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With my previous experience in DTC , there is/was an underlying assumption that growth resembles a “hockeystick”. In truth, if it’s going well, the curve is more like a step function because a lot of the growth comes from gains in retail distribution (think launching in Whole Foods or Target, which only happens 1x-2x / year).
Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.
All investors want to see real evidence that the dogs will eat the dogfood before they give any credibility to your hockey-stick projection curves. Partners and distribution channels will take you seriously. In many business arenas, brand-name partners and distribution are a prerequisite to scaling the business.
Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. This wasn’t very impressive, but we had two things going for us: A hockeystick shaped growth curve. People often forget the most important part of the hockeystick: the long flat part.
As an investor and former founder, I know that scalable growth (and the pretty hockeystick graph) is the holy grail for every startup. New platforms as distribution tools. You have to holistically think about your product, distribution platform, and virality from the start. When is the right time to hire a growth person?
Discovery, in contrast to search, took center stage as Pinterest displayed hockeystick growth (and raised VC money near a $200M valuation in late 2011). The viral nature of social media no doubt aided this growth, as did improvements in the online shopping experience. What’s Next in 2012….
Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.
Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.
Flexible VC creates early liquidity which can be either reinvested or distributed to LPs. As a result, unfounded hockey-stick graphs and unicorn promises give way to financial fluency, realistic expectations, frank conversations about what a business can credibly achieve, and transparency. .
Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.
Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.
Though I would say based on the numbers that I see it’s not like a hockeystick growth, but the growth in people’s desire to listen to the content and people’s desire to create terrific podcast content has really never been higher. Spreaker is primarily an audio distribution and recording platform.
It covers everything from crafting & distributing a message to understanding analytics, setting up good funnels, running tests, and doing optimisations. Your traffic graph isn’t going to spike or hockey-stick, and that doesn’t matter one bit if you’re talking to the right people.
Investors see “hockeystick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half. This can often be in the form of intellectual property licensing from a university or a key distribution partner who will be taking your product to market. Remember to try and be realistic. Demo and screenshots.
Fit for the test: Normal tests assume independence and that error is normally distributed. The reality is that it’s hockeystick growth—you have to spend tons of money before you see any results (and then the results are exponential). Interpretable: Easy to tell how a change altered user behavior.
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