The Ledger
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Akhtar: Startups with solid unit economics should grow during a recession
“I think if you're nailing these three things, then you can keep growing sustainably. So the first thing is having the right people. We've got the right people around you. You're not over headcount, and you're cool. Having solid unit economics. If you don't hav…”
Akhtar: Startup funding market will not improve for 12 to 18 months
“So when I set the scene, the last year has been really rough, and as most of you know, it's not going to get any better for the next 1218 months when it comes to the funding market as well.”
Akhtar: Build a minimum sellable product instead of a standard MVP
“An MSP is like a better version of an MVP, a minimum sellable product, so like instead of trying to build something that does technically what you want it to achieve, try and build the first thing that you can get in the hands of a customer, and start charging…”
Akhtar: Crisis leadership requires acknowledging fear over offering false comfort
“It's not about, like, you know, comforting people and telling them it's gonna be fine, but, like, just understanding that they're gonna have a human reaction to this stuff as well, I think is, is super important.”
Akhtar: SVB offered CyberSmart £3M–£5M debt contingent on closing a round
“This is actually our proposal from SVB.
that we got last year, I think it was about March.
but the strings attached here is like, here, we're going to give you like three to five million pounds, pretty decent interest rate, six and a half to eight percent, b…”
Akhtar: CyberSmart never had over three months of runway in 2022
“And last year, I don't think there's a single point in the entire year where we had more than three months runway.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart replaced 18-month cash burn hiring plan with step-and-see model
“We planned to hire, like, 20 to 40 new people in the next 12 months. When we set out, we had our full financial model. We'd have burned through all our cash in about 18 months or so. Since then, we've basically reverted to, like, a more step and see model.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart partner channel achieved 15:1 LTV:CAC and 160% annual NRR
“So our unit economics, our customer acquisition cost lifetime value was one to 15. Our net revenue retention was about 160% a year for partners. And our gross retention was about 99% a month or about 86% a year.”
Akhtar: Founderpath provided CyberSmart $1.5M during a Q3 cash crunch
“We spoke to Nathan and the founder path team that actually ended up giving us like one and a half million dollars when we really, really need it.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart secured four term sheets after repeatedly pitching a rejecting investor
“So we end up with four term sheets in the end and it was really the last one which took a lot of work. I mean, they said no two times, and I kept going back to them every couple months”
Akhtar reveals CyberSmart ARR is $4.5M, surpassing the $3M milestone
“We're actually past three million, I think this deck was a little bit old, but yeah, about four and a half now”
Akhtar predicts CyberSmart will reach $6M ARR by the end of 2022
“And we should hit about six by end of year”
Akhtar: CyberSmart raised $10M and will likely raise $10M+ within weeks
“We've raised about ten million in cash, and we're gonna raise a lot more probably than ten million in the next few weeks”
CyberSmart founders paid themselves £500 monthly, then £25k salaries for a year
“Like at the start, those four of us, we paid everyone 500 pounds a month. That's like 600 bucks. That was our, we call it pocket money. That's how we started the company. And then we all had 25 K salaries for like a year.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart burned hundreds of thousands monthly for average revenue growth
“We had a lot of cash, and we were burning a lot of cash, like hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to achieve this kind of revenue growth.”
CyberSmart had no product or customers during its first year
“In the first year of the company, or one thing you'll, you would have noticed, and you can just see it, is the first year of the company is not even on that chart. Because we didn't have our product or any customers. We spent the first year, like, figuring out…”
Akhtar: War in Ukraine directly impacted five CyberSmart team members
“That directly impacted, like, five RT members, so, who were in Ukraine, and it had, like, shockwaves throughout the whole company, so we had to, like, figure out how, how do we support them, so we basically just said whatever they need.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart has around 50 people on its cap table
“We've got like 50 people on our cap table.”
Akhtar: Early pandemic triggered communication breakdowns and sales slowdown at CyberSmart
“So for us that, that meant, like, it was such a bad time because, like, our team were all in the office and they were working from home, so all the communication broke down, our customers were like, we, Like, the deal times went up, and like, our churn rate, w…”