Consumer Companies
topic on 5 shows · 13 statements across 12 episodes
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 
Founder's Journal 
American Optimist 
the a16z Podcast 
20VC
13 statements about Consumer Companies, every show
Lieberman: Only seven reliable strategies exist to get a consumer startup's first 1,000 users
“After reviewing the early growth strategies of more than a hundred consumer companies, it turns out that there are really only seven reliable ways to find your first 1000 users.”
Blomfield: Top consumer startups get over 80% of growth organically
“The best consumer companies have a split of organic versus paid growth of something like north of 80% organic to 20% paid.”
Zullo: Many Consumer and FinTech Startups Died Cutting Back Growth
“I can point to a ton of consumer companies, a ton of FinTech companies that move the opposite direction that, you know, despite You know, trying to cut back their growth, you know, went through the floor and those companies are largely dead right now.”
Lonsdale: Brands get 10x better sales using fit models over obese models
“One of the funny things, which I probably shouldn't say, but I will, is that we have consumer stuff we do sometimes, and a lot of the consumer companies I see around are starting to put, like, very obese people as their models, and I asked our partners who kno…”
Casado: Consumer companies must be marketing-led due to sales force economics
“So consumer companies are typically marketing-led, and that drives everything else about the company. Why is it marketing-led? Because if your customer's a consumer, there's no way you're gonna pay a sales force to go talk to every one of them. There's just no…”
The 2014-2015 VC boom generated 40x and 20x revenue valuation multiples
“And in particular today, I think we've got a little bit of a hangover from the funding cycle of 2014, 2015, where there was a huge boom in venture capital funding, and a lot of companies raised money at very high valuations. And, you know, these are ten millio…”
Tinker: Enterprise product-market fit does not automatically trigger rapid growth
“For consumer companies, when you find product market fit, the company takes off. Magic happens. Growth unlocks. For enterprise and B to B companies where the sales process is more systematic, customer decisions are more complicated, you can get the product mar…”
Consumer companies have higher net margins than tech companies
“At the end of the day, consumer companies have higher net margins and are more profitable than tech companies.”
Most funded consumer startups will sell below their last valuation
“Consumer companies typically it'll be a graveyard. There'll be some exceptions. Unilever bots, Dollar Shave Club, because they needed the capabilities of DTC. That'll happen a few more times, but many times they will be sold for half of the last round valuatio…”
Nicole Quinn: TAM is unimportant because great consumer companies create markets
“So this is contrarian, but I actually don't think that TAM is very important. The greatest consumer companies of our time have been created in very small markets.”
Consumer Tech Startups Are Binary; Entry Valuation Does Not Matter
“Consumer companies are binary. They work or they don't work. And when they work, it just really doesn't matter what your entry price is.”
Manalac: Press is not a sustainable user acquisition strategy
“I think, you know, not to stress about press too much because press is not a sustainable user acquisition strategy, not even for You know, consumer companies, so it's not something to spend too much time thinking about.”
Caldbeck: Dedicated sector focus yields vastly superior VC pattern recognition
“If you're spending a hundred percent of your time looking at certain types of consumer companies, you can't help but pattern match in a better way than if you're spending 20% of your time on SAS and 15% of your time being a second partner on someone's, you kno…”