MONTHLY METRICS

Accredited members:  +10%
Unique investors:  +14%
Total Investments:  +12%
Total Dollars Invested:  +8%

% of investors with > 1 Investment: 23% (+0%)

M/M Growth in repeat investors: +15%

Repeat investing is our magic in the market. It's time to report on it.

HOW TO HELP: WE'RE HIRING!!!!

We are looking for a content & growth marketer. The perfect person would be an early to mid-career hustler who knows content, social, data, and angel, and would be motivated by a comp plan with uncapped performance upside.

Here's the job description.

Know anyone we should talk to? Hit reply or share the link.

Can you even imagine how fun it would be to work with us? 🎉

Summer is historically sleepy. In fact, I went into July with my breath held.

Despite my summer fears, we held our double-digit growth and hit our revenue goals for this month. Plus we have two super unique deals coming at the end of August (as unique as Series X but with more of an impact bent vs a cutting edge tech bent to them) so 🤞 we'll pull through the summer on an upswing.

----

Our biggest breakthrough this month came when I was sitting here (Tiny Tap on the River in Chicago ) on our team call. 

Wasim and I said the same thing at the same time.

We're bored.

10% M/M growth is "fine"....and being "default alive" is cool-ish.

(If you are new to startups and Angel investing, 10% M/M growth is actually a big deal and being "default alive" which means we control our own destiny and path in terms of running and growing the business, is pretty darn badass.)

But we are wired like startup people. Our goal (and our investors' goal) is not for us to barely break even and take a paycheck (although that would be nice). It's to build a big, profitable business that transforms an industry. 

We are antsy for the thrill of taking some bolder bets.

And bolder bets are a funny thing when you are a seed-strapped team*. 

There's a natural caution built in.

I hate to say "scarcity mindset," but it is.

It takes longer to internalize the predictable monthly patterns that say you can invest in growth than it does to remember the last time you loaned the company money to make payroll. Or shake the curse of the previous July, when the total amount invested that month was less than this July's revenue. 

There is no safety net on seed-strapped. I remember feeling it when I brought Wasim on board. And I am feeling it again now.

But F'it. 

The marketing execution needed to move the needle on topline growth isn't something our current team has the skillset or the cycles to do.

We've tried and missed for two months now. 

But we have more than enough runway and revenue to add a new person to our team with that skill set, and concurrently run a few bolder IRL experiments this Fall.

So lets go!

JULY WRAP UP

Here is what we said we were going to do:

Make the expanded signup flow look "on brand"; direct existing members to it. 

Launch 1st and 2nd investment email sequences built around psychographics.

Build a dashboard that lets us know what's moving the conversion needle.

Bonus: Get all our great content out of email and onto more public discovery platforms (in advance of more top-of-the-funnel activity)

Ooof. We all did a ton of "work" this past month: new website, founder playbook, corporate cleanup, a handful of small experiments that boosted monthly engagement by 10 points...

But when I look at our list of what we said we were going to accomplish, we did NOT hit it out of the park. It wasn't even close. And that's on me.

And that's why these monthly updates are so helpful. I see it as clear as day.

It's time to tighten up by being more disciplined in our priorities, realistic about what we can get done, and if we don't nail it, understanding what needs to change. 

The upside of missing the mark the past two months on our "outbound marketing" goals and feeling out where our individual productivity started to crater, is that it's crystal clear it's time to hire.

AUGUST LOOK AHEAD

• Ship IRS XML efile (you won't see this working, but we will feel it)
• Pretty up onboarding and roll it out to existing members. 
  (like we said we would in July)
• Get 5 great candidates in process for our marketing role, w/a stretch goal of getting someone hired. 
• Jump on the ✈️ and head to Rome for Tina's wedding! (we'll send pix).

The unstated goal this month is to refocus to hit the Fall more aggressively and more strategically. 

To Jess for the marketing & hiring brainstorm, Kelly & April for all of the Chicago things. Valerie, for starting to bring your friends. And to Erika for the reminder that we are our own harshest critics and for the subtle tease of the two new deals coming later this month.

Finally, special props to Paul and Sarah for being such helpful Angels that we are getting unsolicited love from founders on social because of your work.  🙏

Thanks for all your ongoing support.

-- C2K

PS: Don't forget book club on August 21st and stay tuned for multiple post-investment founder events with Carbon Bridge, Hello Divorce, Wave Bye, and Tikal early this Fall.

* Seed-strapped is a bit of a new term in the tech market. Increasingly experienced founders are raising a little bit of funding, mostly from Angels, and holding off (or avoiding) raising traditional venture rounds until they are sure the rules of venture are a fit for the shape of the business they are building. The businesses remain more fun to run and the teams and Angels make out better financially. We are doing it leaner than most, for reasons I am happy to discuss offline, but the game-plan is the same. 

If that all piqued your interest, come to book club!

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