Jager McConnell's path to becoming the CEO of Crunchbase, one of the most widely-used platforms for startup and company information, is one build of entrepreneurial spirit, serendipity, and a relentless drive to learn and grow. From building LEGO cities as a child to leading a company with 80 million users, McConnell's story is one of constant evolution and adaptation.
"When I was a kid, I always had this entrepreneurial bent on me," McConnell recalls. This early inclination towards business manifested in ways both typical and unique. "The prototypical lemonade shop was really a thing I did. I would sit down with graph paper and graph out office space. And I would call it ‘Jag’s industry.’ And I would add in the [startup office] slide and stuff."
But it was LEGO that really captured young McConnell's imagination. "I was very into LEGOs," he says. "I would try to build entire cities out of LEGOs." This passion for building and creating would later translate into his career in technology and business.
McConnell's path to tech leadership wasn't straightforward. In high school, he attended a "very snotty private school" where he felt like an outsider due to the wealth disparity between him and his classmates. This outsider status fueled his rebellious streak. "I made a master key to the whole school," he admits. "And it was a boarding school. So that was a big no-no."
This penchant for "breaking the rules, not letting locked doors hold me back, literally" would serve McConnell well in his future entrepreneurial endeavors. After graduation, he headed to Carnegie Mellon with the intent of studying computer science. However, he quickly realized that a career solely focused on coding wasn't for him.
Instead, McConnell started his first company during college, an agency that got its start helping Bayer Corporation build their first website. "They didn't have a website. This was 1998 or 97," he explains. "So you couldn't just go over to Squarespace – they had no web presence. I came in and said ‘let me help you.’ And they paid a ridiculous amount of money."
This early success gave McConnell a taste of entrepreneurship, but his next role, at a startup in Silicon Valley, proved to be a rollercoaster ride. "We went from 15 people when I joined to 250 people and back down to 15 people over seven rounds," he recalls. "So I just saw the crumbling of this company over that time."
Despite the challenges, this experience provided invaluable lessons and led McConnell to his next opportunity: Salesforce. He joined the company when it had just 450 employees, and stayed for 11 years, rising through the ranks to become Head of Product for Salesforce's core sales product.
"I joined when it was $80 million in revenue; I left when it was about $5 billion," McConnell says, reflecting on the tremendous growth he witnessed. "So many good stories and adventures. And I had the honor of working closely with Mark [Benioff]."
Throughout his time at Salesforce, McConnell never lost sight of his ultimate goal: becoming a CEO. "Even when I was doing all these jumps around within Salesforce – even before that – I was focused on how I get the skills I need to be a good CEO," he explains. "I was always in the back of my head, OK, you think Mark is great – how can you learn from what he's doing? What can you take away? What would you bring to a company if you were running your own?"
After 11 years at Salesforce, McConnell decided it was time to pursue his own venture. He was in the process of developing a platform to help companies find partnerships when he heard about the possibility of Crunchbase spinning out from AOL. "Crunchbase was on my list of companies that I wanted my own to be better than," he admits. "So the fact that I could maybe just take over Crunchbase and get all the brand and the traffic and all that good stuff, and maybe execute on this vision I was building was exciting to me."
Taking over as CEO of Crunchbase wasn't without its challenges. The company had to transition from being part of a large corporation to standing on its own, with just a year of runway. "You have a year to launch something, show traction, and raise money, or you're out of business," McConnell recalls. "So the pressure was on."
One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to monetize Crunchbase without alienating its loyal user base. "How do you not just totally ruin your brand in the process of turning on payments?" McConnell asks. The solution was to introduce premium features while keeping the core functionality free, a delicate balance that has paid off.
Under McConnell's leadership, Crunchbase has transformed from a primarily user-generated content platform to a sophisticated data company. "Now that's only about 5% of our data is user-generated," he explains. "So we've really changed just the mechanisms of getting data into Crunchbase. So it's really, really automated. It scales. It does a lot more than it used to."
This transformation hasn't been without its growing pains. "The perception is still that it is what it was in 2012. And it's actually really, really, really different," McConnell says. "We spent almost $30 million a year making our data better."
As CEO, McConnell has focused on building a strong company culture from the ground up. "I loved building a culture," he says. "As I walked in, I said, here are our values, which is a really weird thing to do. Most of the time, you go off site and come together around what the values will be. But I really saw that I needed to change whatever we were, into what we need to be."
One of McConnell's key priorities has been diversity. "How do you build an organization from the ground up with diversity as a priority?" he asks. "It's actually really challenging. You have a lot of conflicts and thoughts like ‘this will slow me down if I do this, but I want to do it.’ How do you balance that?"
Beyond building a diverse and inclusive culture, McConnell is passionate about using Crunchbase's platform to drive positive change in the tech industry. "Crunchbase is unique. We have about 80 million people using Crunchbase. How do I use that channel to sort of sway the industry in a certain direction?" he asks. One example is the Diversity Spotlight feature, which highlights founders from underrepresented groups.
Looking to the future, McConnell is excited about the potential of AI and predictive analytics to transform Crunchbase's offerings. "We're pivoting away from this. Crunchbase is currently the historical record of a company," he explains. "What's way more interesting is we take that data, and using A, we go and predict what's going to happen next at companies."
This shift towards predictive analytics opens up a world of possibilities. "I can probably tell you not only that a company is fundraising, but what stage of fundraising they're in," McConnell says. "If I see six people from Sequoia looking at this company on a Monday morning, guess what? They're talking about it in a partner meeting."
These capabilities could revolutionize how investors, companies, and entrepreneurs use Crunchbase. "That's all great stuff. So that's our future. And no one else can do this, I think, as well as we can," McConnell asserts. "That's our differentiation."
As Crunchbase continues to evolve under McConnell's leadership, he remains committed to the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven him since childhood. "I love the risk. I love the challenge. I love the growth," he says.
From LEGO cities to a tech platform used by millions, Jager McConnell's journey embodies the spirit of innovation and adaptability that defines successful entrepreneurs. As he leads Crunchbase into its next chapter, leveraging AI and predictive analytics, McConnell continues to build, learn, and push the boundaries of what's possible in the world of business information and technology.
