Customer.io CEO Colin Nederkoorn shares key insights from the company's journey to reaching $70 million in revenue. Reflecting on the lessons learned while scaling from $1M to $10M in ARR, Colin highlights nine critical mistakes to avoid. He covers topics like the importance of focusing on decisions that improve customer value, avoiding unnecessary technical complexities, and balancing hiring between "scrappy doers" and "systems builders."

Colin also emphasizes the significance of formalizing sales and customer success processes, understanding the right time to seek external help, and maintaining strong connections with other CEOs.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction of Colin Nederkoorn, CEO of Customer.io
1:07 - Founding story and initial goals for Customer.io
5:00 - Reaching 1 million ARR and product evolution
7:10 - Mistake 1: Choosing unreliable servers in Quebec
9:11 - Mistake 2: Selecting a problematic distributed database
11:24 - Mistake 3: Choosing an early JavaScript framework that required a full rewrite
14:43 - Underestimating the importance of sales and formalizing a sales process
16:16 - Losing larger customers and creating a customer success team
18:54 - The need to raise money to properly scale the business
20:10 - Importance of forming a board and peer network
21:41 - Advice for reaching 10 million ARR and deciding on the business direction
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By the numbers.
See charts and graphs here: https://getlatka.com/companies/custom...

Founded in 2012.
$70M in revenue in 2024.
$51.8M in revenue in 2023.
$40.3M Total Funding.
250 employees
2.9K customers

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