VC Cafe

JULY 21, 2022

billion in Q2 2022 with over half of total amount raised by early-stage companies. The big challenge is retention, as users get bored and flock to the next game. They are then able to sell their digital goods and make money, thus improving retention and increasing referrals. million UAWs in Q2.

Forecast 190

Forecast IP Mobile Acquisition 190

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Yet, offboarding is such an important and under-rated opportunity to provide a positive experience that can actually yield advocates, saved customers, and higher retention. This approach works well in the early stages of your SaaS company. Being able to save a churning customer is the holy grail of retention.

Retention 83

Retention Email Customer Aggregator 83

ReadWriteStart

MAY 22, 2023

The Challenge of Talent and Funding FOV Ventures, the first venture capital firm in Europe to invest exclusively in early-stage Metaverse companies, has announced €25 million in funding for early-stage or seed-stage startups.

Finland 187

Finland Europe Estonia Silicon Valley 187

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

In product business it is often measured over multiple purchases and assumptions are made about the repeat rates and in the enterprise or services world LTV can be based on churn rates, which are notoriously hard to predict in an early-stage business. What are the re-marketing or retention cost assumptions? What is the LTV?

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

It still amazes me that some entrepreneurs seem totally at a loss on this question, or customer retention rate, or even margin expectations. For early stage investors, you probably don’t enough results to prove the power of your solution. Show that you have to ability to move the ball forward.

Exit Strategy 406

Exit Strategy Merger Angel Investor IPO 406

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

And that can make or break your customer retention, especially in the early stages. #15- Build customer loyalty Photo Credit: Liz Raad We can safely say that e-commerce is among the most common types of online business. And yet, it’s surprising how hesitant small businesses are to engage in loyalty programs.

eCommerce 133

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 133

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Acquisition: Generating leads and new users; Activation: Increasing product usage and improving customer experience; Retention: Reducing churn and encouraging repurchasing; Referrals: Encouraging brand advocacy; Revenue: Turning leads into customers. These stages aren’t a strict pathway. Image source.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

View from Seed

JULY 22, 2020

Early stage companies often debate what they ought to be prioritizing in the early days. Early stage investors ask themselves a similar question. This may allow you to monetize your customers better by improving retention and increasing the ROI on your marketing spend. So here we go. Do you focus on team?

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Retention PR Founder 254

The Equity Kicker

MAY 3, 2018

In startups things move fast, and once you get beyond the high level metrics like sales it is often difficult to get good data, particularly at the very early stages. Bad implementation is a surprisingly easy trap to fall into. So entrepreneurs do the best they can, and develop proxy metrics.

Metrics 87

Metrics CPA Early Stage Retention 87

Up and Running

JUNE 28, 2021

Employee retention is one of the biggest and potentially expensive issues for companies. For example, you can implement an individual development plan by using the Indeed template in the early stages. And of course, there are the ones that are eager for a change, feeling overwhelmed by doing the same things over and over again.

Employee 83

Employee Developer Software Review Salary 83

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. Stock option top-ups after a few years are vital retention mechanisms. And I have seen inefficient early-stage CEOs staying up late working through QuickBooks entries.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

Detail your customer retention plan. Presenting a plan in which the company grows too quickly will show the naiveté of the management team, while presenting too conservative a growth plan will often fail to excite an early stage investor (who typically looks for a 10X return on her investment).

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

Up and Running

JUNE 4, 2014

But for early-stage companies, trying to win them back — and learn from their feedback — is often a better strategy. Particularly for tech, there’s hesitation to insert humans into the retention process. What do you do when a customer threatens to leave your product or service? Keep It Human.

Customer 115

Customer Technical Review Early Stage Retention 115

ConversionXL

JANUARY 28, 2021

Whether you’re looking to improve conversions or retention CDP’s can provide a holistic view of both your opportunities and areas for improvement. As we wrote previously : Back to those (early) days when Marketing Automation was just born, the world was web-centric. . Image source ).

Technical Review 86

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Technical Cofounder 86

Austin Startup

JULY 8, 2017

Our lawyers also bill about 25% fewer hours per year than BigLaw lawyers, which improves their quality of life (helps recruiting/retention). Law firms who specialize in emerging tech work are not new to the challenges of very early-stage startups trying to manage a legal budget; at all.

Startup 48

Startup Salary Early Stage Software 48

David Teten

JANUARY 14, 2019

Many early-stage companies do not have these issues top of mind, because so many founders are pre-children. The post A family-friendly work environment is a powerful recruiting and retention tool appeared first on David Teten. However, even people without children often end up having them somehow. .

Retention 60

Retention Offshore Management Early Stage 60

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Because it can be hard to define or agree company objectives at an early stage I believe most people avoid them. Retention / Churn. Clearly in the early stages of your company you’ll have to estimate this because you don’t know how long each customer will stick around for or how your monetization will change over time.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. Many buying companies price these deals on the basis of $1 million per engineer on the team for an early-stage deal. has now employed the same strategy.

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 7, 2014

The simplest and most important dashboard for early stage startups - crowdspring.co/1gMgfqV. Employee Retention - crowdspring.co/1f2fAz5. Startup and Small Business Marketing 2014: Smart Web Design Best Practices and Tips - crowdspring.co/1dn9KvH. Don’t fear competition. 1eVEel8.

Social Media 98

Social Media Small Business Design Media 98

Up and Running

MARCH 19, 2019

If your business has an online component, and almost every business does, optimizing the path to a purchase conversion and building a strategy for customer retention is essential. You’re looking at allocating budget, time, and resources to conduct tests on everything you can to figure out what works best. Gather more data for analysis.

Customer 77

Customer Early Stage Retention Conversion 77

David Cohen

SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

“How is an early-stage founder expected to interpret the Give First philosophy?”. So how should an early-stage founder internalize Give First and carry it forward? Keith got our attention with his subject line, “give first, finish last.”. He told us: 1) Keep encouraging people down this path.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Atlanta Retention Conversion 62

OnlyOnce

AUGUST 3, 2023

(Post 1 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPO’s) In most startups, the HR function starts out as tactical, because you have to get people hired and paid, and while you might have a founder or early-stage employee who can do these things, often these tasks are frequently outsourced to a PEO.

Hiring 62

Hiring Metrics Leadership Early Stage 62

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

As president of Y Combinator, the hugely successful seed-stage investor/accelerator, Sam Altman has a lot of knowledge to share. He covers broad topics such as net neutrality, but also dives into the specifics of starting a company, touching on things like hiring and employee retention. Follow Charlie on Twitter @ceonyc .

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 60

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

It’s probably not too controversial to say that the median level of sophistication of early stage entrepreneurs in Los Angeles is lower than that of Bay Area. That number in the Valley might be closer to 10%.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

Up and Running

JANUARY 21, 2021

Because the culture of a startup may be fairly nebulous during the early stages of development, it is necessary to actively attempt to define it sooner rather than later. Conversely, if you can show them an impressive retention rate and link this to the cultural environment you have stewarded, they will know you are serious.

Retention 135

Retention Portfolio Early Stage Security 135

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 16, 2014

” It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about valuations , growth rates , retention rates , NPS scores, early-stage uncertainty , ratio of revenue to employee, CAC , cash-burn, LTV , gross margin, or selling your company.

Metrics 246

Metrics Early Stage Retention Revenue 246

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 19, 2018

We’re helping a large university system use analytics to target students for early intervention to maximize retention. As you have a history of building early stage companies, what is the most important thing you tell startup founders? Our talent provides leverage. Trust the good people.

Louisiana 113

Louisiana Founder Virgin Islands South Africa 113

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. R : Retention - do they come back & re-visit over time? These are captured fairly well by his slide: The beauty of what he's defined is the relationship between retention and referral efforts and lifetime value.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

For early stage companies, the metrics that matter might typically center around activation, engagement and retention. The most common financial metrics ffVC asks companies to compare vs. budget are: Gross Revenue. Gross Profit. Payroll Expenses. Net Income (Loss). Available Cash. Remaining Runway.

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

VC Cafe

JULY 15, 2021

So while ads can be an effective way to grow, spending on user acquisition before figuring out monetisation is a sure way to shorten runway for early stage startups. Build a community – often overlooked, but building a community around your app can help you build better products and dramatically increase retention.

Mobile 190

Mobile Social Media Distribution PR 190

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? cohort retention curves that flatten (stickiness) actives/reg > 25% (validates TAM). Consumer apps and services.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Mobile apps can improve everything from store performance and conversion optimization to customer retention —but as I said, they’re not for everyone. Are you still in the early stages, when that development money would be better spent on advertising and growth, or is it time to streamline your store and prepare to scale quickly ?

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Mobile Developer Retention 60

View from Seed

APRIL 8, 2020

He helps early-stage startups with sales, marketing, and general “go to market” topics. Have them focus on retention and growth in your existing accounts that have seen success. He has experience in B2B, supply chain, robotics, SaaS, and IoT spaces. Currently, he is an advisor, board member and angel investor.

B2B 156

B2B Angel Investor Vertical Early Stage 156

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 25, 2013

Following are other ways mentors can assist in career development efforts: • Helping to identify an employee’s long-term career goals: Professionals in the early stages of their work life often fail to consider how they want their careers to develop over time. First, pinpoint your company’s specific goals for mentoring.

Retention 170

Retention Employee Developer Programming 170

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

For consumer companies this is usually around user acquisition, engagement, and retention. Once you cross the chasm of launching v1.0, it’s understandable that investors will want to see how your product is doing in the market.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

Especially in the early stages of growth, standing up to competition means that your business also needs to minimize the cost of acquiring new customers. We’ll cover the following strategies: Retargeting and remarketing Partner programs A/B testing Customer retention Automated processes. Customer retention.

Acquisition 127

Acquisition Cost Affiliate Customer 127

Hunter Walker

MAY 11, 2021

Plus, given the current retention environment (what this entire post is about!) Typically it’ll pull in your “cash out” date by 15–30 days, which again, for a high growth early stage startup, is a bet you should often take. Especially versus the ‘cost’ of running a full search process later on and risk of schedule delays.

Hiring 109

Hiring Matching Early Stage Retention 109