# John Gleeson

> John Gleeson is the Founder and General Partner of Success Venture Partners, a $10M seed-stage venture firm in San Francisco laser-focused on the post-sales customer success space. A Canadian-born operator who scaled customer success from $1M to $300M+ ARR at KeepTruckin (now Motive), John built the world's largest Customer Success Meetup communities in San Francisco and New York before turning his practitioner network into a differentiated LP base of over 87 Chief Customer Officers from companies like Slack, GitHub, Braze, and Notion. He bets on founders who are obsessively close to their customers, treating customer success not as a support function but as the primary engine of enterprise value.

- **Role:** Founder & General Partner at Success Venture Partners
- **Organizations:** Success Venture Partners, KeepTruckin (Motive), Affinio, Index Ventures (Scout)
- **From:** Canada
- **Nationality:** Canadian
- **Education:** Corporate Residency MBA, Dalhousie University, B.A. Honours in Mass Communications (minors in Business and History), Carleton University
- **Known for:** Scaled KeepTruckin's customer success operations from $1M to $300M+ in ARR with a 150-person team, Built the world's largest Customer Success Meetup communities in San Francisco and New York, Founded Success Venture Partners with $10M fund backed by 87+ Chief Customer Officers as LPs

## Career timeline

- **2013** — Completed Corporate Residency MBA at Dalhousie University; corporate residency at EastLink in Halifax
- **2014-2017** — VP of Customer Success at Affinio - joined as employee #1, scaled CS team to 40+ people across New York, Toronto, Halifax, and Ireland following Series A
- **2017-2023** — VP of Customer Success at KeepTruckin (now Motive) - scaled ARR from $1M to $300M+, managed 150-person customer success team
- **2020-2023** — Scout investor at Index Ventures while at KeepTruckin, making early-stage strategic investments
- **2020** — Co-founded San Francisco and New York Customer Success Meetup communities, growing them into the world's largest CS professional networks
- **2023** — Founded Success Venture Partners, a $10M seed and pre-seed VC fund focused on customer success-native SaaS companies
- **2026** — Spoke at CIX Summit in Toronto on customer success strategy for fundraising; continues building SVP portfolio to 11+ companies

## Achievements

- Scaled KeepTruckin's customer success operations from $1M to $300M+ in ARR with a 150-person team
- Built the world's largest Customer Success Meetup communities in San Francisco and New York
- Founded Success Venture Partners with $10M fund backed by 87+ Chief Customer Officers as LPs
- Assembled LP base including CCOs from Slack, GitHub, Braze, MuleSoft, Notion, Toast, and Aurora Solar
- Invested in 11+ portfolio companies backed by tier-one VCs including a16z, Sequoia, Founders Fund, and Khosla
- Early employee and first CS hire at Affinio, scaling team to 40+ people across 4 offices
- Scout investor at Index Ventures
- Published contributor to Planhat's editorial platform on customer success leadership
- Speaker at SaaStr, SaaS North, CIX Summit, and Startupfest

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Spoke at CIX Summit in Toronto as roundtable host on 'The High Cost of Growth: Winning Customers Without Breaking the Bank'
- **2025** — Success Venture Partners portfolio grew to 11+ companies; LP network exceeded 87 Chief Customer Officers
- **2024** — Appeared on multiple podcasts including Slice Fund, How I Invest with David Weisburd, and Unchurned discussing the post-sales capital thesis
- **2023** — Founded Success Venture Partners with a $10M fund, backed by Chief Customer Officers from Slack, GitHub, Braze, MuleSoft, Notion, Toast, and Aurora Solar

## Links

- Website: https://successvp.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngleeson10
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/johngleeson10

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/john-gleeson
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-18