Netterkorn: Values Align More with Bootstrappers Than Venture-Funded Startups
Colin Netterkorn · Episode 496 | " The Press Cover Expectations. Don't Compare Yourself to Slack or Zoom" · May 12, 2020 · at 2:42
Colin Netterkorn, co-founder of Customer.io, discusses his startup philosophy with host Rob Walling on Startups For the Rest of Us.
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“I've never felt like I belonged in any community, but certainly I share more values with the bootstrapper community than I do with the sort of venture funded grow at all costs community.”
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“We have about 40 people on the cap table, which our lawyer always tells us, like, that's a lot of people on the cap table. And anytime we need to get people to sign documents, it's a big headache to get everyone to sign. But what that's meant is that for the p…”
Netterkorn: Do not innovate on organizational structure unless it is your core product
“That's somewhere where unless your company is all about how companies work, you should probably not challenge the norm there and just use The tried and true methods that have worked over years.”
Netterkorn: Early founders print business cards from a lack of confidence
“I think when you start a company, it just doesn't feel real. And I think people print business cards and they make a logo because somehow that makes it more real to them. And when you tell someone I've started a company and you hand them a business card and it…”
Netterkorn: Customer.io benchmarks all roles to 75th percentile of US average
“And we pay market rates now, and we benchmark to the U.S. National average. This, I think it's like the 75th percentile of the U.S. National average for all of our roles.”
Netterkorn: Raising Customer.io's prices lowered churn by filtering out high-churn signups
“Over time, we raised our prices, and one of the things that we found by raising our prices is, well, A, it lowered churn, because if you have a really low price point, many people will sign up, but also many people will churn.”