This document discusses lessons learned from failures. It addresses a company that grew to 40,000 customers through word of mouth but ultimately failed. Key reasons for failure included high customer churn likely due to lack of personal touch, over reliance on ads versus content marketing, wasting an existing beta user list, prioritizing headcount over product velocity, not charging customers from the start to collect data and feedback, and initially focusing more on marketing than building a strong product. The document emphasizes learning from mistakes.

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#failcon

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8. LEARN
FROM OUR MISTAKES
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9. 2009 SMB Phone System
Grasshopper R&D
2010
SaaS Subscription Billing
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10. 2010
SMB Word of Mouth
April 2011
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11. 2010
14 MONTHS
SMB Word of Mouth
$500,000
April 2011
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12. 40,000 0
CUSTOMERS SALESPEOPLE
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13. 40%
WORD OF MOUTH
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14. Encourage More Referrals
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15. Refer An Entrepreneur
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16. Ot‫ה‬rMar ls Reþr Ent p ur
$200 $25
CPA CPA
$100K
SIGN UP REVENUE
1.5% 22%
CONVERSION CONVERSION
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17. Word of Mouth
Referral System
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19. +7
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20. ✔
A+, Experienced Team
✔
Experienced Founders
✔
40,000 Customers
✔
2,000 Beta Opt-ins
✔
Endless Resources
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21. We still failed.
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22. Why?
3x
CHURN
dn’t
Cus rs
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23. Why?
3x 3x
CHURN CPA
dn’t Ra o Ads?
Cus rs
L ar
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24. Why?
3x 3x ✗
High Touch
CHURN CPA
dn’t Ra o Ads? No s‫פ‬
Cus rs
L ar
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25. Wasted Our Beta List
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26. Wasted Our Beta List
CHIRP
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27. Bigger Team ≠
Higher Velocity
Product
Design Engineering
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28. Didn’t Charge From Day 1
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29. Didn’t Charge From Day 1
MUST
HAVE
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30. Didn’t Charge From Day 1
MUST
DATA
HAVE
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31. Didn’t Charge From Day 1
MUST
DATA FEEDBACK
HAVE
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32. Didn’t Charge From Day 1
MUST
DATA FEEDBACK MORALE
HAVE
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33. Product > Marketing
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34. Product > Marketing
Building Talking To
Product Users
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35. @mikearsenault #failcon

36. @mikearsenault #failcon

37. Thanks.
@mikearsenault
mike@rejoiner.com