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First draft 🕵🏻♂️Des Traynor is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom, the AI customer service company trusted by thousands of internet businesses. Since co-founding the company in 2011, he has played a central role in shaping its product strategy, leading the R&D organization, and helping grow Intercom into one of the most recognizable names in SaaS. Prior to Intercom, he co-founded Exceptional (acquired by Rackspace) and ran the design agency Contrast.
Known for his clarity of thought and product intuition, Traynor is also a respected voice in the tech world, frequently sharing insights on product-market fit, startup scaling, and customer experience. He’s spoken at events like Web Summit and SaaStr, and actively invests in early-stage startups including Notion and Manna.
Des him.
The hardest part early on was that it wasn’t obvious what the shape of the product should be—or even how common the problem really was. If you're working in a well-defined category, like note-taking, it’s easy to understand the boundaries and user expectations. But what we were building didn’t fit into an existing mold. Startups understood it immediately—they loved that they could use Intercom to talk to their customers and hear back from them. But when I spoke to more experienced people in the industry, they’d use jargon like ‘behavioral targeting’ or ‘engagement engine,’ or say we were an ‘escalations platform.’ None of that resonated with me—it all felt like buzzwords.
The real challenge was that this idea of connecting internet businesses to their customers had no clear boundaries. Should it include email? Sure. Then people wanted reports, attribution, link tracking, integrations with tools like ZoomInfo, and lead nurturing. Suddenly, we were building something that looked a lot like Marketo.
Similarly, when we built a customer data platform, people wanted segments—trial users, new users, premium users.
But then came graphs, event filters, and analytics on behavior. It was hard to draw the line on how much to build without becoming too broad and shallow.
So, the most difficult part was knowing when to stop—deciding which good ideas to pursue and which ones to let go, even if they seemed like natural extensions of what we’d already built.
Old Intercom (Source; Intercom Blog).
I work from our office about 95% of the time, unless I’m on the road. Most of my focus is on Fin, our AI agent for customer service. Each day starts with a stand-up meeting for the Fin leadership team, where we go over current customer issues, roadmap items, staffing, resourcing, and any key sales deals we need to be aware of or help push forward.
A big part of my day is reviewing Fin product work—new features, improvements, and iterations. Every 12 to 16 weeks, we run an event called Built for You. We had one about three weeks ago actually where we announced voice, a new Insights product, and also a replacement for CSAT we are calling the CX Score, and there’s always another one coming up.
https://youtu.be/2qBAKiXaFAE?si=3vD53qwOlmN5R2Hg
Our next is in May. A lot of my time is spent figuring out what we’ll be shipping and announcing at those events. The AI space moves so fast that we need to keep pace and meet the market where it is.
Outside of product work, as a founder, board member, and executive, I have a lot of other responsibilities—welcoming new hires, prepping for board meetings, and handling various high-level tasks across the business.
I have three: our chief product officer, Paul Adams; our CTO, Darragh Curran; and our chief engineer and co-founder, Ciaran Lee. When I’m not deeply involved in the details of Fin, I work closely with Paul and Derek to help manage our 500-person R&D team.
I see my role as a leader as providing energy, direction, and clarity. While I ultimately report to our CEO, who sets the company’s overall strategy and culture, I do my best, especially being based in Dublin while much of our leadership is in San Francisco, to bring momentum, positivity, and progress to the teams I work with.
Energy can take different forms. Sometimes it’s optimism—"How awesome would it be if we pulled this off?" Other times it’s pressure—"If we don’t get this done soon, we’re in trouble." People draw energy from both, and I try to apply the right kind at the right time. Injecting energy is a huge part of my job, and I push myself to do it every day.
https://x.com/destraynor/status/322709866114334720
Clarity is the other big part. People do their best work when they understand and believe in what we’re doing. If a task seems unclear or disconnected from a real goal, it’s hard to expect full effort. But if the objective is obvious and important, most people will go all in. I try to lead by consistently reinforcing that clarity and context.
And finally, fun and celebration matter too. You have to actually enjoy the journey—enjoy who you work with and celebrate even the small wins. For example, when we launched Fin as a self-serve product, our first customer signed up for just $49 a month. It might seem small, but we celebrated it. Because one day, that same flow might bring in a million-dollar customer—and it all starts with that first small spark.