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Hosted by John S Kim
Communicating with your customers is a good thing, right? Well, what about when some of your outbound communications end up repelling customers rather than attracting them? Today we're going to discuss advanced customer interaction strategies with John Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Sendbird. We'll dive into the effectiveness of in-app messaging, the rise of mobile engagement, and the evolving machine-to-machine economy. John S. Kim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sendbird (YC W16), the customer communications platform powering 4,000 of the world's most popular digital applications. 7 billion messages sent and received between over 320 million people every month are routed using Sendbird, whose customers include DoorDash, Match Group, Virgin Mobile, Noom and Paytm. The company has raised $220 million USD to-date, backed by reputable investors including ICONIQ Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund, Shasta Ventures, Y Combinator and more. John is a successful serial entrepreneur and CEO. His first startup Paprika Lab (social gaming) was acquired by GREE, and he was Korea's all-time no.1 pro gamer in the Unreal Tournament. RESOURCES Sendbird website: https://www.sendbird.com Wix Studio is the ultimate web platform for creative, fast-paced teams at agencies and enterprises—with smart design tools, flexible dev capabilities, full-stack business solutions, multi-site management, advanced AI and fully managed infrastructure. https://www.wix.com/studio Attend the Mid-Atlantic MarCom Summit, the region's largest marketing communications conference. Register with the code "Agile" and get 15% off. Register now for HumanX 2025. This AI-focused event which brings some of the most forward-thinking minds in technology together. Register now with the code "HX25p_tab" for $250 off the regular price. Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Communicating with your customers is a good thing, right? Well, what about when some of your outbound communications end up repelling customers rather than attracting them? Today we're going to discuss advanced customer interaction strategies with John Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Sendbird. We'll dive into the effectiveness of in-app messaging, the rise of mobile engagement, and the evolving machine-to-machine economy. John S. Kim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sendbird (YC W16), the customer communications platform powering 4,000 of the world's most popular digital applications. 7 billion messages sent and received between over 320 million people every month are routed using Sendbird, whose customers include DoorDash, Match Group, Virgin Mobile, Noom and Paytm. The company has raised $220 million USD to-date, backed by reputable investors including ICONIQ Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund, Shasta Ventures, Y Combinator and more. John is a successful serial entrepreneur and CEO. His first startup Paprika Lab (social gaming) was acquired by GREE, and he was Korea's all-time no.1 pro gamer in the Unreal Tournament. RESOURCES Sendbird website: https://www.sendbird.com Wix Studio is the ultimate web platform for creative, fast-paced teams at agencies and enterprises—with smart design tools, flexible dev capabilities, full-stack business solutions, multi-site management, advanced AI and fully managed infrastructure. https://www.wix.com/studio Attend the Mid-Atlantic MarCom Summit, the region's largest marketing communications conference. Register with the code "Agile" and get 15% off. Register now for HumanX 2025. This AI-focused event which brings some of the most forward-thinking minds in technology together. Register now with the code "HX25p_tab" for $250 off the regular price. Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
John S. Kim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sendbird (YC W16), the world's no1. conversations platform for mobile apps powering 300M+ people every month. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. “Ikigai” is finding purpose in life is having a deeper introspection of yourself and finding what you want to do for the next 30 years will ultimately make you successful and deeply happy. 2. Terminal ARR may seem too negative but it also gives leverage to the company to be able to grow and change the total growth potential of the business. 3. A lot of metrics are hard to change as the company grows so think long term and think about the value of your customers ,how to retain them , how to structurally increase the gross ARR of your business. APIs for better customer communications - Send Bird Sponsors HubSpot Starting a business doesn't have to be so hard. Go to click HubSpot.com/ent to download HubSpot's Entrepreneurship Kit for free right now ThriveTime Show Attend the world's highest rated and most reviewed business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and football great Tim Tebow at ThriveTimeShow.com/eofire
John S. Kim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sendbird (YC W16), the world's no1. conversations platform for mobile apps powering 300M+ people every month. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. “Ikigai” is finding purpose in life is having a deeper introspection of yourself and finding what you want to do for the next 30 years will ultimately make you successful and deeply happy. 2. Terminal ARR may seem too negative but it also gives leverage to the company to be able to grow and change the total growth potential of the business. 3. A lot of metrics are hard to change as the company grows so think long term and think about the value of your customers ,how to retain them , how to structurally increase the gross ARR of your business. APIs for better customer communications - Send Bird Sponsors HubSpot Starting a business doesn't have to be so hard. Go to click HubSpot.com/ent to download HubSpot's Entrepreneurship Kit for free right now ThriveTime Show Attend the world's highest rated and most reviewed business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and football great Tim Tebow at ThriveTimeShow.com/eofire
On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes John S. Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of Sendbird. Sendbird is the world's no.1 chat API, serving over 100M monthly chat users across leading companies such as Reddit, Delivery Hero, Yahoo!, Rakuten, Paytm, Accolade, Livongo, and DHL. John shares the four techniques that enabled his company to become a billion-dollar company at breakneck speed. Specifically, John covers: 2:37 - Career pivots from software engineer to gamer 4:35 - What made him start the company 8:33 - Why he applied to YCombinator 11:18 - How he acquired his first customers and found market fit 15:21 - Things he learned to help sell better 21:06 - What it means to become a platform company 23:39 - Deciding when is the right time to add additional products 25:00 - The four techniques founders should apply to business and life 35:38 - How to transition from individual contributor all the way up to executive 40:03 - Helpful lessons in creating autonomy for the team 42:02 - The Human Capital Framework 44:48 - Emotional capital, cognitive empathy, and the trade-offs of agreeableness 52:11 - Empowering your teams to be more and more autonomous 59:55 - Key steps to making successful hires 1:01:54 - The order people should be hired in 1:04:28 - What he wishes he did more of and less of 1:01:18 - Navigating his biggest fear as a leader 1:11:36 - Top KPIs that leaders should measure Learn more at https://tractionconf.io Connect with John S. Kim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doshkim/ Learn more about Sendbird at https://sendbird.com/ This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process, enabling companies to get more money, faster, without the paperwork and audit risk. We don't get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline its podcast production. Learn more at https://ContentAllies.com
John Kim has had an unconventional career, pivoting from professional gamer to software developer, to serial entrepreneur. We discuss how to assess your career, make pivots, and balance your growth long term. John shares principles from complexity science to help you navigate unknowns, risks, & opportunities in your career. Plus other powerful frameworks to make better career decisions. "So if you're working at a bigger company, what you're really trying to optimize for is how quickly can you move up in turn terms of 'Abstraction Layer.' It's not about titles. It's about, can you actually understand the next layer of abstraction within the business. So if you're like an IC, what is the engineering manager's priority right now for your team? What is the, let's say a director of engineering's priority right now for the team? And if you actually start caring about those things, you'll be able to make a lot more faster progress." JOHN KIM, CO-FOUNDER & CEO @ SENDBIRD John S. Kim is the Co-founder and CEO of SendBird, the world's no.1 chat API. The platform currently serves over 100M monthly chat users across the world's leading companies such as Reddit, Delivery Hero, Yahoo!, Rakuten, Paytm, Accolade, Livongo, and DHL. John is a serial entrepreneur, engineer at heart, and an expert in the API economy and communications tech space. Little known fact about John is that he was Korea's no.1 pro-gamer for Unreal Tournament. SHOWNOTES How John went from professional gamer to #1 chat API company @ Sendbird (2:47) Creating vs. consuming & why John walked away from professional gaming (6:58) John’s early career pivots: from software engineer to social gaming & Y Combinator (9:08) How to apply the complexity science principles of “Convergence” & “Divergence” to your career decisions (11:17) Navigating “Abstraction Layers” & why you need to invest time to build “social capital” in your career (15:31) The “Human Capital” Framework & balancing the skills you accumulate throughout your career (19:04) Building emotional capital, training for cognitive empathy, & the tradeoffs of agreeableness (20:41) How to manage expectations & communicate with stakeholders when you need to pivot (27:34) How John applied these principles to make career decisions and pivot his company (30:23) How to pick careers aligned with your happiness and motivation (37:10) How to pivot your career using the “2PM” framework (people, product, market, money) (39:59) Future founders: Why you’ll be happier making 10 year career decisions & quick pivots (44:04) Takeaways (46:23) Looking for other ways to get involved with ELC? Check out all of our upcoming events, peer groups, and other programs at sfelc.com! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/engineeringleadership/message
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
John S. Kim is the Cofounder and CEO of SendBird (Y Combinator W16), a B2B startup providing a messaging solution for enterprises. The platform currently serves tens of millions of monthly active users and many of the best-known logos around the world, like Yahoo! Sports, GO-JEK, Hinge and one of the most active websites in the world. John is a serial entrepreneur and an expert in the messaging space. Little known about John is that he was Korea's no.1 pro-gamer for Unreal Tournament.
On today's episode of Gritty Founder, Kreig Kent talks with John S. Kim about how he built and grew SendBird. John shares terrific advice on staying positively tenacious and building a strong relationship with cofounders. John sold his previous startup and was Korea's number one player in Unreal Tournament. He is now the CEO of SendBird, the number one chat API, and they've raised more than 120 million dollars. Their customers include companies and organizations like Reddit, Yahoo!, GO-JEK, Delivery Hero and the NBA. Some Questions Kreig asks John: - What was the biggest lesson that you learned from your social gaming company that you took with you to SendBird? (12:47) - What kept you going when you felt like the product was not working? (19:08) - If you were starting a new company and had to recruit cofounders, what is the most important ingredient you would look for in your cofounders? (24:37) - What is one thing you believe that most people would disagree with? (41:06) In This Episode, You Will Learn: - How John started SendBird (4:30) - About John’s background and how he became an entrepreneur (5:34) - Be resourceful, open-minded, and relentless (13:27) - The importance of expectation management (14:00) - John’s journey as the founder of SendBird and a few key takeaways (16:04) - Stay frugal and capital efficient (17:52) - As a founder you need to have positive tenacity (19:22) - The value of peer pressure and having an accountability group (21:30) - Advice for finding and working with cofounders (24:37) - John’s thoughts on diversity (46:42) Connect with John S. Kim: Twitter SendBird Also Mentioned on This Show... John’s favorite quotes: “Positive tenacity.” “Be better than the best.” “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” “Life is in the details.” “Become what you believe.” “This too shall pass.” “People love a guy who rises from the ashes.” John’s book recommendation: Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute
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