Building a 10 person unicorn - Max Brodeur-Urbas, Gumloop
Jul 15, 2025 · 12:03
Max Brodeur-Urbas, founder of Gumloop, explains how his company scaled to millions in ARR as a team of two that raised a Series A and grew to only nine people, by being super picky in hiring, using product-led hiring where customers like those from Instacart and Webflow join the team, and requiring work trials such as hacking together in Airbnbs. They eliminate almost all meetings to give engineers deep focus time and automate every internal process with Gumloop itself, from customer research reports to chatbot monitoring. Culture-wise, they balance intense 45-minute shipping challenges with fun retreats and a public company handbook. Brodeur-Urbas argues that every hire must be a no-brainer, and small teams can outpace larger ones by avoiding meetings and leveraging AI tools.
