Pulse founder Emmett Cooke explains how he acquired B2B customers for his digital audio distribution platform without traditional outbound or paid marketing.
Insight
Cooke: Non-technical founders should prototype clickable MVPs with AI before hiring developers
“If I was a non-technical founder now, first of all, I would try to build like a very basic MVP. With AI, it's not always possible because it can't do everything, but definitely I would build a very basic version of the MVP, get it working, like at least clicka…”
Insight
Cooke: Scaling revenue 20-40% pre-sale massively increases startup valuation
“Then I think over that 12 months, really try and maximize and push your business to scale the revenue as much as you can, because How much it scales in that 12 months, even if it grows, like, you know, 2030, 40%, like, that can massively increase your valuatio…”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Cooke: Barack Obama used his music for his presidential campaign
“But yeah, stuff on the history channel, science channel, NBC Obama actually used my music for his presidential campaign.”
Assertion Supported
Cooke: Music software industry has at most 10,000 companies
“There's about 10,000 companies in the entire industry at most, and I would say if the top 50% in sales is probably attributed to maybe like a hundred companies.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pulse had 360,000 users and over 100 B2B clients at acquisition
“So on the B to B side, I think there was over a hundred anything. And then on the B to C side the actual platform had grown to around about 360,000 users in like the database with around a thousand to 2000 daily active users within the desktop app.”
Disclosure
Cooke leveraged an Irish tax relief scheme when selling Pulse
“So when I sold the company, I was able to take advantage of a far lower tax tax break compared to just paying myself through the company.”