Mailchimp's CEO talks about hiring a designer as COO and how two COOs, Neil and Farah, provided what he calls 'adult supervision' while scaling the company from $300M to $700M in revenue.
He was the first person I hired to take over my job as designer. He really cared about the brand and the UX and kind of melding that into one great customer experience. Man, that was transformational. And I've had two coos prior to Intuit. Neil was my adult supervision, and he was an amazing COO that I think. I don't know. If you're a founder like me, you can be pretty abrasive. And I know you're obsessed over the product and kind of in that weird Steve Jobsian kind of a way. And Neil was a really good buffer from me. Then Farah, our next COO, was also just that buffer. Got us 300 to 700 million.
And when did you. We all want this magical COO that can hide our warts and issues, right? Yeah. How'd you find him?
Well, I mean, with Neil, he was really more adult supervision. He was a mentor, to be honest.
But your VCs didn't force him in.
I mean, he knew we knew our boundaries, our roles and responsibilities. I think they say now.
