Conversation with Eoghan McCabe: moving to USA to build Intercom ($1B+) and benefits of naivety, hard work, rejection

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Eoghan McCabe to talk about his experience building Intercom into a unicorn after moving to SF from Ireland and knowing practically no one. He also provided some meaningful insights into what he believes is necessary to be successful as a founder.

This was recorded live during ODF22 and there’s a great Q&A at the end with our community. You can watch below or listen on Apple or Spotify. I’ve also shared a list of insights (with timestamps) on X.

On a personal note, this was my first time recording a live conversation like this and it was a perfect way to kick things off. Eoghan is an excellent storyteller. He is particularly good at changing altitude: sometimes he’ll tell a very personal story or give highly specific tactical advice. Other times, he’ll sound like a (helpful) guru giving hollistic advice to help you see above the fog of founding.

Grateful to the Intercom team — particularly Alan Mc Glinchey and Eoghan — for being such great partners to ODF and hosting ODF22 at their office.

Are you exploring starting a company in the next few months? Join ODF23 kicking off November 8th in SF. Check out the announcement video for more details.