✨ Save the Date ✨

Our 2nd Annual Angel Meeting will be June 5th 6pm MT on Zoom. 

MONTHLY METRICS

Accredited members: 887 (+9%)
Unique investors: 242 (+16%)
Total Investments: 568 (+16%)
Total Dollars Invested: $2.1M (+18%)
New Dollars Invested this month: $315K

Our team is super competitive, so it's important to point out that the $315,253 invested in April bested our March total by $503—and April had one less day!

Blowing past $2M AUA (assets under advisement) was also a yummy little milestone for us. But this month's big unlock came from something different. 

Year 1 of a startup is inherently volatile. Nothing is predictable as we experiment to find the right MVP, ICP, PMF, MRR, and every other startup TLA* you can dream up.

And for us, things are even more unpredictable because so much hinges on the popularity of each deal. 

Despite that, one metric hasn’t budged: the rolling average of dollars invested per member each month has been ridiculously consistent since Day 1. 👇🏽👇🏽

Yes, it's a composite metric that is not actionable. But it is a single metric that rolls all our different revenue inputs into a single number.

And if you multiply that very predictable number by gradually compounding 10% month-over-month member growth (and by 10% to turn dollars invested into Play Money revenue), you wake up one day having hit MDA "minimal default alive" almost without trying. 🤣

Yes, I made up the term MDA. It's not really a thing. But it should be. 

What it means is that we can now feel confident that we won't run out of runway as we search for product market fit regardless of if or when we choose to raise outside capital from VCs. 

It actually took me a minute to realize what had happened. But when I did realize it, a wave of relief power swept over me -- and right behind it, a great feeling of new opportunity.

We can take a beat and step out of the weeds (even if it has a short-term impact on revenue) to lay the foundation for more rapid, higher-fidelity, automated experimentation around growth and minting new repeat checkwriters.

APRIL WRAP-UP

• We shipped integrated Angel education, a very cool Learn Mode, and a new front end to the web product that looks cleaner, gives us unified usable site metrics, and makes upkeep about 100x easier.
• We did a bunch of prep for content and IRL happening in May.

As we said at the end of March, based on everything we've learned, we are shifting our focus to the angel experience - and it's going to stay here for a minute.

Even after we find our perfect scalable channel partners, our value to the ecosystem will still likely involve turning angel-curious folks and future family offices into repeat checkwriters.

This is also what drives revenue right now, giving us optionality in how we capitalize the business and grow. 

All of these seemingly small interative features we are releasing are the pieces we will be connecting together to build a killer conversion funnel for our own organic growth efforts and for channel partners who bring their networks and deal flow to the platform.

MAY LOOK AHEAD

• May's Financial Resilience Deal Capsule and experiment.
• Build the scaffolding for a proper marketing and conversion funnel.
• Portland, Chicago, Elite XX Angel groups

In our last update, I asked for some input on what will help our most passionate fans—our superusers and our angels—become evangelists. 

One of our angels (who is also a VC in her day job and part of a high-signal Angel group) stepped up to own our May deal flow. She curated three super-strong founders, all building solutions for financial resilience.

I have a hunch about creating a sense of "event" around a monthly theme, and the anecdotal feedback around CPG Month was super positive. But mostly, this curation gives her the canvas she needed to share Play Money more broadly to the various groups she is a part of. 

One of the most interesting sub-experiments embedded here is seeing if we can boost investing participation within an Angel group that had previously invested in one of these deals. That group had to set a relatively high ($10K) check size for their members to participate.

The experiments we ran with Redwood and Nguyen Coffee around matching different terms to different investment amounts - and the results we saw - opened the door to testing out how much more angel demand was there with a more flexible minimum.

------

I'll update you on Portland, Chicago, and my secret XX Angel group side project in the proper May update. But I'll tease you with this...

Sit Tight. Homework for our Annual Meeting will be in your inboxes shortly.

🎧 In the meantime, take a listen to this Charles Hudson interview: Algorithmic vs Artisan. It captures so much of where we see Play Money playing into an insanely fast-changing early-stage / storytelling-stage private capital ecosystem.

Big thanks...

To everyone who did a customer discovery cycle with us this month: to Elizabeth for suggesting this May "Capsule" & experiment; to Christa for being right behind her; to Paul for stepping up for a portfolio founder in need; to Pam and April for a few juicy things brewing; and to Mike for making me realize our heads were higher above water than we thought. 

-- C2K

* MVP = Minimal Viable Product.

* ICP = Ideal Customer Profile.

* PMF = Product Market Fit.

* MRR = Monthly Revenue Runrate (we are not at recurring revenue yet).

* TLA = Three Letter Acronym

Read in Browser 

Not sure why you would Opt out, but you can.