About this episode

About six weeks ago one of our past guest experienced a life-changing event with regards to his startup. On September 13, 2021 it was confirmed that Mailchimp had been acquired by Intuit for $12 billion in cash and stock.

Because of the recent headlines that have hit the mainstream tech sites, regarding this acquisition, I thought it would be nice to counter the false “overnight success” narratives with an honest discussion about how Ben Chestnut, co-founder of Mailchimp, really helped to build Mailchimp to where it is today.

Until now, Ben’s story hasn’t received a ton of articles published about the savvy way in which Ben and his co-founder built this billion dollar enterprise without any venture capital. But now that they have been acquired for $12 billion…you are seeing them everywhere.

This is the REAL startup story!

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Ben’s early days and what led him to start MailChimp.


• Ben’s thoughts on bringing capital into the business.


• How he stayed the course despite competitor noise.


• Tactics Ben used to acquire his first 10,000 users.


• How to determine pricing and consumer tolerance in a SaaS product.


• Ben’s key steps to build a $12-billion startup.


• Ben’s advice to any entrepreneur who feels stuck.

Resources from this episode

Grindology Magazine: http://grindologymagazine.com/

Grindology on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/grindology

ExpressVPN: Get 3 Months Free → https://www.expressvpn.com/startupstory

Get Emails: https://app.getemails.com/referrals/newaccount?ref=R18HWW5

The Startup Story Inner Circle: https://www.thestartupstory.co/vip

The Startup Story on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thestartupstory

The Startup Story is now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jamesmckinney


The Startup Story on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestartupstory

Ben’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/benchestnut

My LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmckinney1/

Share the podcast

The Startup Story community has been so incredible sharing our podcast with others, and we thank you! We do have more stories to tell and more people to reach. There are three ways you can help.

First, the most powerful way you can support this podcast is by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.