Chestnut: Serving the long tail makes a company much more resilient
Ben Chestnut · (July 2021) Ben Chestnut: From Side Business to $12 Billion – The Accidental Triumph of Mailchimp · Aug 25, 2025 · at 48:50
Ben Chestnut, co-founder of Mailchimp, explains why Mailchimp's business model of serving small businesses provided operational resilience.
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“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 big to fail. We cannot survive without them. We, we're actually a very, very much more resilient company serving the long tail.”
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