0.00 Intro
1.50 How do you define when a startup moved to a scaleup phase of growth?
- When you see genuine traction/retention on your commercial metrics
Your churn rate starts to stablise
- When you have the confidence to tighten your ICP messaging which is reflected in your data
5.00 What was your niche for your salons?
- Geography was a key lever - identifying strong regional towns with positive socio-economic indicators
7.20 Were you data driven in identifying which towns to target?
- Bought data to identify areas with a high socio-economic profile
- Sales team targetted areas based on the data
8.44 How do you split budgets across channels to have the most impact on acquisition?
- Majority of spend is in sales
- Social channels and trade press have also been beneficial
- Try to balance investment on brand awareness and performing channels
11.11 Is there an education piece on solutions awareness?
- Detail for niche products don’t translate in short form ads - need a mix of long and short form content
13.30 Are there any partnerships or influencers that you engage with to produce content?
- Partnership with L’oreal - helped with trust and credibility
- Wholesale and commercials partnerships took too long to see an investment
- 30% of inbound is from peer-to-peer recommendations
15.33 How much time do you spend on retention and what levers are you using?
- We spend to acquire, customers are quite sticky
- Need to show value
- Content is similar to acquisition but tailored more towards features
17.35 In terms of onboarding, is there an ‘aha’ moment for customers?
- Comes from understanding their pain points and having compelling messaging and testimonials
19.01 Have you played with pricing moving from startup to scaleup?
- Started with ‘per seats’ model - which was too ambitious
- Tested cohorts on alternative pricing models - but saw no difference between the two - pricing remained a key objection
- Switched to ‘per seat/activity based’ model, which was unsuccessful
- Returned to classic ‘per seats’ model
22.23 Where has the brand fit into your process and evolution?
- Should have focussed on brand earlier and leaned into the authenticity of the company story
- Scaling attracts more investment
26.30 What are the key areas of growth that you found when building teams you’ve scaled?
- Challenge is to find people that really understand your audience
30.28 What one thing could you recommend a CEO or Founder going from a startup to scaleup?
- Differentiate your investor pitch to your Total Addressable Market (TAM)
- Don’t confuse your ICP with your TAM