Lessons From the First Time to Make the Second Time Easier, Patrick Barnes, CEO AMP

Built AMP to be a “HubSpot for ecommerce”, offering integrated tools for online merchants with 20,000+ paid customers and 9,000 free users

Key success factors as a second-time founder:

• Starting with deep customer development and obsession
• Being faster at recognizing and fixing mistakes
• Raising larger initial funding ($18.5M Series A) vs doing multiple smaller rounds
• Being very conscious about cap table and equity

Strategic approach:

• Focus on retention over maximizing revenue
• Acquired smaller companies with strong customer bases
• Built multiple integrated products customers can use together
• Distributed team model with 4-hour timezone overlap requirement

Leadership learnings:

• Need for clear single CEO despite co-founder structure
• Importance of delegating vs doing everything yourself
• Building strong culture while being distributed
• Moving fast but maintaining high standards

Operational insights:

• Customer development interviews remain critical
• Document everything with customer focus
• Unlimited book budget as company perk
• Sales and success teams concentrated in NA time zones
• Bootstrap initially with founder money before raising capital

Core business philosophy centered on:

• Building sustainable long-term business vs quick exit
• Product quality and customer satisfaction over ARR
• Selective hiring of high performers
• Clear separation of co-founder duties and responsibilities