The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Allouche tanked his credit score to 250 to fund Metadata
“I maxed out all of my credit cards. American Express would call me daily. I would pick up my phone and tell them I'm not paying you anything. When I have money, I'm paying you all of it. Right now, you can keep calling me. Not paying you any of that. And third…”
Allouche defaulted on Amex to preserve runway, dropping credit to 500
“American Express. Not essential. Got a phone call every day. Sir, are you gonna pay your debt? No. I'm not gonna pay a dollar of my debt. My credit score went down to 500.”
Allouche: Raising capital on convertible notes is super easy even in downturns
“It's super, super easy, especially when the market is hot, but even when it's not, super easy to raise on convertible note.”
Metadata account executives converted commissions to equity, saving $1M cash
“All the AEs who are very cash, you know, kind of cash operated, They converted 50 to a hundred percent of their commissions into options, into common options. That got, got them a lot more invested in the business, and got us about a million dollar cash back i…”
Allouche rejected a $4M term sheet that wiped out early investors
“I got a term sheet, a four million dollar term sheet from a green entrepreneur, a shark, who saw that we're struggling. That term sheet, if I took it, My company wouldn't be around anymore. That, that would convert all of the preferred to common. It wouldn't m…”
Metadata Raised $3M Series A Extension at 2x Valuation Post-Cuts
“And after that, we went back to our Series A investors to tell them about the cuts, and they said, fuck, that's amazing. Here is three million dollar more because you guys are so efficient. So we raised another three million dollar in, in, by the way, twice ev…”
Allouche: Metadata Turned Down Multiple Term Sheets and Raised $40M Series B
“But this was the state in which we were able to raise a forty million dollar Series B in a very healthy way. I was able to turn down many term sheets because I had a confidence that my company is doing well”
Disregard vanity marketing metrics in favor of revenue and CAC
“When I say works, again, I don't talk about vanity metrics. I don't care about leads, I don't care about impressions, click-through rates, all of those cool, you know, KPIs that, that, you know, growth hackers talk about, I really don't understand much about. …”
Ranking top four on comparison guides reliably secures prospect sales calls
“Even if you don't come up first, it's still worthwhile to do it, because if you're in the top three or top four, it's very likely that the person is going to give you a shot. They're going to give you half an hour on the phone to maybe convince them, even if t…”
Distributing unbranded review guides helps win late-stage buyer interest
“Comparison guide from review sites, you don't brand it with your logo, make sure that the person who is buying understand this is an objective, as much as possible, objective comparison, and you'll get a shot at the table.”
LinkedIn direct-incentive conversation ads remain effective even after four years
“This tactic, we've been using it maybe for four years now. It hasn't been exhausted. All of my customers use it. It hasn't been exhausted.”
Direct-incentive LinkedIn ad campaigns produce demo flows within two weeks
“Within maybe a week, two weeks of executing this campaign, you would be able to start seeing a flow of demo requests.”
Outreach carries higher credibility when sent by role peers, not salespeople
“This comes from the same ICP. I find the same person that I sell to, and I find the same person in my company who is equal. And I send that email from them because there is much more credibility. There is camaraderie between a marketer and a marketer versus a …”
Facebook makes 90% of revenue from political and consumer campaigns
“Facebook doesn't care about B to B. They make 90% of their revenue from political and consumer campaigns.”
Allouche: Startup CEOs are currently operating in wartime
“I'm going to finish with a bunch of hacks for the wartime CEO, and we're currently in wartime.”
Allouche: Metadata cut a third of staff during 2020 crisis
“So right in there, we cut about a third of our employee. We also stopped paying every essential vendor.”
Allouche: Founders should make offensive moves during survival crises
“When you have a situation like that, a survival situation, you don't only want to take defensive moves. You also want to take offensive moves, because when everyone is panicking and hunkering down, it's kind of an opportunity for you to make bold moves.”
Allouche: The Series B Trap Leads to Cash Depletion and Fire Sales
“After you raise the Series B, there is this story that you didn't figure out everything about the business, you keep investing, and actually, you don't get the growth, and if you fully fall into the trap, you run out of money, and then you have a fire sale.”
Allouche: Delaying layoffs two months would have cost eight more jobs
“If I waited two months, like I was advised to, by pretty much everyone, then I would have had to lay off eight more people, seven to eight more people, because that's how the burn works, right?”
Allouche: Founders need outsiders to fix flawed workflows due to internal attachment
“When someone builds a workflow, even if that workflow sucks, they are emotionally attached to it. And so you have to bring in someone else who is not emotionally attached to it and can have a beginner's mind and show you that you have a problem here.”
Allouche: Leaders must avoid multiple cuts and ignore popularity
“You don't want to cut too much, and you don't want to cut many times, but most important is to make the right decision. Timing and popularity is secondary.”
Metadata staff took a temporary 20% pay cut repaid with equity
“Another thing is that all of us took a 20% cut. Everyone, of course, including myself, every VP, every employee in the company took a 20% cut. We paid all of those people back that, that six months cut Compounded plus equity, additional bonus equity, after we …”
Allouche: Do psychedelics or smoke a joint before deciding out of fear
“Never make decisions out of fear. When you're scared shitless, take a breather. If you're still scared, go for a walk, go for a run, do some pushups, do some psychedelics, smoke a joint. I don't care what you do, but definitely do not make a decision from that…”
Allouche: Metadata generated 600 monthly demos via incentivized ads
“Last month, 600 demos from this campaign.”
Metadata hired a pre-connected pod of five AEs to accelerate ramp time
“So we brought five AEs who knew each other.
They already knew how to work with one another.
They ramped each other up.
They were super knowledgeable and all of them crushed the numbers.
They, their ramp up time was insane.
I think in about month and a half, we…”
Allouche: Metadata Reached Almost $12M ARR Growing 2.5x in One Year
“We ended that year at almost twelve million, trying to be accurate, almost twelve million in ARR. So two and a half, roughly two and a half X growth.”
Allouche: Metadata.io Extracts 100–150 Data Signals from an Email Address
“What we do is that we connect to many more data sources, not only cookies, but we connect to, and we specialize in B to B, so we can find out just by an email what's that person, you know, job, what was the previous job they ever worked for, their education le…”
Metadata.io targets $2,000 to $3,000 customer acquisition cost
“I'm going to spend, you know, anything about two, 3000 dollars to acquire a customer.”
Allouche: Metadata.io can easily reach $20k-$24k annual value per customer
“Even here, I would say it's easy, easy, relatively easy for us to get them to about 20, 24 ATV.”
Pitching VCs when you do not need capital yields better terms
“When you don't need the money, when you go to an investor and you tell them, this is happening anyway, you are invited to join us for this journey, the conversation is very, very different. You talk to different people, much kinder people, and you get term she…”
Metadata survived on $25k before securing AR debt and $6.5M funding
“We got all the way to, I think, 25 grand in the bank. It's like, not a lot of money in the bank. Almost going under, and then slowly going up. From that moment, I was able to get, ah, 200 K in accounts receivable debt. From that, I was able to get 300 K in con…”
Metadata won ThoughtSpot by re-engaging a champion who switched jobs
“We want a huge deal, Just by going to the same person who liked us, but it can't, she couldn't bring us into that company, she later joined ThoughtSpot. Big ass logo that we still have, and we were able to win that just because we woke her up.”
Allouche: Metadata was down to two months runway in 2020
“I had about half a million dollar left burning about 200,000 every month. So we had about two months of life.”
Metadata management took 20% pay cut; reps swapped commission for equity
“Also, the entire management team took a 20% cut, and all of the salespeople converted their commissions to equity.”
Metadata finished 2021 at $12.2M ARR after raising targets from $5M
“We were supposed to grow from two to five, then we said, hey, we're doing well, let's do it to seven and a half, then 10.4, then 12 and a half, and we ended up at 12.2.”
Allouche: Metadata's Revenue Growth Flattened in Q2 2022
“Q one was amazing. We grew exactly as we planned. Q two, we flattened.”
Allouche: Metadata froze hiring and capped headcount at 110 instead of 200
“So we're supposed to grow to about 200 people, and we're at about a 110. And so we really had to make hiring freeze completely, so about 30 people that we're about to hire, we're not hiring. And then we had to let go of a lot of people, some contractors, some …”
Allouche: Metadata generated 100 PLG trials in six weeks versus expected 5-6
“Product-led growth. This was expected to bring us about five to six trials. We're already at about a hundred after a month and a half.”
Allouche: Metadata raised $5M via convertible notes in one month
“I planned to raise two million, ended up raising five million over a period of one month with convertible notes.”
Metadata Reached $2M ARR Within One Year of Launch
“So it starts in, in the beginning of 2020. We just hit product market fit. It looks good. It looks good. You know, it's two million dollars in ARR. For me, that was a dream. We only launched in the McGill in the middle of 2019. So in about a year, we got to tw…”
Allouche: Metadata Had $9M Cash and $200K Monthly Burn Pre-Series B
“This is pre-series B. We had almost nine million in the bank. We were only burning 200 K. So you can see we have years and years of runway.”
Metadata.io Generated $35k MRR at 85% Gross Margin in February 2016
“In February, 2016, we are at 35 K monthly recurring revenue with around the 85% margin.”
Allouche: Metadata.io Raised $300k from 500 Startups and Right Side Capital
“In December, I just raised 300,000 dollars to form angels, 500 startups, and right side capital, just to make sure that whatever happens, we have about one year to live.”