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Koomen: Ignoring Churn During Rapid Growth Catches Up Within Two Years

Pete Koomen · The Right (And Wrong) Way To Spend Money At Your Startup · Y Combinator · Feb 12, 2025 · at 9:11

Y Combinator Group Partner Pete Koomen discusses common post-Series A spending mistakes and the danger of chasing top-line growth while ignoring retention.

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“If you're going very quickly and you have a lot of revenue coming in, it's easy to ignore your churn, and that's a problem that will catch up with you in a year or two, and at that point, you've spent a whole bunch of money on growth and marketing chasing after bad revenue that's going to disappear.”

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