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Intercom

12 statements across 1 episodes · 4 bullish · 1 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Dec 13, 2017 by Des Traynor · said 73 times in 5 episodes since 2017 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by Des Traynor (64), Craig Cannon (6), Michael Seibel (1), James Hawkins (1), Diana Hu (1)

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011201720182019202020212022202320242025episodes it came up in
00400.5801201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 68 mentions in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Intercom, oldest first

Dec 13, 2017
Insight
Startups building products to solve small, rare problems never succeed
“The next piece I would say to people is like, you have to find, you know, be really wary of solving a small, rare problem. You can solve a big problem. You can solve a rare problem. Sorry, you can solve a small problem, fine. A rare problem, fine. But small an…”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 41:29 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 neutral
Assertion Supported
Des Traynor wrote roughly 93 of Intercom's first 100 blog posts
“I wrote, I think I wrote 93 of the first 100 posts.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 6:38 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 positive
Insight
Startups must build what they sell and sell what they build
“Karen Peacock, who's our CEO, she always says, build what you sell, sell what you build. If you're not doing both of those things, you're in Fucking trouble, basically, right?”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 26:59 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 negative
Insight
Hiring one misaligned manager creates entire misaligned departments
“If you hire one person who's not on the same page, and you let them hire people, they're gonna hire more people who aren't on the same page. And next thing, you have whole wings of the company working against you in bad ways.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 30:00 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intercom's blog is the company's dominant source of inbound traffic
“And it's one of our, you know, it is our dominant traffic source, but we, you know, that wasn't true for the first 100 posts.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 8:09 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 positive
Insight
Product, marketing, code, and design are renderings of one core idea
“Product and marketing and code and design are all like, they're all renderings of the same core idea.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 25:15 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 neutral
Insight
Specific brand names limit expansion; ambiguous brand names hurt conversion
“It's hard to expand a brand that has a high degree of specificity. It's hard to convert a brand that has a high degree of ambiguity.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 53:20 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 neutral
Insight
Marketing organization structures lack standard playbooks and vary across companies
“I've talked to maybe 50 different VPs of marketing at this point about how their marketing org is structured, and they're all different. Like, very, like, not just different as an, ooh, you put one person in, but like, substantively different. Like, even like,…”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 12:37 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017
Insight
Companies cannot sell a solution until customers have bought the problem
“You can't sell somebody on the solution until they've bought the problem.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 23:21 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017
Insight
Relying strictly on attributable marketing causes overall growth to suffer
“In general, the marketing world is one where you move from like, This is really hard to attribute, and it costs a lot of money down to, like, hey, we spent seven cent and it kicked ass, right? But that whole thing is a spectrum, and you have to be willing to d…”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 21:04 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tailoring website onboarding by persona doubled or tripled Intercom's conversion rate
“Over the years of experimentation, we've really doubled or trebled our actual conversion rate through things like that.”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 59:39 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
Dec 13, 2017
Insight
Effective content marketing helps users solve broad problems before pitching
“The advice I'd give people is usually like, think about who your actual end target user is and think of all the problems in their life that you can help them with. And then try and help them as much as you can. And then every now and then hopefully you're, if …”
Des Traynor Dec 13, 2017 ▶ 7:26 Be Wary of Solving a Small, Rare Problem - Des Traynor of Intercom · Y Combinator
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