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IF YOU’RE SOMEONE who finds dealing with any form of business-related customer service as painful as pulling teeth, the success of service solutions startup Intercom should be music to your ears.
The company was founded in San Francisco in 2011 by four Irish men – Eoghan McCabe (CEO), Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee and David Barrett, and has gone from those four employees to 140 at present.
Intercom / Twitter💸🍻We've raised a $35M Series C from ICONIQ Capital, @BessemerVP & @s23p to build the customer communication platform. http://t.co/29YVJQwRaN
— Intercom (@intercom) August 26, 2015
And that number is about to double again, with 70 of the jobs coming to Ireland. So how did they tell the world? Why with a cartoon strip of course.
McCabe took to his blog yesterday to announce the company had landed $35 million (€31 million) in Series C funding from investors – funding that will see their workforce double both in California and Dublin within the next year. And he did it in cartoon form by tracing the evolution of man to the frustrated customer so many of us find ourselves being today.
The general gist of the post is that humanity has been evolving since the dawn of time, and yet has regressed when it comes to communication to almost prehistoric levels with the dawn of the internet.
And Intercom aims to change all that.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Intercom’s vice president of engineering Darragh Curran says that the company’s stated aim is to make customer service as simple and accessible “as dealing with Whatsapp”.
“Before when you were communicating with a company, internally their processes are really clunky, with many people talking to one person, wires being crossed, the same questions being asked over and over, we streamline all that,” he says.
We’re aiming to bring customer communications on a par with services like Whatsapp and Twitter – instant, accessible.
And the world is taking note. Intercom now have 7,000 paying customers (including public companies like Ancestry.com, New Relic, and Shopify) in 85 countries, handling 250 million end customers. That’s not bad for four years work to put it mildly.
“We nearly tripled headcount in 2014, and already in 2015 have nearly doubled to over 140 employees,” McCabe said in the company’s industry release.
We’ll double globally again over the next 12 months, and build out our platform so every single team in a business can use Intercom for all customer communication.
Those 140 employees are split evenly between R&D, engineering etc based off Stephen’s Green in Dublin, and sales and marketing in San Francisco.
“The rate at which we’re growing is fantastic – it lets us go full speed ahead for our pretty high ambitions,” says Curran.
We’ve grown revenue a hundred times since we formed and that makes all sorts of things possible.
What we’re really aiming for is a company that’s as pervasive as Facebook when it comes to dealing with businesses.
Lofty ambitions for sure, but they just might get there.
What we really want to know is: can they exorcise the living hell that is automated phone response systems (dial 1 for marketing, dial 2 to lose the will to live etc), the bane of consumer mankind.
“I’d like to think we can do so alright,” says Curran.
Amen to that.
600 – The number of people travelling from Ireland to Germany to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption.
Haha!
Lol!!!
its because they Assume its their right to be there, and they are entitled to destroy, steal, crap anywhere they want.
Interesting to see how the majority of comments were deleted from the traveler article and even have removed the comment facility. Obviously we dont want to offend Pavee Point!
Bit late!!!!!!!!!!!
Bad day for Pavee Point…2 atrocities by 2 of their “client” groups in 2 days…Gypsy slavers in Meath and the Traveller Jihadis in the Vaterland….poor vulnerable minorities….
Is this the thread about the traveller story?
Yep. Just don’t mention them.
It sure is !
The Eu open border is working to Irelands advantage.
Lol, very witty!
Meant for Les!
Thanks Kate. How you doin’?
Good thanks thanks Les!, hope you got those towels dry, enjoying the lighthearted banter, makes a pleasant change!?
Indeed Kate. Things have gotten very serious here in the journal.ie recently. Have to do our best to bring some mirth to the proceedings. What you up to tonight? I’m getting locked.
Funny…!
You enjoy Les, don’t drink myself!, enjoy the fight, I’ll be chilling myself!
Sure you’ll have one?! Antibiotics?
Lol, do my best to give them a miss as well Les!
You’re right too Kate. Anyway, there’s stuff to be dried here so I’ll head.
Pleasure Les!
Completely out of character in fairness maybe they were travellers from some other country ?
Posting to comments in the story re the “ethnic” group destroying any good will we have in Europe is disabled. Someones cousin must be married to their cousin
Ethnic/racial/disenfranchised/marginalised/vulnerable/oppressed ( take your pick ) group…..
Peter, Sounds like to open statement from yer man from pavee pointless. You know the fellow, he is the one that did a diploma in sociology and trots out all the terminology in the first 30 seconds ( irrespective of what he is asked)
I could add a few more to that I list ..but I’ll refrain ..
Go on…you are among friends here…
I don’t have such an eloquent way with words like you do ! ..
Suzie…that “eloquence” is a complete sham….it hides the fact that im actually quite thick and my unprecedentedly large vocabulary implies i actually comprehend the meanings of many of the words i use….
Of course … you hide it so well … Lol !
Sociology….sociologists state that as an oppressed and marginalised and vulnerable minority ethnic social group Travellers are forced by society to compete – with conflict when necessary – with each other and other oppressed, vulnerable and marginalised minority social and/or racial/ethnic groups for scarce resources due to forced unemployment, racism, oppresdion, stigmatisation, bigotry, poverty, police harrassment, poor housing, health inequalities, educational discrimination etc…..that is Sociology and why the Travellers are victims..not responsible for behaving like Visigoths in Germany.
Sorry…”oppression”…and not cut and paste.
Always someone else’s fault , always has to be a reason or an excuse for their behaviour . They’re not forced into anything !
Did i not mention how Islamaphobia and homophobia have an egregious and deliterious effect on the homogeneity of the Traveller “community”? How did i overlook such contemporaneous causal factors in Traveller delinquency?
Bloody German “country people” spoiling all the fun sure it’s just our culture, we have it beat into us that we can’t sleep with our own women till we marry them so what are we supposed to do, aye they may look, dress and dance like (insert your own words here) but they can’t go anywhere without a chaperone – no siree that’s the gods honest truth I swear on me dead granny’s grave. Now where do ye want this Tarmac it’s a one day only deal, are ye sure tell ye what I’ll clean them gutters for 20 spuds and a chicken…
LoL….German “Buffers”!!!!!
Oh yeah that’s right no other country produces them just us sorry
Those colourful traveler boy’s, up to their old tricks again!
There must be a market for gates and shed painting in Germany then.
Hey
Hey a/s/l?
Charlie. . You’re in way too many chat rooms ..
@ FCR
WB
@ Suzie
Just cause you won’t talk to me Suzie..
Not true I always have time for Charlie ….
Is “Charlie” slang for Colombian marching powder? Jeez im starting to become jism stoonhager or Tariq or Liam…
Tariq .. I mean Peter ..I don’t know what you’re talking about .. I was just referring to Mr. Fogarty ..lol
Great Craic Sis….and no Tariq/Jester/Liam/Rowe/Phil/Avina/Malachi/Mick/Jason/Rowe/Prousse for miles….so..do you come here often?
Lol .. sshh Tariq has just arrived in the building … I’m a night owl so I’m around a lot ! Makes a change to have a bit of craic on here ..
1 idiot online Journal that provides a bit of lite entertainment with their stupid articles.
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