Opinion
Smith: Startups cannot scientifically run price elasticity tests
“It's my opinion that elasticity tests, you really can't do it at our scale scientifically. And so really, I think that it's more of an art than a science.”
Disclosure
Smith: Cladwell spiked marketing spend specifically to raise venture funding
“Definitely jacked up marketing. Cause we were about to raise a round of funding.”
Insight
Smith: Obsessing over early-stage metrics is just watching the scoreboard
“Cause I feel like at this stage, it's only watching the scoreboard during the game. The truth is, is that you're just trying your very hardest, no matter what the score is.”
Insight
Adding more onboarding quiz questions surprisingly increased Cladwell's completion rate
“Actually, the more questions we added up to that point, the more people actually filled it out, which I thought was really interesting.”
Opinion
Smith: Every personal stylist is actually just a salesperson
“Every personal stylist out there is actually just a salesperson.”
Insight
Smith: SaaS business models are entirely acquisition, churn, and pricing
“There's, it's a simple equation. You have new users, churned users, price per user. That is our entire business model. And you have to, as a product person, you have to be jumping from each of those three continually for the life of the business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
60% to 70% of Cladwell mobile app downloaders are active users
“Of those who downloaded the app, 60 or 70% are using it, and so not all of them have switched over, if that makes sense, time are still using the website.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell has reached 11,500 monthly paying subscribers
“So we have over 10,000 people. That's like 11,500 people paying us now monthly.”
Insight
Smith: A startup cannot effectively have two co-head leaders
“You can't really have two, two head leaders in a company.”
What-if
Smith: I would have bootstrapped Cladwell if I could do it over
“If I could do it over again, I would have started bootstrapping.”
Disclosure
Cladwell issued capped convertible notes with 10% interest and zero discount
“10% interest rate, and no discount. They're capped notes.”
Insight
Smith: Dropshipping and affiliates are 'shoveling nickels' with operational headaches
“Like, affiliates is shoveling nickels. I'd say drop shipping is shoveling nickels, and you have to deal with shipping problems.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cladwell projects reaching $1 million in revenue for 2016
“We're planning to hit a million this year.”
Insight
Smith: Digital marketing is like drilling for oil until the well empties
“In general, I think digital marketing is really just the process, it's like, it's looking for oil, When you find it, you dump all your resources into it until it's empty, and then you go find some more.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell reaches 17,000 customers
“Yeah I think we're at 17,000 right now.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell operates at just under $900,000 in ARR
“We're right under 900,000 ARR right now.”
Disclosure
Cladwell raised an additional $1.2 million in venture funding
“We raised another 1.2 on top of that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell users onboard 40% of their closets in under two minutes
“We get on average, like we see, we can see 40% of a woman's closet onboarded in less than two minutes.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell Sees 80% Immediate Onboarding Completion Rate
“We see 80% completion immediately through the onboarding process”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell's customer acquisition cost sits between $15 and $20
“We're still experimenting a good bit, but we're seeing right around that same range. Like it's around like 15, 20 bucks, something like that.”
Disclosure
Cladwell sells an app to help consumers buy fewer clothes
“What we sell is we actually sell a tool that helps you, one, get dressed every single day from the items that you already have in your wardrobe, and two, is make sure that that wardrobe is comprised of the smallest number possible of high quality items. So we'…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell launched for men, but women now make up 60% of users
“The reason for that is we actually launched as a men's business, and so we launched our women's business on a whim last fall, just to see what would happen, and women right now are 60% of our business, so that, it's grown really fast based on women, so we're k…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cladwell's average customer acquisition cost is $17
“Yeah, so our CAC is on average about 17 bucks.”
Disclosure
Cladwell spends $30,000 per month on marketing
“We're spending 30 K a month right now in marketing.”
