Aug 9, 2022 · 45m · saastr
Finding Opps in Every Challenge: From Humble Beginnings to 30 Million Users with Miro CEO
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In this SaaStr fireside chat, Miro CEO Andrey Husid and ICONIQ Growth General Partner Matt Jacobson discuss Miro's journey from a bootstrapped visual whiteboard into a global collaboration powerhouse with over 35 million users. They share critical insights on achieving product-led growth, maintaining capital discipline, scaling executive teams during hypergrowth, and fostering enduring customer relevance.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 0.4 Jason pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 32:31 Rejecting the premise of fearing market competition
Andrey immediately rejects an audience member's premise about fearing market competitors, stating they only fear losing customer relevance.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 5:44 Challenging the conventional Silicon Valley blitzscaling timelineMatt questions why Miro took so many years to scale rather than adopting standard Silicon Valley blitzscaling methods.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 34:27 Explaining Miro's asynchronous origins versus pandemic remote hypeAndrey educates the audience that Miro was built primarily for asynchronous workflows rather than real-time remote collaboration.
Jason holds their own ▶ 1:40 Matt breaking down ICONIQ's three-part investment thesisMatt articulates a structured venture evaluation framework covering product obsession, sneaky market niches, and quantified product velocity.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flipping the Interview and ICONIQ's Investment Strategy | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Andrey opens by playfully inverting the interview dynamic and asking Matt about ICONIQ's investment criteria. Matt demonstrates strong domain knowledge, articulating a three-pillar framework around product obsession, sneaky niches, and product velocity across their 120-company portfolio. | |
| Delivering Customer Value Through Support and Community | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Matt prompts Andrey on why Miro took nearly a decade to scale rather than pursuing blitzscaling. Andrey educates the room on Miro's history since 2011 as RealtimeBoard, explaining how self-service viral mechanics built a durable foundation before building out sales. | |
| Managing Pandemic Hypergrowth and Organizational Agility | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Andrey breaks down the operational reality of hypergrowth during the pandemic, hiring 50 department heads while protecting organizational agility. He also provides a nuanced breakdown of user adoption cohorts moving from early adopters to late-majority enterprise knowledge workers. | |
| Building a Sustainable, Profitable Business Independent of Capital | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Andrey shares his philosophy on building for profitability from day one, noting Miro was profitable before the pandemic and never dependent on external capital. He emphasizes that venture capital should accelerate growth rather than keep a business on life support. | |
| Retaining Early Employees and Fostering Cultural Continuity | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Matt asks about retaining the original 10-person founding team as the company grew past 1,500 people. Andrey highlights values of empathy and collaboration, generous initial option pools, and culture-building traditions like numbered MVP jerseys. | |
| Executive Recruiting, Rigorous Referencing, and Beginner's Mindset | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Andrey shares his playbook on executive search, specialized agencies, and exhaustive referencing based on David Skok's methodology. He stresses filtering for a beginner's mindset rather than executives who rigidly implement prior playbooks. | |
| Executive Onboarding Strategies and Investor Network Leverage | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Andrey prompts Matt to share investor perspectives on leadership hiring. Matt provides expert advice on onboarding and cultivating talent relationships years before hiring, which Andrey reinforces with praise for ICONIQ's network. | |
| Distributed Hub Strategy and European M&A Expansion | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Andrey explains Miro's distributed multi-hub strategy across 12 offices where every location is treated as a primary hub. He highlights keeping core product engineering in Europe and using targeted European M&A to consolidate talent. | |
| European Venture Landscape and ICONIQ's London Expansion | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Andrey congratulates Matt on opening ICONIQ's London office and asks about the European ecosystem. Matt cites 10 European portfolio investments, praising the capital efficiency, technical depth, and global mindset of European founders. | |
| Founder Advice on Strategic Patience and Product Focus | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Asked what advice he would give early founders seeking investment, Andrey argues that building a compelling, viral product naturally pulls in customers, investors, and executives. He stresses the necessity of strategic patience during iteration. | |
| Audience Q&A: Handling Competition by Maintaining Customer Relevance | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | An audience member asks whether Andrey fears increasing competition. Andrey counters that competition is irrelevant as long as Miro maintains customer relevance and message-market fit, explaining their historical roots in asynchronous workflows. | |
| Audience Q&A: Applying a Beginner's Mindset to Market Shifts | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | An audience member asks both speakers to cite personal examples of displaying a beginner's mindset. Matt describes rebuilding ICONIQ's portfolio support services amid market downturns, while Andrey explains reevaluating all company assumptions post-pandemic. | |
| Audience Q&A: Achieving Operational Independence from Venture Capital | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | An audience member asks how non-hypergrowth companies can achieve VC independence. Andrey gives pragmatic operational advice: prioritize revenue, offer equity over inflated salaries, cut nice-to-haves, and review hiring offers rigorously. | |
| Audience Q&A: Defining North Star Metrics and Product Value | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | An audience member asks how Miro quantifies customer value. Andrey explains their North Star collaboration metric, distinguishing breadth of weekly active usage from depth metrics like engaged user per seat ratios. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Jacobson: ICONIQ Growth Has 120 Portfolio Companies, Mostly Software
“When we look across our portfolio of a 120 companies, you know, probably 70, 80% of those in software.”
Jacobson: Miro Has Approximately 35 Million Total Users
“Right now, you've got, I think, thirty-five million you know, total users, and still growing in a very fast clip”
Husid: Miro Reached $5M ARR Before Building a GTM Team
“And then all in 2018, when we were around five million ARR, we started to build our go-to-market team.”
Husid: Miro grew 3x year-over-year right before the pandemic
“But just before pandemic, we were growing three X year over year, which is pretty normal growth.”
Husid: Miro Hired Over 50 Department Heads During the Pandemic
“We entered pandemic with 240 people in a team, and we were lacking senior leadership in a lot of areas. We were lacking middle management in a lot of areas, and through pandemic, we hired more than 50 heads of different parts of the business, which is pretty c…”
Husid: Adding People and Processes Often Slows Scaling Companies Down
“A lot of people may think that when you scale the company, every net That new employee and that new process can accelerate you, but in a lot of cases it actually slows down us.”
Husid: Investors should accelerate profitable businesses, not sustain them
“So when we build the company, we build it for profit, and investors can accelerate that business, but they can't, kind of, be the only source of that business.”
Husid: All 10 Original Miro Core Employees Remain at the Company
“Those 10 people with who we started, like, they all were the company, and they all contribute to the company's success.”
Husid: Miro Scaled From 240 to 1,600 Employees During the Pandemic
“We scale from two 40 to like almost 1600 now.”
Husid: Miro Uses a Different Search Firm for Almost Every Hire
“Since then, every hire I make, I engage executive search firm. And almost for every new hire, we hire a different executive search firm because we are trying to find the one that specializes on specific area and who have a strong tracker record in that.”
Husid: Miro is the largest European productivity collaboration company ever
“We've built the kind of biggest productivity collaboration company out of Europe, Ever.”
Husid: Miro Is Actively Pursuing European Product Engineering M&A
“And we started to do M&As. And of course our core focus on M&As is in Europe today. Because as I said, like product engineering is, is here and all our M&As are focused on, on product engineering. And we did a couple already. Like we closed one last year. We c…”
Jacobson: European Founders Build Greater Durability With Less Capital Than US Peers
“The founders are super humble, and have generally had to do a lot more with, ah, with less, which has just created amazing durability in terms of the company. So, just really impressive Capital allocation. And the companies, you know, many of these companies h…”
Husid: Over 70% of Miro's Workflows Are Asynchronous, Not Real-Time
“A lot of people start to associate us with the remote work, but actually more than 70% of our workflows were asynchronous.”
Jacobson: Some ICONIQ Companies Raised Capital Every Six Months in 2020-2021
“In twenty-twenty and twenty-twenty-one, it was, you know, extremely active and the market was vibrant and, you know, there were companies in our portfolio that were raising capital, you know, every six months in some cases and the world was awash with capital.”
Husid: Miro Is Reevaluating Pricing, Messaging, and Headcount From Scratch
“Now entering absolutely new phase, and I need to reevaluate all assumptions we have around every aspect of the company in terms of like head count, in terms of value that we are offering, in terms of messaging, in terms of pricing, in terms of way we servicing…”