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Turning Networks Into Growth Engines
An interview with Mac Reddin, CEO of Commsor. š¦

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My quest to become the internet strongestāor heaviest snatchingāstartup founder hit a massive snag this week. In one session I managed to jack my neck up, and screw my knee in the one session. Right in the middle of a week of leave that was supposed to have my fresh and firing back in at work on Monday. I have been able to focus on a few things throughout the week though which Iāve enjoyed.
Firstly, an incredible amount of dog walking has gone downāsee this hilarious image of Ziggy terrified that he wonāt his way out of a 15cm deep pond he was swimming ināalong with a new obsession I have found in Midjourney. ![]() | ![]() |
And when I say obsession, I mean obsession. This tutorial on Greg Isenbergās channel was really helpful in going, not from zero to one, but maybe from one to about five. The stuff you can pull off with Midjourney is absolutely incredible. And if you spend the time to learn tool properly you can now build and manage a full brand, congruency and all. Itās a wonderful, wonderful tool. Anyway, thatās all for now. Hope you enjoy the post!

LEADER OF THE WEEK šļø
Mac Reddin - Co-founder and CEO at Commsor
Mac Reddin is the co-founder and CEO of Commsor, the platform helping companies turn their networks into growth engines. Backed by $50 million from Atomico, Felicis, Slack Fund, and SevenSevenSix, Commsor empowers businesses to harness the power of community with a fully remote team of 50+ worldwide.
Before Commsor, Mac built and sold The Chunk, a Minecraft gaming network, proving early on that community-led growth isnāt just a buzzword. Heās also bootstrapped and scaled other startups, supporting those that put community first.

The man Mac.
Tell us about the problem you are trying to solve? Why this?
We're trying to solve the problem of sales outbound, but not in the traditional way. A lot of people are solving that right now with AI, data, and automationābetter ways to do cold outbound. We're focused on finding the warm paths. We wonāt find every possible way to get to a deal, but a lot of it is tied to warm intros, referrals, and leveraging existing networks.
When I talk to sales leaders, they all know warm intros and referrals are the best dealsāthey're more likely to take a meeting, close faster, spend more money, churn less. But very few revenue teams have an actual process or operationalized step to get more of them. Itās sort of like, āHey, if we get a referral or an intro, of course, weāll take it,ā but it just happens when it happens.
remember, if you don't look directly at the eclipse you'll miss the secret message
ā Commsor š¦ (@Commsor)
4:58 PM ā¢ Apr 8, 2024
I had a call recently where someone described it well: we're not pitching a new channel or asking companies to build a community or partnerships. Instead, weāre helping them find value in something they already haveātheir network of investors, advisors, and customers. This is probably the most underutilized channel at most companies.
What was the most difficult when going from zero to one?
I think I could spend an hour answering that one. For us, our journey has been very nonlinear. Every startup journey is nonlinear, but ours in particular. We started as a hackathon project with just me building it. Then we got swept into the VC craziness of 2021-2022, where if you had a pulse, money was being thrown at you. I blinked, and suddenly we were a Series A and then a Series B companyāwithout really trying or necessarily justifying those raises.
Then the world around us changed. We kind of got to zero to one there, but it turned out we had pandemic market fit, not product market fit. So, we spent nine months pivoting the business to where we are now. In some ways, I feel like Iāve done zero to one three times now in this company alone, in three different ways. Each time gets a little easier, a little clearer, but itās always challenging.

Context: Commsorās mascot is a dino.
For me, the hardest part of zero to one is trusting the process. Thereās no shortcutāitās all hard work, and you just have to plow through it to figure it out. Sometimes you get lucky, and the idea works, and you get to one. Other times, it doesnāt work out, and you never get there. But thatās just the nature of it. The hardest part is accepting that you might not get to one.
What was the original product you were building?
Originally, the hackathon product was this really janky, no-code community marketplace called Commsponsorāwhere the name Commsor comes from. It was a marketplace to connect independent communities with companies for partnerships, sponsorships, and similar opportunities. For example, we worked with Microsoft when they wanted to do a hiring campaign for engineers. We helped them connect with a bunch of different independent engineering communities to get in front of them.
Then we raised money to build a community analytics tool, which eventually morphed into a community-led growth platform. We were helping B2B companies measure the impact of their Slack groups, forums, events, social channelsāall the community-related stuff. | ![]() Source; TechCrunch. |
During the pandemic, the investment in online communities skyrocketed, and we rode that wave for a while. Now, weāve pivoted to our current focus. A lot of the building blocks of what makes community-led growth work overlap with what makes our āgo-to-networkā strategy work. The difference is that with the network approach, weāre looking at a companyās network more holistically, rather than just focusing on the parts traditionally defined as community. In some ways, ānetworkā and ācommunityā are interchangeable for what weāre doing now.
What is your main day to day job as CEO?
We're a tiny team, so it changes a lot day to day. My main job is to keep the lights on, steer the ship, and make sure we're going in the right direction. I'd say about 50% of my job is making those big decisionsāfiguring out what we should do, why we should do it, and processing all the information from customers and the market to distill it into a strategic narrative and direction.
The other 50% is being like special forcesāgetting dropped into whatever part of the business needs help on any given day or week. So, it varies a lot. Honestly, with a team of 14 people, the CEO title doesnāt mean much.
At our peak, before we pivoted, we had 68 people, and thatās when the CEO role started to feel more distinct. But when youāre under 50 people, the āfounderā part of the title carries more weight in describing what the day-to-day looks like than the āCEOā part.
Explain your philosophy around leadership? How do you think about it?
I think back to when we raised a bunch of money and suddenly became a Series B company. I found myselfāwithout realizing it until laterāstopping being myself as a leader and thinking, āOh shit, Iām a Series B CEO now. Iāve got to read the books and take advice from other people.ā Looking back, I think that made me a worse leader because I was trying to be the kind of leader that books and blogs say you should be, instead of figuring out what kind of leader I actually am and leaning into my natural strengths.
Nowadays, my leadership philosophy is pretty straightforward: hire smart people, point them in the right direction, and then get out of their way. That middle stepāpointing them in the right directionāis key. A lot of early-stage founders skip that part. They hire smart people, expect them to figure it all out, and then when it doesnāt work out six months later, theyāre like, āWhy did they fail?ā Itās because they didnāt help those people understand whether theyāre going north, south, east, or west. | ![]() Mac + engineering team. |
What is your North Star metric inside of your company and why?
I think thereās an obvious North Star for any businessābuilding a successful company thatās profitable and sticks around for the long haul. Thatās just the standard stuff every business has to do. For us, I think we actually have two North Stars: one is more general, and the other is a long-term goal that really guides how I think about building the business.
The first one isnāt measurable, but itās about having fun with it. A lot of people have given us feedback that they can see it in our marketing and our teamās online presenceāthey can tell weāre genuinely having fun with what weāre doing. And sure, you canāt put a number on āvibe,ā but you can feel it. It works. So for us, itās about always finding ways to inject fun into what weāre doing, internally and externally. If youāre not having fun, then whatās the point?
The second, more serious North Star for me, is building a $100 million ARR business with a team of 100 people or less. Whether we get there or not, who knowsāthere are so many factors involved. But the way it shows up in the day-to-day is through the mindset of efficiency. You see these stories about companies with 6,000 engineers, and you just think, 'Why?ā Weāre not trying to build just any company; weāre trying to build an efficient one. And now, more than ever, I think itās possible to do that.
How do you set goals?
Our goals are pretty much just at the team level. We sit down, we discuss, and we agree on goals. Like I said, weāre 13 or 14 peopleāwe donāt need a super robust goal system yet. A goal just kind of permeates throughout the org pretty easily.
For me, I think about it in a sort of goals, objectives, tactics way. Like, hereās the goalācool, we want to add X million ARR next year. Okay, what are the things that have to be true for that goal to be possible? And then, what are the actual tactical things we can do to make those things true? Itās not quite as structured as something like an OKR process. Honestly, I think overly structuring goals when youāre sub-50 people can be more detrimental than helpful.


How do you build culture?
This is always one of those loaded questions because culture is as much about what you donāt do as it is about what you doāand how you do it. Weāre a fully remote team, and Iāve worked remotely for 13 years, so Iāve never really worked in an office for more than a few months here and there. People often ask, āHow do you do that? Itās not possible.ā But honestly, if you hire good people who work hard and know the person next to them is working just as hard, and you inject some fun into it, the culture kind of comes naturally.
It shows, too. Whenever weāve done team offsites or get-togethers, people whoāve only worked together remotely for 8-9 months can meet in person and, within an hour, it feels like theyāve been best friends for 10 years.
Thereās an article I always reference when people ask me this question. Itās called āWhat I Miss About Working at Stripe.ā The general vibe of the piece is that at Stripe, people pushed each other to be betterāit wasnāt easy, but it was fulfilling. At other companies, even if they had good culture on paperālike offsites and perksāthe culture felt like it was just 'LGTMā (looks good to me). | ![]() The product team in Prague. |
So for us, itās about working hard, playing hard, and creating a culture where people are motivated and enjoy what they do. Itās less about formal policies and more about hiring the right people and creating an environment where they thrive.
Detail your recruitment strategy. How do you hire All-Star talent?
Our approach is to hire intentionally, not necessarily slowly. Itās not about dragging out the process, but rather taking our time to decide if we truly need the role. Once we know we need the hire, we move quickly to fill the gap. A lot of teams fall into the trap of hiring as a crutch to solve problems, instead of figuring out if the problem can be solved without adding another person.
Some of the best advice Iāve received about hiring boils down to two things. First, no matter how great your process is, you never truly know how a hire will work out until youāve worked with them for three months. Even the best recruiters get it wrong 25% of the time. Thatās why I lean into the 'hire fast, fire fastā mindset.
Second, if itās not a yes, itās a no. Early on, I made the mistake of thinking, āWe just need someone, so this person is good enough.ā Every time I made a hire based on that reasoning, it turned out to be the wrong decision.
Do you have any specific channels that you use, job boards, head hunting communities?
At the stage weāre at right now, we rely heavily on our network and referrals. For example, for our last job posting, we basically just shared it on LinkedIn. And not even as a formal job postāI just made a personal post. Even with that, we got about 400 applicants in 24 hours, and it wasnāt a simple āclick to applyā setup. People had to go to a separate Typeform page and fill it out, so it required more effort.
I havenāt posted a job on a traditional job board in years. We have worked with a recruiter once in the past for an engineering role, but thatās been the exception. For go-to-market roles, itās easier for us to leverage our network since thatās who we sell to and work with anyway. For more technical or specialized roles where weāre looking for deep, specific skills, weāll consider recruiters. Overall, weāve been able to rely on our network pretty effectively, which has streamlined our hiring process and helped us find great candidates.
š” Note: If you are looking for the ideal partner to help you to hire the best global talent, Athyna can help.
What is one thing you really enjoy in your role?
I think one thing I really enjoy is leaning into weird marketing ideas. Iām a big fan of what I call āpattern breakā marketing. Thereās this company called MSCHF, for example, that I love. They started by doing bizarre stunts, like putting an ATM in New York that displayed a leaderboard of who had the most money in their bank account after using it. Now they do all kinds of wild stuff, like making sneakers that get them sued by Crocs.
Hasbullah in the MSCHF Big Red Boots (2023)
ā Outlander Magazine (@StreetFashion01)
9:47 PM ā¢ Mar 19, 2023
Most companies would benefit from intentionally putting 20-25% of their marketing budget and time into things they know they wonāt be able to fully attribute. What āweirdā looks like depends on your audience and market, but the key is stepping away from boring, cookie-cutter campaigns. So many B2B companies think posting memes on LinkedIn counts as fun or interesting marketing, but it doesnāt. You can do better than that.
How do you get the best out of yourself personally and professionally?
Iāve been a founder since I was 17, so for most of the last 14 years, Iāve been this self-described workaholic, going 150% all the time. But over the past year, Iāve started trying to do betterānot necessarily putting myself before the business, but at least making myself equal to the business.
What works for me is taking small breaks throughout the dayālike a 30-minute walk at lunch, making proper food, going for a run, or just turning my brain off for a bit. Even taking half a day on the weekend can help me reset. Iāve also noticed that longer breaks sometimes have a negative impact on how I feel about work-life balance. Iām just wired to keep moving. Iām not a founder because I want to be a billionaire or have my name in TechCrunch.
Iām a founder because I love making stuff. Thatās been true my whole life; sometimes it turns into a business, and sometimes itās just a side project. Either way, Iāll keep making things until the day I die. If this business fails tomorrow, Iāll just start building the next thing. Itās who I am. | ![]() Mac on holiday. |
This time around, it turned into something that I think has the potential to be the next decade of work for me. But Commsor started as a 24-hour hackathon entry and just evolved from there. If the business fails tomorrow, Iāll just move on to the next thing. Thatās how I get the best out of myselfāby staying true to what drives me.

BRAIN FOOD š§
Just caught a cool episode from The Startup Podcast talking about what we should expect in the coming years after Trumpās win. Chris and Yaniv discuss how Silicon Valley influencers played a role in this elections outcome and what a second term might mean for regulations affecting everything from crypto to AI.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK š£
Friends - I have the best biomarkers in the world. I am the healthiest person on the planet.
I am fitter than most teenagers. My skin is smoother than that of women in their 20s who obsess over theirs. I have more stamina in bed than men in their 20s. I have better healthā¦ x.com/i/web/status/1ā¦
ā Bryan Johnson /dd (@bryan_johnson)
6:06 PM ā¢ Nov 22, 2024
In 1975, Pepsi and Coca-Cola went head-to-head in the greatest marketing battle in history.
Pepsi ran shocking blind taste tests, showing people preferred the taste of Pepsi to Coke.
But what Coca-Cola did in response nearly destroyed Coke forever.
Here's the full story:
ā Tim Carden (@timjcarden)
4:51 AM ā¢ Oct 26, 2024
Sam Altman emails Elon Musk
May 25, 2015
ā Internal Tech Emails (@TechEmails)
4:54 AM ā¢ Nov 15, 2024

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