By: Missive

The startup world has a well-worn script: raise capital, hire fast, build a sales team, and push growth at all costs. It’s a playbook that rewards speed, vanity, and noise. Rather than selling an idea or scrambling to find a market for a half-baked product, another kind of company is emerging—the type that nails product-market fit first, then scales with intention.” Missive, a collaborative inbox platform based in Quebec City, is one such company —one that trades outbound emails for support tickets, growth hacks for roadmap feedback, and rapid scaling for deliberate, measured progress.

Without venture funding or a pushy sales strategy, it has grown significantly in recurring revenue by focusing on building a product that delivers real value. Co-founders Philippe-Antoine Lehoux, Etienne Lemay, and Rafael Masson didn’t follow the typical path; they solved a problem they cared about, paying close attention to the people using their product.

Photo Courtesy: Missive

Their dogfooding, customer-focused approach points to something bigger: a shift in how software businesses think about growth, not as a race to the top, but as a process of alignment, observation, and trust. Rethinking the Sales-First Mindset

For many years, growth in SaaS has been synonymous with aggressive sales tactics: outbound prospecting, lead scoring, demo scheduling, and pipeline forecasting. The logic was simple: more conversations led to more conversions. But that model is under pressure. Modern B2B buyers are more independent and better informed than ever before. Research from Gartner indicates that buyers spend a mere fraction of their decision-making journey—just 17%—speaking with potential vendors. Their time is spent researching, comparing, and evaluating independently (Science Direct/Gartner, 2024).

This evolving behavior leaves less room for traditional sales and more room for the product to speak for itself. When buyers expect to try, test, and validate before they engage, companies that focus on straightforward onboarding, accessible support, and intuitive design gain a natural advantage. In this environment, listening becomes more than customer service; it becomes strategy.

By focusing on product-led growth, fostering a strong community, and prioritizing customer retention over aggressive acquisition, Missive isn’t just a fantastic product—it’s a thoughtful mindset. Every move is intentional, helping customers get value from every buck they spend.

Customer Feedback as a Competitive Advantage

Listening-led companies treat customer support not as a cost center but as a continuous feedback loop. Instead of insulating product teams from user complaints, they bring them closer. At Missive, CEO Philippe-Antoine Lehoux personally handled customer support for years, long after the business was generating meaningful revenue. It wasn’t an act of austerity but an intentional decision to stay close to the product and its users. When a founder fields the same issue week after week, roadmap decisions become more obvious.

This approach is particularly important for companies like Missive that operate in competitive markets alongside established players like Outlook and Gmail and other venture-backed startups such as Front and Help Scout. In an industry where larger companies are sometimes slower or more bureaucratic, Missive’s close connection with its users has become a valuable advantage. Rather than focusing on enterprise metrics, Missive has prioritized understanding the needs of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and has built its product based on those insights.

This proximity to user experience allows companies to act quickly on high-signal feedback. Support becomes a diagnostic tool, highlighting user expectations and product delivery gaps. Unlike usage analytics, which often captures what users do, direct feedback reveals what they meant to do—and where they got stuck. Over time, this information becomes a north star for product development and customer success.

Letting Behavior Lead the Roadmap

A defining feature of companies that listen well is their ability to observe, not just respond. When users begin adapting the product in unintended but valuable ways, these companies don’t correct them—they take note. At Missive, users began managing their workflow inside the inbox long before the platform supported tasks as a native feature. Instead of only steering them toward third-party tools, the team integrated task management directly and with Asana, Todoist, and other popular task management tools, supporting how users were already working rather than forcing a specific way.

This approach to development helps avoid feature bloat. Instead of making assumptions about what users might want or comparing against competitors, teams focused on listening to users validate ideas based on usage patterns. They prioritize building features that have already shown value, even in informal or improvised ways. As a result, the product remains flexible, evolving naturally and aligning with user needs rather than internal assumptions.

Sustainable Growth, Intentionally

Startups are often coached to scale quickly: raise capital, expand headcount, and capture market share before competitors can. But in practice, speed without alignment is risky and comes at a high price. Many companies outgrow their infrastructure or shift focus away from the users who gave them their start. Listening-led companies tend to grow slower but more sustainably. They wait to hire until the need is felt and build features only when they can be supported long-term.

This was especially true in Missive’s early years. The team remained three people long, prioritizing stability and trust over expansion. The result was a profoundly product-focused culture, where the needs of users—not sales goals—guided decision-making. While they may have been slower in reaching certain milestones, their growth was consistent, their retention was strong, and their customers were notably loyal.

Word-of-Mouth as a Strategic Outcome

When a company listens well, users notice. Word-of-mouth, often seen as a bonus, becomes a core part of the growth engine. Buyers who feel heard are more likely to recommend, stay, and advocate. This form of organic growth becomes critical for companies without the resources to invest heavily in sales or advertising.

It’s not just about being responsive. It’s about being trustworthy. Companies that communicate clearly and follow through on user feedback stand out in an industry known for bait-and-switch pricing, opaque contracts, and overstated features. Listening is not a flashy strategy but builds customer relationships that outlast campaigns or quarterly targets.

Packed with Feedback. Not just Features.

Prioritizing feedback, building around real behavior, and communicating aren’t just product-ideal practices—they’re how trust and traction are built. Missive didn’t scale by shouting louder; it grew by paying closer attention. 

Support isn’t a cost center for them—it’s a deep source of inspiration. Internally, Missive uses its product for everything, including support, which keeps them close to the real problems and real people they’re solving for

If your inbox still feels stuck in the era of individual productivity, try one built for actual collaboration. Missive shows what happens when email evolves—and starts listening, too.

Published by Joseph T.