💡Using Data to Beat the Competition...

Hi there,

Looking for powerful ways to use data? You can learn from Discovery, with unique insights into how data unlocks benefits both for the user and the company itself. And speaking of unlocking benefits, we’re here, as always to add value at every stage of your innovation journey:

1. Startup Phase

2. Growth Phase

3. Scale/Sale Phase

Should You Bootstrap or Look for Funding?

One of the ultimate startup dilemmas comes from the Silicon Valley-inspired high-growth tech funding model, where you have a lot of investors actively looking for somewhere to invest. But, as this episode of the HWYBI podcast shows, South Africa doesn’t have that oversupply of investors, so it’s harder to get funded here. Not impossible – here’s how Revio raised $5.2M. Yet an experienced SaaS founder says that if he had to start over, he’d definitely bootstrap, and here’s why (and how).

Networking Strategies for Founders

According to Andy Sparks’ Holloway book on Raising Venture Capital, networking is crucial for hacking growth and, though some people seem like natural networkers, it can be learnt. Good starts are: 1) working at a funded or well-performing startup, so you can ask for industry introductions, 2) applying for a spot at an accelerator, if only for networking, 3) asking for help, focusing on people who can share helpful past experiences. If you’re in Cape Town this March, join Specno’s Founder’s Den for amazing networking opportunities – it’s invitation only, so apply for entry here.

Content Marketing Strategies for Startups

Want to do really unique stuff? SA audience developer Elvorne Palmer says lower down in this edition of The Open Letter, you need to 1) Forget trying to “tell anyone anything” and 2) Build your content arm like it’s a product (find out what the user wants and give it to them). Some ways of doing this are finding out 3) What information they need but can’t access yet, or 4) Simply shipping existing information in a new channel or format your user finds better/more useful. This method helps you build a more engaged audience, to become a community later.

Are you in the start phase? Have questions? Hit reply and let us know how we can help.

Building Brand Loyalty and Community Engagement

A key difference in how founders take products mass market is A) building a finished product (like Microsoft, Tesla etc.) or B) building a viral community around your product (like Notion, Slack, Airtable). US product marketer Anthony Pierri explains in this LinkedIn post that taking the community route requires: 1) a product with fast Time to Value (TTV), 2) self-serve onboarding (no sales or service help required), 3) a viral distribution network (Notion used Reddit to get it going) and 4) you need to aim for millions of users.

The 4 Most NB Metrics for Growth Phase

There are a lot of metrics to keep track of, but high-level, if you want to know you’re gonna make it, focus on 1) Your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) [how much you spend to get 1 new customer], 2) Your Lifetime Value (LTV) [how much money you make per customer], 3) Your CAC-to-LTV ratio (what percentage of LTV needs to go to CAC) [30%, 20% or 10% is good]. And lastly, 4) Paul Graham’s default dead/alive date – if your growth and expenses both remain steady, at what point do they intersect in the future? And, do you have enough capital to keep going until then? If not, go back and increase your LTV and lower your CAC until you do.

User Experience (UX) Best Practices

The key to creating incredible user experiences is to 1) think impossible and then 2) scale it back to reality. Sit your team down and, for every key user engagement point, brainstorm what would be the ideal UX if money was no issue, then scale it back to what you can afford/do. For example: When a new subscriber signs up, the best celebration would be Taylor Swift rocking up at their house. But that’s not possible, so what if when they sub, you play them a Taylor Swift song? See? Learn how to unlock amazing UX benefits for your product.

Need help growing faster? Maybe that's augmenting your team, or perhaps it's coffee with one of our growth experts. Either way, hit reply and let us know and let’s see how we can help.

Deep Data for Competitive Advantage

The latest trend in late-stage startups is Deep Data: Going back into your collected data and mining it for additional insights to give you a competitive advantage. If in the past, for example, you only looked at the conversion rates within certain cohorts – because you were trying to get profitable – Deep Data means going back and mining that “old” data to spot trends you were previously not measuring for. Did most people convert at a certain time or day of the year? Did they have similar hair colours or habits? Any patterns that could further refine and help you scale. Note: AI seems to be key to managing vast volumes of data, so look into advanced AI tools.

Employing Emerging Tech (Even if You’re Years in the Game)

AI is unavoidable these days, and it’s no surprise that a lot of new tech startups are playing in the AI space. But what if your company was built before and without AI, and there’s no need to bring any of it in now? In one of Lenny Rachitsky’s recent newsletters, he suggests that everyone can and should be experimenting with OpenAI’s GPTs (customisable/programmable version of GPT), if only for your team’s internal benefit. One idea is to create a GPT for each of your user personas, then have your team sit and talk to them to get user insights. You could even programme one with all your HR info and have employees converse with it around policies, leave etc. to take a load off people.

Financing New Innovation Projects

As you grow, balancing innovation with “business as usual” becomes tricky. We recently picked up a lot of larger companies (in retail and e-commerce especially) battling to keep up with emerging tech because they’re unsure how to invest in it. So we put together a list of alternative ways to fund innovation projects to help you de-risk and still keep up with tech.

Want to scale faster? We have people that are comfortable with the discomfort of the scale phase. Hit reply and chat with us about how we can augment your team and help you scale faster.

What’s happening at Specno

Founder’s Den edition 4 is happening on Thursday 14 March 2024, at Specno HQ in Century City, Cape Town. And this time we’re exploring crafting partnerships, startup-corporate collaboration in SA and leveraging AI for success with an amazing panel including:

• Tramayne Monaghan, Chief Ventures Officer of NEXT176

• Dr Peta-Anne Browne, Medical doctor and Founder of Wardworx

• Zamokuhle Twala, Co-Founder and CEO of AgriKool

• Christiaan van den Berg, Co-Founder and CEO of JOBJACK

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