Saurav Chopra, founder of Perkbox (originally Huddlebuy), describes how a sudden surge in Facebook ad acquisition costs broke their direct-to-consumer B2B marketing model.
Insight
Chopra: A lack of competition does not mean there is no market
“If you can enter a market where there is no competition, and that doesn't mean there's no market, right? No competition doesn't mean there's no market. So I think spending a bit more time Finding that you know, finding that, you know, finding that market where…”
Insight
Chopra: Hardware group buying fails because single returns destroy thin margins
“Amazon is gonna kill us any day because you know, this, you know you know, you make 200 printers, you sell, and you, one comes back, there's no margin. So it's, it was unfortunately learned through a lot of pain that this model is not gonna work as a collectiv…”
Insight
Chopra: Micro SMB owners behave like consumers on B2C social channels
“The SMBs, micro SMBs behave like consumers, right? So they were on Facebook, and our cost per click was, ah, oh my God, it was so, so low, you know, we're talking about cents to the dollar, and we were talking about 20 12”
Insight
Chopra: Social ads work for SMBs because employees befriend managers online
“In SMBs, employees have their managers also on social. So it doesn't happen in enterprise, right? You're not, your manager is not, if you're Oracle, your manager is not your Facebook buddy, but in small businesses, it does happen. And so employees start talkin…”
Insight
Chopra: Outbound sales models do not work for $1,000 deals
“Because the go-to-market model was so expensive, no one's going to do outbound on a thousand dollar deal, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chopra: VCs refused to touch SMB SaaS startups in 2011
“After the angel round, we had a very hard time raising any VC then to top up because no one wanted to touch SME back then. So SME was kind of a dirty word, right? The SME businesses really did not make money. SaaS for SMBs was just not there yet, especially th…”