In The Room with Amy Chang
Welcome to Season 2 of The Room! Claudia and Madison kick off the new season with Amy Chang, Co-Founder of Accompany, an AI-driven relationship intelligence platform acquired by Cisco in 2018 for $270 million. Amy’s journey out of Stanford led her first to McKinsey then Ebay, leading product for paid search and affiliate channels. She then served as Google’s Global Head of Product, creating what would become Google Analytics and growing the platform to cover over 86% of the web. After seven years as a Googler, Amy co-founded Accompany, raising $40.5 million in venture funding. In the Season 2 debut, we hear from a first-time founder and long term product guru on the ups and downs of transitioning from big tech to founding a company. Listen to the episode to learn about the power of early career decisions, battling anxiety and uncertainty, and the right reasons to sell your company.
Key Theme 1: The Power of Early Decisions
Amy shares the critical decision of choosing Yahoo versus Google after deciding to leave eBay. This decision in her 20s completely changed the trajectory of her career. At Google, she met one of her closest friends, Matthias Ruhl, who would eventually become Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Accompany. Amy, her husband Ryan McDonough, and Matthias formed the founding team, and it is this unconditional trust, especially in moments of duress, that was key in building a successful business. While it’s a little scary to think about, your early career decisions do define the path forward. However, Amy reminds us that trusting your gut often leads to success.
tl;dr: Trust your gut, and be intentional with career decisions. Although luck always plays a hand.
Key Theme 2: Managing Anxiety
Amy shared openly that the behind the scenes moment of managing anxiety and her own psychology were the hardest part of being a founder. The turning point in her career was finally leaning into fear instead of letting it paralyze her psyche, using fear as an advantage instead of an energy drainer. Managing a start-up means that the team either consciously or subconsciously watches you as a certain condition report on the business. It’s a burden to keep your emotions in check at all times. What has worked for Amy is using that one set aside day to also address and sort through fears. Amy also uses a CEO coach; think therapy for work. Tactically she advised us, to keep a notebook by the bedside to write down and express fears if you wake up at 3 am in a panic.
tl;dr: Don’t let fear drive your life. But fear can be a growth lever if you let it!
Key Theme 3: When to Sell
Selling Accompany to Cisco was unexpected. At the time, Amy sat on the board of Cisco, advising on mergers and acquisitions when the company made Accompany the offer. Amy and her team debated extensively over the decision; after all, they were negotiating seven figure contracts with a great growth run-rate. At the end, maximizing the platform they were building drove the decision to sell. Selling to Cisco meant that Accompany’s features would be seen and used by over 200 million people within a year.
tl;dr: Selling your company is an art not a science, sometimes you sell to reach more customers and grow faster.
Thank you for tuning into another season of The Room. We have an exciting lineup of guests and can’t wait to share more about our personal journeys as well. With Valentine’s Day this coming weekend, don’t forget to order your flowers! And check back next Tuesday, February 16th for a timely episode with Ajay Kori, co-founder of Urban Stems, and current co-founder and CEO of Allay Lamp.
