we're making 20 grand, sometimes 35 grand a pop…”
Aug 25, 2025
Mailchimp Became SaaS Because Chestnut Ran Out of Check Deposit Slips
“I ran out of check deposit slip and I said, I do not want to go inside the bank. We've got to find a way to build our customers online. And that was how we actually installed the credit card system. And that was when Mailchimp became an official SAS business.”
Aug 25, 2025 neutral
Aug 25, 2025 positive
Ben Chestnut: Mastering banner ad psychology was essential to building Mailchimp
“I ended up being really fascinated by the art, like to learn how it within like two seconds to convince someone on the internet to click something is, it became fascinating for me. And I, you know, that skill to like build, build something, an animation really…”
Aug 25, 2025
Ben Chestnut: Mailchimp was at ~$200M revenue when attending Ohio leadership school
“The minimum revenue had to be two million in revenue, and, you know, we were, like, maybe at two hundred million or something by this time, and so I didn't tell them that. I submitted the form, and I said, you know, Yes, I make two million in revenue”
Aug 25, 2025
Aug 25, 2025 positive
Chestnut: Serving the long tail makes a company much more resilient
“You know, you have to depend on just a handful of customers with the long tail. You know, we're serving You know, thousands or millions of tiny customers who pay small amounts of money. You don't rely on anyone too much such that, you know, they're sort of too…”
Aug 25, 2025
Chestnut: Mailchimp's first podcast advertising buy was Joe Rogan's podcast
“I mean, I still remember the day when someone told, one of our employees said, I listened to this thing called podcasts on my drive to work, and I think we should sponsor a podcast. And I thought it was, you know, just a weird idea. I'd never heard a podcast, …”
Aug 25, 2025 positive
Aug 25, 2025 neutral
Chestnut: Mailchimp has had acquisition offers, keeps an open mind on selling
“I've had offers. The thing is, I love what I do, and I don't know, I, it's one of those things I, you know, you never, you learn over time, after 20 years of running a business, you learn, never say never, right? I think I have an open mind about it, but I can…”