Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Accelerators force artificial MRR growth leading to post-demo churn

Anders Fredriksson · EP 564: Proleads Passes 100 Customers, $75 ARPU Helping You Find Better Leads with CEO Anders Fredriksson · Feb 8, 2017 · at 12:36

Anders Fredriksson, CEO of ProLeads, reflects on lessons learned after going through the 500 Startups accelerator program.

0:00 / 0:36exact quote · 36.8s
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“At the accelerator, it's pretty common that you need to grow your MRR sort of by any means necessary. So we started doing that and we were like, we hit our weekly and monthly goals and we were growing our MRR like crazy. Problem was that after sort of demo day, we saw this, what we're now, or what I'm calling a post demo day churn. So you do all these things to sell to anybody that, you know, breathes essentially. So usually it's quite common that after demo day, people see a lot of churn from those customers that you just sold to get your MRR up.”

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More from Anders Fredriksson

Disclosure
Proleads sold because its product was too complex for junior SDRs
“We had a major problem, which was part of the decision to sell, actually. So the way I like to describe it is that we developed this sort of, imagine that we built this perfect race car that was like, you know, race tune Ferrari that was perfect for driving on…”
Anders Fredriksson Jun 6, 2020 ▶ 3:57 "He Raised $900k And Sold For $1.8m... Why? "
Disclosure
Fredriksson chose to sell Proleads rather than raise an independent round
“Eventually we decided that the best chance for ourselves for a good outcome in the end would be to join forces with Alpine works instead of raising the capital and running our own.”
Anders Fredriksson Jun 6, 2020 ▶ 12:37 "He Raised $900k And Sold For $1.8m... Why? "
Prediction Not checkable as stated
ProLeads targets $1 million ARR by end of Q3 2017
“So our goal is by end of Q three to be at a million AR.”
Anders Fredriksson Feb 8, 2017 ▶ 11:54 EP 564: Proleads Passes 100 Customers, $75 ARPU Helping You Find Better Leads with CEO Anders Fredriksson
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Proleads suffered a brutal 50% annual customer churn rate
“Over the whole year, maybe like, 50% of the customers we sold to churn, so like terrible.”
Anders Fredriksson Jun 6, 2020 ▶ 5:22 "He Raised $900k And Sold For $1.8m... Why? "
Disclosure
Proleads raised $880K to $900K in total outside capital
“Yeah, so we had raised, we raised the total of 880 or 900 or so for total for pro leads.”
Anders Fredriksson Jun 6, 2020 ▶ 10:46 "He Raised $900k And Sold For $1.8m... Why? "
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Proleads sold for more than double its $900K in raised capital
“I can't say the exact amount, but it was, More than two X the amount.”
Anders Fredriksson Jun 6, 2020 ▶ 15:58 "He Raised $900k And Sold For $1.8m... Why? "
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