SurveyMonkey grew for a decade with almost no outside money, and its name became a generic word for an online poll. Anyone with a browser could build a survey, send a link and watch the answers arrive. Students, small businesses and Fortune 500 companies all used it. The company filed as SVMK Inc. in 2018, after years as one of Silicon Valley's best known private companies. It hoped to prove that a freemium tool could also sell to large enterprises.

Ten Years Without Investors

Ryan Finley started SurveyMonkey in 1999 as a simple tool for building online surveys. His brother Chris joined him, and the two grew the company for ten years with almost no outside money. Investors bought it in 2009. Dave Goldberg led it from then until his death in 2015. The bet was that millions of small paying users could carry a large, durable software business.

A Merger Shareholders Refused

SVMK priced at $12 a share in September 2018 and jumped on its first day. Zander Lurie was chief executive. In 2021 the company renamed itself Momentive Global to stress its enterprise products. A planned merger with Zendesk then fell apart after shareholders objected. In 2023 the private equity firm STG bought the company for about $1.5 billion and took it private.

Cover: The Monkey Antiquarian, Pierre Louis de Surugue. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a monkey studying antiques (survey).