Table of Contents
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This week I talk with Hiten Shah, Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, FYIand lots of other things! In this episode we talk about his first businesses (which involved frat party arbitrage), building companies with complex technology problems, a lawsuit that drug on for years, how to prioritize time, using customer love as a growth metric and more!
Show Notes
- 2:35- Childhood
- 3:30- Taking dad’s advice. “Don’t work for anyone, marry early, have kids early”
- 5:55- Not being an entrepreneurial kid
- 7:49- Creating own major in organizational behavior
- 9:20- Helping fraternities throw parties
- 10:36- First technology based business- ACS (Advantage Consulting Services)
- 11:42- Transitioning to building software
- 13:03- CrazyEgg and generating buzz around the brand
- 15:48- Handling the technology side of things
- 17:55- First couple of years with CrazyEgg
- 19:51- Being addicted to starting more things
- 20:20- Failing at raising money for CrazyEgg resulted in Kissmetrics
- 20:52- Second biggest lesson- have an early access period!
- 21:13- Running support alone for 2 years
- 24:10- Building a more robust analytics tool that helps people do more
- 25:40- Being drawn to complex technology problems
- 27:00- Finding out why people were building internal analytics tools
- 28:08- Starting with problems but wanting to solve those problems in the best way possible
- 28:15- Latest company- FYI
- 29:00- The story behind Kissmetrics
- 30:00- Building something with someone else’s money
- 31:40- Lawsuit of 2011
- 34:17- Not being able to raise money for two years
- 37:03- Getting back into small business mode
- 38:45- Post-lawsuit and shifts in leadership
- 40:45- Biggest Lesson- “If you start the company, run the company”
- 43:00- Flipping company back to the mode they were in prior to lawsuit
- 43:50- Leaving Kissmetrics for good
- 46:13- Meeting a new co-founder and building software again
- 47:50- Preceding FYI
- 48:58- Deciding to build FYI to solve the problem of finding documents across all your tools
- 49:45- Solving an emotional burden
- 51:09- FYI and the difference this time around
- 52:22- Value prop- ‘Find your documents in 3 clicks or less”
- 54:25- Success in building a tool for individuals then expanding to teams as a whole
- 55:06- “What’s the number one challenge you have with documents”
- 55:53- Making sure you’re solving the right problem and understanding it better than anyone in the market
- 56:42- Getting in people’s flow. “We don’t know what we don’t know”
- 58:41- Growing the business as fast as possible while serving customer need better over time
- 58:55- “Customer love is fundamental and you don’t get to build a great business without it”
- 1:02:01- Prioritizing your day and “The Big Rock”
- 1:03:36- The next year for you and FYI- build a product that teams love
- 1:04:55- Redistributing content and information
