Assertion Not checkable as stated
Treehouse B2B segment grows 40% to 50% yearly without capital injections
“Our B to B business is, is growing up to 40 to 50% a year now. And this was zero capital injection.”
Insight
Carson: Companies should build a business first before raising venture capital
“I really think we're focusing too much on raising money. You know, I think companies should build a business and figure out, you know, how to do that and then go raise a bunch of money. That's fine, but not the other way around.”
Insight
Carson: Software engineers must relearn everything every 18 months
“And so coding, coding, unfortunately or fortunately, you have to relearn everything, 18 months.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carson claims Treehouse revenue is growing faster than ever
“We're growing faster than we ever had.”
Insight
Ryan Carson: Founder-CEOs must personally sell before hiring any sales staff
“If you haven't built the sales team yet, and you are the founder CEO, you should be doing sales. So that's the first thing you got to do. Do not try to hire people. Do not try to do SDR. Don't do any of that. Go out and sell. And look and learn the sales cycle…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Treehouse raised ACV from $1,800 to $90,000 via founder-led sales
“This is how we raised our ACV from 1800 bucks to 90,000 dollars, right? It is by me getting in, in the dirt and figuring out what actually is valuable.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carson: Treehouse consumer retention is better than Pluralsight and Lynda
“You know, we have pretty good retention, you know, a little better than Pluralsight, a little better than Linda, but still it's not a rocket business.”
Disclosure
Carson is rejecting inbound investor interest to focus on core repeatability
“I mean, I have tons of inbound, thankfully, and, but I'm just saying, no, we just want to focus on building the core business and making it repeatable.”
Disclosure
Carson has no short-term plans to generate personal wealth from Treehouse
“So, I mean, that, that I have zero need or intention to generate more profit or more wealth for myself short term.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carson: InVision expanded Treehouse Talent Path deal tenfold within two months
“Closed it, and within two months, they expanded to a deal that was 10 X the size of the current one.”
Insight
Carson: Enterprise buyers do not care about Treehouse certificates, only skills gaps
“And what's interesting is they don't care about any treehouse certificates or points or anything. They just want to close skills gaps.”
Assertion Supported
Carson: Treehouse competitors have raised 10x more capital
“You know, our competitors have raised 10 X the amount we have.”
Insight
Carson: Standard CAC to LTV is a vanity metric without gross profit
“We think people who focus on CAC to LTV is, it can be a vanity metric period because you're not actually focusing on, on gross profit LTV. So actually how much, Profit are you driving the LTV and what is the fully loaded CAC, which means you got to include you…”
Assertion Partly supported
Carson claims the average developer stays at a startup for 10.8 months
“You know, the average stay for a developer at a startup is 10.8 months.”
Assertion Supported
Treehouse has raised no additional capital since its $13 million round
“Zero dollars. I'm proud to say.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Treehouse B2B revenue will surpass consumer revenue in 2019 or 2020
“We're essentially not focusing on our consumer business and we're focusing on our B to B and the B to B revenue will cross that in 19 or 20.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Treehouse is not generating enough cash to execute share buybacks
“We could. So we're not throwing off enough cash to do that right now.”
Assertion Supported
Carson: Basecamp has no outside shareholders besides Jeff Bezos' 5% stake
“They, they're a super private company. They don't have actually any shareholders other than I think Jeff Bezos owns five percent.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carson: Treehouse enterprise clients include Nike, Mailchimp, InVision, and Chegg
“MailChimp already is looking for a second class of talent. So these are some of our clients already MailChimp, Envision, Nike, Acquia, Chegg, Mindbody”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carson personally manages a $2.7M enterprise sales pipeline
“I've got at least 2.7 million dollars in the pipeline right now, myself.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Treehouse B2C subscription business is flat at ~$2M MRR
“It's pretty much flat.”
Disclosure
Treehouse has walked away from multiple acquisition talks
“We've gone through a number of acquisition talks and decide not to do them.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Treehouse is currently profitable and throwing off cash
“At the moment we're having so much fun and like changing lives right now and throwing off cash.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carson: Treehouse takes adults from zero to job-ready in about six months
“We teach adults how to go from zero to job ready, a hundred percent online in about six months.”
