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Building the Most Loved Analytics Tool ($1.05B, $100M ARR, 60+ NPS) | Mixpanel, Amir Movafaghi

EO18:26Added Aug 31, 2026

Meet Amir Movafaghi, CEO of Mixpanel, who shares the remarkable journey from crisis to success.---[EO's Partner Highlight]Try the #1 AI-powered personal prod...

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  1. 00:00at one point mixpanel we were turning almost  half of our customers every year and it was
  2. 00:05this place where as a company that's growing fast  you know in some ways that can that metric can be
  3. 00:11overlooked but in many ways it was a time where  we really came together and said look turning
  4. 00:18half the customers is a major major problem in  that we are clearly not driving and delivering
  5. 00:25the value as a company that we need to and even  though you know we we're still growing we have to
  6. 00:30go back and address churn but the reality was much  more complicated and nuanced it so happened that
  7. 00:36there wasn't one answer you it wasn't one thing  it was a set of a bunch of different things that
  8. 00:41we needed to do and so that's where our journey  began and we literally made a you know a series
  9. 00:46of categories of different priorities we had  a series of things that we were going to go
  10. 00:50out and and Tackle uh and everyone the company  from go to market to epd sort of had this core
  11. 00:58mission to go out and get this done and the  result was really incredible and by the time
  12. 01:04we did our series C we were at 50 and this past  spring we almost touched 60 which is really like
  13. 01:10now kind of consumer grade category and then  retention went from you know 50 to close to
  14. 01:1590% hello my name is uh Amir moaf fagi I'm the CEO  here at mixpanel we are an event-based analytics
  15. 01:24company currently have 9,000 customers globally  distributed company crossed the 100 million
  16. 01:30in Revenue a little less than a couple of years  ago we're super proud to have our uh one other
  17. 01:35metric that we disclos in our customer MPS  being almost a consumer grade approaching
  18. 01:40[Music]
  19. 01:4460 I was born in uh in tan in Iran I spent 7even  years in Istanbul Turkey so I spent a good number
  20. 01:54of years there we moved there when I was about  eight and then I came to United States when I
  21. 01:58was 15 when I was uh going through graduate school  it was a time when financial crisis had hit in New
  22. 02:06York it was right at the the beginning of where  social platforms were coming online and Uprising
  23. 02:13uh in Iran I couldn't get a hold of my parents  because all the phone lines were were shut down
  24. 02:18and you know email was not working and at the  time Twitter was the only uh uh platform that
  25. 02:24was uh really reporting what was happening on  the ground in ton and it was this sort of like
  26. 02:30incredible moment of realizing just how powerful  the social platforms were becoming at that point
  27. 02:35it was such a personal attachment to the product  that was my lead in to Tech so I joined Twitter
  28. 02:41in 2010 when I joined a company we were about  a little over 100 employees we were pre-ad
  29. 02:48Revenue it was a extraordinarily exciting time  even Twitter at its height of success every 6
  30. 02:55months was like a completely different company  you had this company that you would wake up you
  31. 02:59all of a sudden had an ad product that failed  you kind of had a moment of having to really
  32. 03:03kind of have these moments of existential crisis  right hey are we going to have you are we going
  33. 03:08to have a company you know in 6 months is there  going to be are we going to be able to make it
  34. 03:11to the other side in a lot of ways the way that  we go through and fix things together as a team
  35. 03:17is this ability to really come together on a core  problem and we understand why we are focusing on
  36. 03:23what we're focusing we have Clarity around what  objective and what outcome we're trying to get
  37. 03:28to and then we're flexible about the how right  and we're able to take feedback along the way
  38. 03:33from our customers from our peers from our board  you know from everybody investors like we are able
  39. 03:38to learn and understand and then iterate and then  hold ourselves accountable to these outcomes so I
  40. 03:44think fixing problems at its core comes down  to First really centering oursel on why this
  41. 03:50matters why it takes precedent priority over the  99 other problems you have and then rallying and
  42. 03:56inspiring people to really get in have Clarity on  how they can make an impact and difference on that
  43. 04:01Journey when I left Twitter we had grown from  nearly 100 employees to 4,500 employees it was
  44. 04:10from close to zero to you 2 billion in Revenue it  was um phenomenal incredible growth that happened
  45. 04:17during that time biggest lesson was the impact  that user experience had on the success of the
  46. 04:25company and this Obsession around delivering  a better product a better user experience and
  47. 04:31sort of like a in a way having that as a leading  path into better monetization and better growth
  48. 04:38companies in Enterprise software have invested  quite a bit on technology you know better utility
  49. 04:45building a better technology as like a first order  of business being part of Twitter it was getting a
  50. 04:52lot more closer to just how much the significance  of making sure that you're always thinking of the
  51. 04:58user the customer first before you go figure  out everything else because without the value
  52. 05:04without that Ultimate Experience that you're  delivering that's creating value everything
  53. 05:08else can feel much more femoral and much weaker  Foundation I think you know in many ways when
  54. 05:16you're part of a in in a great company that's  has a number of different opportunities to make
  55. 05:21an impact and connect and grow with in many ways  you want to make sure that your skill set is You
  56. 05:28Know Rich enough and mature enough to be able  to deliver a bunch of impact but hopefully if
  57. 05:33you're in the right position you're also gaining  a bunch of new knowledge and new tools I think
  58. 05:37in many ways the the growth comes from just  having that sheer intellectual curiosity and
  59. 05:43a desire to make sure that you're influencing  and impacting things that matter and so biggest
  60. 05:49one is this constant ability to ask am I doing  the thing that is the highest impact uh work
  61. 05:54that I could be doing am I focusing on things that  actually will drive and make a difference and then
  62. 05:59usually if you're in the right role and you  have the right foundational skill set then
  63. 06:05the rest of it will take care of itself you'll  figure out resources and who to tap into it's
  64. 06:09one of the best parts of being in Silicon Valley  is you pick up the phone and you can call so many
  65. 06:15people around us that have either experienced  that exact same situation that you're in one
  66. 06:20of the things that I always mention people talk  about like hey what's so special about Silicon
  67. 06:25Valley why you know would I move my company there  why would we you know start a company you know in
  68. 06:30Silicon Valley instead of somewhere else the and  the answer I give is when I started at Twitter we
  69. 06:35were going through a bunch of newish problems that  we were experiencing and at that time I remember
  70. 06:42just through networking finding out experts  that were you know at Facebook or at LinkedIn
  71. 06:48or at Google and you would reach out in every  single time almost 100% of the time there were
  72. 06:53willing to jump on a call and they were willing to  collaborate and they were willing to give advice
  73. 06:57and I think that was such a a phenomenal sort  of validation of just how important it is to be
  74. 07:04in an environment where people are experiencing  that same set of growth ambition and experiences
  75. 07:11that they can impart and and give to you as  you're solving your your problems in your
  76. 07:16company do you use Ken Lee to book calls Tod  do is to manage tasks trell to keep track of
  77. 07:24projects what if I told you that you could do all  these with one tool but then it also integrates
  78. 07:30with all of the tools that I just mentioned hi  everyone I'm Hannah from the EO team and I'm here
  79. 07:34to introduce the gamechanging productivity tool  akif flow it's basically a smart combination of
  80. 07:40all the essential productivity features I need  on the daily first is the beautiful marriage of
  81. 07:46task management and time blocking akif flow has  this interface where you can create a to-do list
  82. 07:51just as you would in any task management tools  but you can also drag these certain tasks right
  83. 07:57into your calendar to the exact time of day  I find this particular visualization of two
  84. 08:02dos and schedules side by side very helpful  in prioritizing my work carving out chunks
  85. 08:08of focus time needed for video editing  blocking time here syncs with all of my
  86. 08:13other connected apps such as slack Ken Le and  more secondly it's the magical command bar the
  87. 08:19go-to shortcut for all features within aif flow  instead of navigating the app manually I simply
  88. 08:24click on the command bar to command what I  wish to perform for example let's just say
  89. 08:29that we confirmed an interview filming and I  want to put that in my calendar I could just
  90. 08:34set that up manually on the Google Calendar  or I could simply go ahead and type akif flow
  91. 08:39founder interview filming on October 28th  from 12:00 p.m. to 3: p.m. and there's my
  92. 08:45schedule we've been using it to keep track of  our hectic filming and traveling schedules every
  93. 08:49day okay at one point mpanel we were turning  almost half of our customers every year and it was
  94. 09:00this place where as a company that's growing fast  you know in some ways that can that metric can be
  95. 09:06overlooked you're like Hey we're still we're still  growing things are still great and you know you
  96. 09:10would show up and and look at these numbers and  you wouldn't even blink you're like yeah we just
  97. 09:15had like half of our customers like walk out the  door but it's not a big deal cuz we're getting
  98. 09:19so much more and we're still growing but in many  ways it was a time where we really came together
  99. 09:26and said look turning half the customers is a  major your major problem in that we are clearly
  100. 09:31not driving and delivering the value as a company  that we need to and even though you know we we're
  101. 09:37still growing we have to go back and address churn  as a way of making sure we have sustainable growth
  102. 09:42over time and that product needs to kind of get  to this level of maturity over time and you know
  103. 09:47the problem is actually this one was quite  difficult cuz we were initially just trying
  104. 09:51to find like easy answers you know maybe this is  a segment problem like SMB has higher turn maybe
  105. 09:56we just need to go to Enterprise and that'll be  the fix all of our problems but the reality was
  106. 10:01much more complicated and nuanced and what it  required was a very very diligent way of again
  107. 10:09segmenting and understanding the behavior from a  different customers in different segments and then
  108. 10:13being able to really narrow in on the reasons it  it so happened that there wasn't one answer you
  109. 10:20know it wasn't one thing it was a set of a bunch  of different things that we needed to do and the
  110. 10:25list was quite overwhelming the way that we came  at it was instead of putting some crazy insane
  111. 10:31kind of goal for where we wanted to be in a in in  a year time we acknowledge that retention was a
  112. 10:37lagging indicator that it would take time for us  to really move it and so instead we said what is
  113. 10:42the single kind of proxy leading indicator we can  grab that would Inspire the team get them excited
  114. 10:48about making the right set of improvements um  in moving retention in the right direction and
  115. 10:53then we shifted our Focus to NPS user NPS we said  look if we are able to improve Pro user sentiment
  116. 11:00that's a much faster in product signal we're going  to get from our users that starts going up then we
  117. 11:06know we can kind of move the dial on on retention  over time and so that's where our journey began
  118. 11:11and we literally made a you know a series of  categories of different priorities we had a
  119. 11:16series of things that we were going to go out and  and Tackle uh and everyone the company from go to
  120. 11:21market to epd sort of had this core mission to go  out and get this done and the result was really
  121. 11:29incredible we were in single digits uh MPS  at the time and we were able to move that 10
  122. 11:36points every single year and by the time we did  our series C we were at 50 and this past spring
  123. 11:42we almost touched 60 which is really like now kind  of consumer grade category and then retention went
  124. 11:49from you know 50 to close to 90% as a result  which I think again speaks to this ability to
  125. 11:56establish real feedback loops that allow you to  understand whether you're the things you're doing
  126. 12:02are moving the needle and then having this kind  of combination of leading lagging indicators so
  127. 12:07that you have things to inspire get inspired along  the way in your journey of execution rather than
  128. 12:13having to wait you know a year to find out if  something was working companies go through very
  129. 12:20very different stages and challenges as they're  going from no Revenue to the initial uh signals
  130. 12:28that there's demand and there's a need for their  product to get 10 million Milestone they get the
  131. 12:3350 million Milestone and there's huge drop offs  from each of these stages learning an experience
  132. 12:39that at least we've taken here at mix spanel is  the ability to really have a very rich signal
  133. 12:47coming in from the pool of customers that you  don't have right because so much of your signal
  134. 12:52and constant uh feedback loop is around the core  Market that you're addressing and your core set
  135. 13:00of customers that are paying you today a lot of  your signals are coming from existing customers
  136. 13:05and so along the way as company's maturing you  want to make sure you always have in the initial
  137. 13:11phase you you you just you want to get as small  as possible solve the problem for the smallest
  138. 13:17audience that is uh able to get value and pay you  for for your product um but as you're scaling and
  139. 13:23getting to 50 100 million plus then you're really  trying to also make sure you have a lens toward
  140. 13:29the set of the part of the market that you don't  own that you don't have and make sure that you
  141. 13:34understand what opportunities you have to grow  and continue to expand your offering and and
  142. 13:39creating more value for a bigger part of the  market I think Beyond product and and signal
  143. 13:43from customers the other dimension that's  really critical as you're scaling is way
  144. 13:49that teams operate internally how and the the  way that your executive team and you as a CEO
  145. 13:56need to operate is going to change completely  right as a 10 person startup you're in a very
  146. 14:01different capacity everybody's everybody's doing  everything and then you're you're need to then
  147. 14:07go create leverage really create autonomy and  ownership modularity within the organization
  148. 14:13is going to be key uh in driving kind of  growth and success you need past a certain
  149. 14:17scale I think product L growth is is really  important and I think sometimes we oversimplify
  150. 14:27what it means even expel we've we've had quite  a bit of a journey in terms of understanding the
  151. 14:32nuances of you know what it entails what works  within product L growth and what you need to
  152. 14:37augment and layer on the the fact of the matter is  what's really awesome about product L growth and
  153. 14:43what's so good about so many of the startups and  different you know growth companies really leaning
  154. 14:47into to this at its heart the principle is we have  we need to have a really amazing product that's
  155. 14:53self- servable that can people can get value  out of right away that sort of speaks for itself
  156. 14:59uh you barely need to sell you know that's kind  of like the the the end all sort of uh goal of
  157. 15:06product lead and that's awesome but there is so  much more to being able to leveraging product L
  158. 15:13growth and actually creating sustainable  growth over time and a big part of that
  159. 15:18is this element of you know Market education  everyone is going to come in to your product
  160. 15:23with a very different set of maturity right  they may be at a different part of the company
  161. 15:29understanding of the problem that you're trying  to solve as a company being very intellectually
  162. 15:34honest about truly segmenting and understanding  where you have an opportunity to actually go
  163. 15:40drive product Le growth where you can deliver  a self- serve for the most part a self- serve
  164. 15:46experience that's really key acknowledging that  there's this space and there's absolutely an
  165. 15:52opportunity to be very sales l and a way that  you drive augmenting that product Le growth
  166. 15:58knowing that you can always rely and fall back  on the fact that you have an incredible product
  167. 16:02that once you get to a right level of Market  education when you get to the right level of
  168. 16:07getting a customer to the same spot then your  product will take care of the rest it's just
  169. 16:12this kind of core appreciation that initially  product L growth is really awesome because of
  170. 16:18its unit economics it's like the fastest the most  affordable the best way you can possibly grow but
  171. 16:23it's kind of core at its core uh it requires  a really deep segmentation Focus for it to to
  172. 16:29work first one is about being open and  being open to feedback you know we as
  173. 16:38people get attached emotionally to our  decisions about how to go from point A
  174. 16:42to point B and just knowing that uh having  qualitative quantitative feedback will let
  175. 16:46your course correct and make sure you get to  the destination on time um and then the second
  176. 16:51one is about being able to lead change and Lead  change has the element that Nick spanel every
  177. 16:59months is going to be a fundamentally different  company and we want not only individuals to you
  178. 17:04know be okay with change or support it but we  want them to lead it we want them to know that
  179. 17:08we're going to need to explore and find ways to go  out and create ways that we can create more value
  180. 17:13in the marketplace third is uh a customer focus  which at the end of the day we're only successful
  181. 17:19if our customers are getting value and so any  decision we make around what product we prioritize
  182. 17:24How We Do pricing and packaging right how we  evolve our support organization is around this
  183. 17:29kind of long-term value that we're creating for  our customers the fourth one is results oriented
  184. 17:33which acknowledges that you know the single  best way for us to keep ourselves accountable on
  185. 17:38whether we're moving toward fulfilling our mission  as a company to help the world learn from its data
  186. 17:43is uh people's willingness to pay us money to  to solve that problem and so Topline a growth
  187. 17:49are we uh driving that in a sustainable fashion  through the right margin profile and then finally
  188. 17:55is the one team which really emphasizes the import  importance of establishing meaningful connections
  189. 18:01among employees to move beyond the transactional  zoom interactions into a place where they know
  190. 18:06each other they can trust one another so when  they do get into a position of conflict there's
  191. 18:10a foundational trust and safety that allows them  to work through those things productively [Music]