Jason VandeBoom Opens Up About ActiveCampaign’s Inspiring Journey

Jason VandeBoom, Founder and CEO, ActiveCampaign

To say that 2021 has been a banner year for Chicago’s ActiveCampaign and its founder and CEO, Jason VandeBoom, would be a pretty monumental understatement. In just the past year, the company closed on a $240 million round of funding, joined the global list of unicorns, and was named to the Forbes Cloud 100 List. Jason was also named EY Entrepreneur of the Year for 2021.

The company, already a leader in customer experience automation, has parlayed that success into even greater innovation for their 150,000 customers worldwide. This year they’ve launched new tools designed to provide their clients with even more data, information that allows them to develop workflows that respond to their customers’ needs and create automations that improve customer experience. They’ve added new app integrations to their already impressive range. And they’ve committed to expanded accessibility for their clients and greater responsiveness to customer feedback. 

ActiveCampaign’s successes demonstrate how purpose intersects with performance to drive results for companies, something I discuss in my forthcoming book, Purpose First Entrepreneur. For Jason, the purpose of his business was clear from the start—to help companies, especially small businesses, succeed by giving them the tools to deliver personalized customer experiences to their clients as their businesses grow and expand.

The data is clear on this. Providing top-rate customer experiences is no longer optional for successful businesses. In 2021, two-thirds of businesses use customer experience to gain a competitive advantage (compared to only 36% in 2010), and businesses that focus on improved customer experience see their revenue grow 1.8 times faster than competitors who ignore this factor.

ActiveCampaign’s underlying purpose—helping small businesses succeed—intersects with the company’s overall performance—constantly innovating their tools to provide greater value for their customers, creating a company culture focused on supporting their clients, and delivering the kind of one-to-one customer experiences they’re actively helping their clients build. And that’s allowed ActiveCampaign to develop a meta recipe for growth and success.

Recently I talked with Jason about how ActiveCampaign marries purpose with performance to hugely successful ends. 

When you decided to build a business, how did you find purpose?

I grew up watching my parents create small businesses, seeing the passion involved and seeing the degree of trust and reliability you need to earn loyal customers and growth. I learned that small businesses stay closer to the customers. They live and breathe by finding new ways to provide value for them—and this can lead them to where larger businesses don’t go.

Smaller businesses are the backbone of the economy, not just because they produce most of the GDP, but because they produce that GDP in ways that businesses obsessed with scale don’t think to. If you’ve ever lived in a small community, you’ll know that it’s smaller businesses that first find a profitable way to serve you. Bigger chains only tend to come in later. 

I’ve always had respect for how smaller businesses are run, which is why I was determined to build my own business, ActiveCampaign, along the same principles.

How did you scale your purpose? 

My team has applied those customer experience principles as we’ve grown, which has kept us close and always accessible to SMBs. And it’s also shown me that you don’t have to lose that connection to your customer in order to grow, which is something so many fast-growing companies are guilty of today.

It’s easy to provide 1:1 experiences when you have just a few customers, but as you grow, scaling those bespoke experiences that first made you successful is really challenging. You either need to hire a lot of people, which is cost prohibitive and time-consuming, or find a way to automate those experiences, which requires a lot of technical skills. 

ActiveCampaign fills that gap by offering accessible automations that help businesses deliver authentic customer experiences across touchpoints, growing loyalty and advocacy.

Can you articulate your purpose-led mission for the readers and share the secret of your success?

Our mission is to help growing businesses make meaningful connections with their customers. This is something my entire team knows and supports. Everyone has a favorite business; they have an emotional connection with that brand, and they want to see that brand succeed. 

I think we’ve been successful because we keep focused on that purpose—helping businesses grow through great customer experiences. 

How do you ensure that your employees understand the company’s purpose?

We keep our customers’ stories at the forefront of everything we do as a company. For example, during our company all-hands meetings, our Chief Customer Officer interviews a few customers, so our team can hear how we’re making a difference to their company.

It’s not just how they use our technology, but also how their businesses started, what other challenges they’re facing, and how our team has supported them. What really resonates with the team and, really, me, is hearing the challenges that inspired these innovative solutions from these entrepreneurs.

The ActiveCampaign story, our mission, and our values are discussed during day one of onboarding for new employees. It’s something you talk about in your book, making sure you orient every member of your team to your purpose from the start because it helps them understand the importance of their role and helps them align their performance with the company’s bigger goals. We share the company purpose early and often.

Why do you think this purpose works? What makes it resonate with your team?

It’s something that all of our employees can get behind. Everyone has a favorite business, a brand that they have a strong connection with. And those favorite businesses aren’t the giant enterprises that aren’t growing, or the ones that are failing. They’re the brands that create authentic connections and 1:1 experiences, which just so happen to often be small businesses.

Small businesses make up 95% of all businesses, and yet they’re a very underserved market by the technology sector. Our team sees this opportunity that pairs well with the purpose of our company, and it motivates our team. 

In fact, I’ll sometimes see employees post in Slack to support a local business they love through some initiative or event, or that this favorite business is closing. Those out-of-business posts are heartbreaking to see, but it also serves as a reminder that our purpose resonates with employees. They care about the success of small businesses.

Jason’s long-standing focus on purpose-driven service to clients has successfully shaped ActiveCampaign’s mission, their business plan, and their bottom line. It’s helped the business grow from a Chicago start-up in 2003 to a powerhouse with global reach—1000 employees across four continents supporting 150,000 clients in 170 countries.

ActiveCampaign’s journey is inspiring, but it doesn’t need to remain in the category of aspirational.  In fact, I think they are a model for the way forward, where the conscious pursuit of purpose and an eye towards performance generates not only huge revenue, but long-term success.

This story originally appeared in Forbes.