🔑 Two words took Zendesk from zero to IPO 🚀
Watch the 8 min 40 sec video on Youtube 👀 ☝️
I had the great pleasure of working with a spectacular team at Zendesk. I joined at an early stage (about 65 people) and came on as their first CMO. I built out the marketing team and in a couple years we took Zendesk IPO.
We had a guiding principle at Zendesk and it could be distilled into two words:
🔑 Beautifully Simple
The philosophy really came from the frustration of traditional enterprise software. Most B2B software was complex, clunky, and hard to use. Enterprise customer support software often came with a 300 page manual on how to use it.
It sucked. 💀
Why did they build such crappy hard to use software? Because it didn’t matter.
Enterprise software was exclusively sales-driven, it was built to sell top-down to enterprises and often the buyer was the CTO or CIO. The poor end user (in this case customer support agents) had no say in which software they used.
One of Zendesk’s founders, Mikkel Svane, used to help companies integrate these clunky enterprise customer support software and he knew there was a better way.
Enter the beautifully simple mantra. This simple saying manifested itself throughout our entire strategy.
1️⃣ Focus on Design
We obsessed over having a clean design in all of the major touchpoints for Zendesk: Website, demo, videos, content, software, ads, etc…
2️⃣ Focus on SimplicityWe invested time into having easy to use software that any customer support agent could use.
I know it was just two words but I really thought it made a huge difference for us at Zendesk. Internally, whenever we were launching a new video, a new product, new pricing, we could always ask if it was beautifully simple.
If not, back to the drawing board. Make it intuitive. Make it clean. Make it beautiful.
📈 The Impact
A “beautifully simple” approach for us at Zendesk drove user satisfaction, fueled word-of-mouth, and supported our growth through IPO.
I think at the end of the day as businesses get bigger, complexity just starts to creep in. Having this mantra for us provided us with a north star and empowered everyone in the company to live by those words for their function.
🤔 What’s Your Guiding Principle?
What axiom has made a difference in your company’s growth? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment below!
Thanks for reading!
Bill
🚀 About Bill 🚀
Bill Macaitis is an advisor and board member guiding aspiring AI & SaaS unicorns/decacorns. Bill works with companies to build out capital efficient go-to-market strategies and world class teams. Over his 30 year career Bill has achieved five successful exits and powered growth at three of the fastest-ever growing companies: Slack (CRO/CMO), Zendesk (CMO), and Salesforce (SVP of Marketing).
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