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Eoghan McCabe

by Josh Pigford. Last updated on February 07, 2024

 

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This week I talk with Eoghan McCabe, Chairman and co-founder of Intercom! In this episode we talk about creativity, exploration of knowledge, how Eoghan and his co-founders met, the full story of how Intercom got started, how the problem they’re solving has changed over the past 7 years and more.

Show Notes:

  • 1:10– Eoghan’s childhood
  • 3:30– How creativity inspired technology interests
  • 9:05– Paintshop Pro, Photoshop, special effects, and magic
  • 12:10– Finding limitations and exploring/playing. Testing boundaries and taking risks. How kids learn about right and wrong/expectations of society.
  • 14:50– Pursuit of knowledge transitioning to creativity and curiosity
  • 18:00– “Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum”
  • 20:43– Traditional/Analytical Intelligence vs. Broad Intelligence
  • 24:09– “Technology” class inspired his love for electronics — vehicle for creativity
  • 26:00– Made his first website (1996) via AOL
  • 32:45– “Build the thing before you launch the thing”
  • 34:20– Attending Trinity college in Ireland for Computer Science
  • 38:40– Binary and the building blocks of computer science
  • 42:20– Diversity of experiences
  • 47:23– College gives you exposure to more people and an opportunity to learn who you are
  • 48:45– Founded own company, Eoghan McCabe Ltd, right out of college
  • 49:45– Started working with Paul Campbell and Dave Rice
  • 52:00– Eoghan meets Des Traynor through blogging
  • 53:00– Des joins Eoghan and Paul at Contrast
  • 59:25– How did Intercom come about?
  • 1:10:12– Dynamic of working with Des and how their styles compliment one another
  • 1:14:14– How their view of the problem to be solved has shifted over time
  • 1:17:15– Vision and potential of ideas
  • 1:19:02– How Intercom has grown and changed in recent years
  • 1:23:18– The biggest surprise!

How to reach Eoghan: Twitter • Intercom • Medium

Josh Pigford

Josh is most famous as the founder of Baremetrics. However, long before Baremetrics and until today, Josh has been a maker, builder, and entrepreneur. His career set off in 2003 building a pair of link directories, ReallyDumbStuff and ReallyFunArcade. Before he sold those for profits, he had already started his next set of projects. As a design major, he began consulting on web design projects. That company eventually morphed into Sabotage Media, which has been the shell company for many of his projects since. Some of his biggest projects before Baremetrics were TrackThePack, Deck Foundry, PopSurvey, and Temper. The pain points he experienced as PopSurvey and Temper took off were the reason he created Baremetrics. Currently, he's dedicated to Maybe, the OS for your personal finances.