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#367 – How Chris Brisson killed his first company to build a messaging platform that scales
A story about creating something remarkable by choosing to start over - on purpose.
This podcast is for SaaS founders who feel stuck chasing feature parity—and anyone wondering if there's a smarter way to build something customers can't live without.
Most SaaS founders won't kill a profitable company. They'll optimize it to death instead.
Chris Brisson, CEO of SalesMsg, took a different path. He killed his first company while it was still making money. Then spent two years building what messaging should actually do—create conversations, not broadcasts.
This inspired me to invite Chris to my podcast. We explore why choosing destruction over optimization creates breakthrough opportunities. Chris reveals his thinking about engineering backwards from outcomes, disrupting yourself before others do, and building what customers consider indispensable. You'll discover why he chose the harder path of starting over—and what happens when you stop chasing features and start solving friction.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
- They acknowledge they can't please everyone
- They master the art of curiosity
Here's one of Chris's quotes that captures his contrarian philosophy:
"We always take that approach, like, how are we going to disrupt ourselves before someone else does? All right, what are we going to do? How do we disrupt ourselves. Just leaning into, ‘Hey, you know what? We got to kill that product.’ The reality is that it actually doesn't solve the problem. What really solves the problem is this.”
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
- Why killing profitable products unlocks bigger opportunities
- What happens when you engineer backwards from outcomes
- Why saying yes to custom features can actually scale your platform
- Why friction removal beats feature addition every time
Chris's story proves traction starts by doing what most others avoid—choosing to disrupt yourself before someone else does.
Guest Info
Chris Brisson, CEO and Co-Founder at SalesMsg
Website: salesmessage.com
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By Ton Dobbe
5
1616 ratings
A story about creating something remarkable by choosing to start over - on purpose.
This podcast is for SaaS founders who feel stuck chasing feature parity—and anyone wondering if there's a smarter way to build something customers can't live without.
Most SaaS founders won't kill a profitable company. They'll optimize it to death instead.
Chris Brisson, CEO of SalesMsg, took a different path. He killed his first company while it was still making money. Then spent two years building what messaging should actually do—create conversations, not broadcasts.
This inspired me to invite Chris to my podcast. We explore why choosing destruction over optimization creates breakthrough opportunities. Chris reveals his thinking about engineering backwards from outcomes, disrupting yourself before others do, and building what customers consider indispensable. You'll discover why he chose the harder path of starting over—and what happens when you stop chasing features and start solving friction.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
- They acknowledge they can't please everyone
- They master the art of curiosity
Here's one of Chris's quotes that captures his contrarian philosophy:
"We always take that approach, like, how are we going to disrupt ourselves before someone else does? All right, what are we going to do? How do we disrupt ourselves. Just leaning into, ‘Hey, you know what? We got to kill that product.’ The reality is that it actually doesn't solve the problem. What really solves the problem is this.”
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
- Why killing profitable products unlocks bigger opportunities
- What happens when you engineer backwards from outcomes
- Why saying yes to custom features can actually scale your platform
- Why friction removal beats feature addition every time
Chris's story proves traction starts by doing what most others avoid—choosing to disrupt yourself before someone else does.
Guest Info
Chris Brisson, CEO and Co-Founder at SalesMsg
Website: salesmessage.com