Episode 839 | The Journey Growing Help Scout to $35M ARR
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Welcome back to another episode of Startups for the Rest of Us. I am your host, Rob Walling. And in this episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing Nick Francis, the co-founder of Help Scout. Help Scout has long been one of my favorite support tools. We used it back in the day at Drip. And when Nick and I recently met in person for the first time, I jumped at the chance to get him on the podcast. Nick is a bootstrapper at heart but he and his co-founders did raise money with Help Scout and they have grown it over 15 years to $35 million in ARR. It's a really interesting story with a lot of ups, downs and gutsy decisions. I think you're going to enjoy the conversation. Before we dive in, a quick reminder that MicroConf Europe is happening in Reykjavik, Iceland from September 21st through the 23rd of 2026.
We have an incredible lineup of speakers, some great excursions planned, and obviously we're all looking forward to getting in the same room. with about 175 to 200 other like-minded founders. Ticket prices go up on July 2nd, so they're the cheapest they will ever be. And if you're thinking about bringing your team or your mastermind group, we're running a group discount right now. If you buy three or more tickets, you get 10% off. Maybe your co-founder or your CMO always wonders why you're so revved up after coming back for MicroConf. This is your chance to show them. Plus, getting everyone in the same room is much, much more valuable than another Zoom call. And you'll be in Iceland, so that doesn't hurt either.
Come up and say hi to me if you wind up making it. You can head to microconfeurope.com to see the speaker lineup, get all the details, and to grab your tickets before the price goes up. This event will sell out, so if you're thinking about going, go ahead and head to microconfeurope.com. And now, let's dive into my conversation with Nick. Nick Francis, welcome to the show. So happy to be here, Rob. It's great to have you, man. We ran into each other at MicroConf of all places in Portland a couple months ago. And you came up and I was like, Nick Francis, this name is familiar. And you're like, I'm the co-founder of Help Scout. And I was like, what? You guys are awesome. I love Help Scout. A bunch of tiny C companies still use Help Scout.
A bunch of people at MicroConf, I mean, Drip back in the day used Help Scout. It was really cool to have you.
Yeah.
I was so honored. It was great to show up at MicroConf and have such name recognition. Every time I talked to somebody, it was just like, oh, help Scott. It was really, really nice.
Yeah, that's cool. So we were chatting there and I realized I wanted to get you involved, assuming you wanted to, in this whole ecosystem we have. So you've since become a TinySeed mentor. Maybe teasing something we haven't announced yet, but let's just say loyal listeners, I may or may not have invited Nick to speak at a future MicroConf, tell the story of Help Scout. And I wanted to have you on the show to really live through the story, to go back to the painful memories and the beautiful ones as well of the past, what, 15 years, I guess, of Help Scout.
Yeah, 15 years, but I'm such a big fan of what you are doing, the community that you've built. MicroConf has been a force of nature for so long. It was really great to be there with, you know, people, it's with kindred spirits, people with shared values. I just, I think that's a really special event.
Thank you, appreciate that. It's definitely your people, right? You're like basic, I think of you as a founder who has that opinionated taste that I admire, you know, like Ben Chestnut of MailChimp, the Basecamp guys, you know, these other founders who really even Postmark.
Natalie and Chris, yeah, they're legends.
Yeah, yeah, wild bit, right? And it's this opinionated take on, I don't just want to build a company, but I want to do it in a certain way that I believe in. And for you, that was, I think of you mostly as a bootstrapper. I think of Jason Cohen, to be honest, mostly as a bootstrapper, even though he's raised a kajillion dollars.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
2 identifiedMore from Startups For the Rest of Us
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