Rob Palumbo, COO of venture studio Simple Ventures, outlines their model for launching new companies in Canada.
Insight
Palumbo: Founder-led sales to warm connections give false PMF signals
“In mid-twenty-twenty-two, we kind of started to face retention issues. I think to one of your earlier questions, you know, our initial customer base at this time is still largely coming through founder-led sales, warm connections, and while that brings in that…”
Insight
Palumbo: Predictive ROI software is much harder to sell during downturns
“It works really well when you're giving them a report card that says, hey, if you spend more, you're going to get this great return here. It is a tougher sell when their revenues are declining, they're scaling back, and they're getting a report card that doesn…”
Insight
Palumbo: Startup acquirers buy current product capabilities, not 10-year visions
“What I would say is different about the process, though, is the conversation becomes less about what could be and, you know, pitching the vision in 10 years. And it becomes more about the kind of like ground truth of what can the product do today? Who is on th…”
Disclosure
Palumbo: Outpoint lacked repeatable customer acquisition and strong net revenue retention
“There's PMAP in like the small segment, but I don't think we had true PMAP in the broader sense of repeatable motion you know, cold adopters continuing to come in who really value it. I think, you know, if you look at your Some of your measures of PMF around t…”
Insight
Palumbo: Solo founders struggle to kill bad startup concepts compared to studios
“So at Simple Ventures, we kill a lot of startup concepts as we bring them to market and test them. I think when you are an end of one founder, building an end of one company, it is much harder to kill your bit, your company.”
Assertion Supported
Palumbo: Allbirds valuation collapsed 98% from $4B to $70M
“I mean, like, as an anecdote this was not a client of ours, but as a well-known company, Allbirds, they IPO'd, I think they had a four billion valuation when they went to market, and today, I believe that's down 98%, and they're trading at something like seven…”