SurveyMonkey started as a side project in 1999 and grew organically without marketing before bringing in professional leadership under CEO Selina Tabaccowala Selena in 2009 to drive global expansion and product improvements.
The engineering team was built on a culture of "no assholes" and problem-solving over specific technical expertise, allowing the company to rapidly integrate acquisitions and evolve the product strategy towards insights over just survey creation.
As SurveyMonkey scaled, it struggled with retaining managers but emphasized building small, autonomous product teams, data-driven prioritization, and a mix of internal promotions and experienced outside hires to maintain the startup culture.
Meeting Notes:
Origins and Early Growth of SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey was founded in 1999 by Ryan Finley as a side project while working at a radio station
It started with a freemium business model before the term existed, allowing free usage with paid upgrades
Finley grew the company organically with no marketing spend, even standing in a gorilla suit to promote it
By late 2008, the company had millions of users and tens of millions in revenue but Finley realized he needed professional management to scale further
Selina Tabaccowala Involvement and Initial Priorities
Selina Tabaccowala joined SurveyMonkey in October 2009 as the company transitioned to professional leadership under CEO Dave Goldberg
Initial priorities were:
Globalize the platform by launching in multiple languages
Rebuild the billing system to support multiple currencies and payment methods
Improve user experience through A/B testing
Building the Engineering Team and Technology
Decided to rebuild the platform using Python to leverage the strong engineering community
Focused on hiring talented problem-solvers, not just Python experts
Emphasized a culture of "no assholes" and valued good problem-solving skills over specific expertise
Acquired competitor Zoomerang in 2012 and rapidly integrated their customer base within 9 months
Evolving the Product Strategy
Realized data insights were more strategic than just survey creation
Invested in features like comparative benchmarking and advanced analytics
Leveraged the user base to build a paid panel for market research
Scaling the Organization
Struggled with retaining managers as the company grew larger
Emphasized building small, self-contained product teams with end-to-end accountability
Continued hiring experienced leaders as well as promoting from within
Focused on maintaining the small company culture even at larger scales
Competitive Dynamics and Partnerships
Competed with large tech companies offering survey tools but differentiated through data insights
Explored partnerships to leverage existing platforms and distribution channels
Hiring Best Practices
Selina Tabaccowala instructed recruiters to hire "no assholes who can solve problems" rather than focusing solely on credentials
Valued raw talent and problem-solving over specific expertise like Python knowledge
Conducted behavioral interviews asking how candidates would handle situations, not just what they had done before
Found career fairs unhelpful for hiring but had success targeting campus events and existing employee referrals
Prioritizing and Addressing Technical Debt
Made decisions on areas to rebuild or improve based on quantitative data, user feedback, and customer surveys
Identified billing system, globalization, and data/analytics experience as high priorities to address technical debt
Delayed working on the survey creation experience as it was already solid
Emphasized data-driven prioritization of what to build or improve next
Managing Growth and Scaling Managers
Focused on hiring managers with a mix of startup and scale-up experience
Let managers decide processes like sprint lengths but ensured consistent roadmaps and metrics
Struggled with helping managers transition when their roles became more about unblocking and influencing teams than hands-on work
Had to be pragmatic about when to hire senior outside leaders rather than promote from within
Global Markets & Localized Strategies
Expanded by launching localized domains and building local link authority for SEO rankings
Created localized marketing content highlighting product use cases more relevant in specific markets
Did not significantly customize the core product experience across markets beyond basics like date formats
Origins of Virality and Optimizing for It
Built on existing backlinks from surveys shared online to boost link authority and SEO rankings
Analyzed differences in virality and user behavior across markets based on brand awareness
Selina Tabaccowala Emphasized understanding the drivers and leading indicators of virality through cohort analysis
Building a Paid User Panel
Built a paid user panel by leveraging the scale of existing free users taking surveys
Incentivized panelists with $0.50 charity donations per survey to ensure high-quality responses
Used the panel to conduct studies and research that could be published to build brand authority
Expanding into Polling and Elections
Expanded into the polling and elections space leveraging their large panel
Attracted media partnerships like with NBC by demonstrating accurate election predictions
Viewed polling as a brand-builder showcasing the scale and accuracy of SurveyMonkey's data
Building a Data and Insights Business
Viewed building data products and insights as more strategic than just offering survey creation tools
Offered premium benchmarking products using their aggregated survey response data
Invested in areas like text analysis to derive insights from open-ended feedback
Key Deployment Lessons
If Selina Tabaccowala could advise her past self, she would emphasize improving and automating deployment systems earlier
Deployment issues were a constant source of frustration as the engineering team scaled up