Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Saroya: Pure lead-gen businesses are not durable long term

Karn Saroya · Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business · Y Combinator · Feb 27, 2019 · at 12:42

Karn Saroya, CEO of insurance startup Cover, explains why building a sustainable brokerage requires owning the customer experience instead of relying on lead generation.

0:00 / 0:22exact quote · 23.0s
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“I don't think that you can build a durable business as just a lead gen. You know a lead gen service for a couple of reasons. One, those arbitrage opportunities eventually dissipate. The second is you're not building any brand, like, equity or value, and you're certainly not, you know, doing your customers a service by vacuuming up their contact information and selling it on 10 times to juice, you know, average revenue per user.”

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More from Karn Saroya

Opinion
Full-Stack Insurtech Startups Will Likely Fail and Burn Cash
“Folks who are attacking, you know, every aspect of this at once are probably not going to get any of them right and burn a lot of money right out the gate.”
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Disclosure
Cover Paid $750,000 Plus Broker Fees to Acquire Cover.com
“So we paid seven 50 for it, and then there were broker fees.”
Karn Saroya Feb 27, 2019 ▶ 23:06 Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business · Y Combinator
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Saroya: Proving property existence and condition materially improves loss runs
“We're proving that the property existed in a given time, place, and condition. And that helps materially improve our loss runs.”
Karn Saroya Feb 27, 2019 ▶ 1:02 Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business · Y Combinator
Insight
Saroya: Early mobile e-commerce only worked vertical or impulse purchase
“Either you went vertical or you went impulse price purchase.”
Karn Saroya Feb 27, 2019 ▶ 8:26 Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business · Y Combinator
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cover Operated Without Making a Single Hire for 18 Months
“So we didn't make our first hire for probably the first year and a half.”
Karn Saroya Feb 27, 2019 ▶ 14:19 Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business · Y Combinator
What-if
Cover.com Would Have Cost $5M–$6M After Series B or C
“And I can guarantee you that if we had tried to buy it after our B or C, we'd be looking at like five, six million dollars.”
Karn Saroya Feb 27, 2019 ▶ 23:46 Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business · Y Combinator
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