Founder stories
$100K ARRin 7 years
4 milestones
Wrote 93 of first 100 blog posts, content is majority of acquisition
Founder
Des Traynor
Co-Founders•Technical•Ireland
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
ExperiencedProduct
Customer messaging platform for sales, marketing, and support.
Type
SaaSIndustry
MarketingModel
SubscriptionMarketing Strategy
How Des acquired customers
Primary Channel
SEO / Content
Also Used
CommunitiesProduct Hunt
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Intercom
Ruby on RailsPostgreSQLAWSStripe
The Full Story
I personally wrote 93 of Intercom's first 100 blog posts. Content became the majority of our customer acquisition. Now at $300M+ revenue.
Founder-Led Content
Early stage, the founder must write the content. I wrote 93 of our first 100 posts myself.
Specialists Write Content
Once you scale, have domain specialists write. They know the subject matter deeply.
Evergreen Beats News
Our best performing content is evergreen, not news-driven. It compounds over years.
- Founder-written posts: 93/100
- Content's share of acquisition: Majority
- Revenue: $300M+
Key Takeaways
1
Have specialists write content
2
Evergreen beats news-driven content
3
Genuine knowledge sharing wins
4
Founder-led content in early stage is crucial
Originally published onIntercom Blog
Inspired by Des's journey? Generate a business idea in the Marketing space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Des achieved 4 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
First Customer
2 months
October 2011
38% faster
vs avg 3 months+4 months to next milestone
$1K MRR
$1,000
6 months
February 2012
46% faster
vs avg 11 months+6 months to next milestone
$10K MRR
$10,000
1 year
August 2012
43% faster
vs avg 1 year+6 years to next milestone
$100K ARR
$300,000,000
7 years
August 2018
Avg: 3 years
7 years
Total journey time
4
Milestones achieved
Des's Path to $100K ARRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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