Diego B. Contezini

Brex is one of my favorite fintechs. Ever wonder what their journey from $0 to over $300M in revenue within 7 years looked like? 2017-2018: The Birth of Brex • Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, both 22-year-old Stanford dropouts, decided to flip the fintech world on its head by launching Brex, a corporate credit card tailored for startups. • With their co-CEO model (which has become popular), they doubled their management bandwidth. Internal & external duties? No problem when you have twice the number of CEOs to lead folks 2019-2020: Rapid growth • Brex quickly partnered with big names like DoorDash, Flexport, and Roblox. • In 2019, they secured $300 million in funding, catapulting their valuation to $2.6 billion. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you’re swimming in a pool of investor cash. 2021-2022: Diversification and challenges • Brex expanded its product suite to include expense management, bill pay, & travel booking services. If you’re going to burn through cash, you might as well make it convenient. • Despite their success, they faced some “minor” hiccups. Layoffs in 2022 were a delightful reminder that even fintech unicorns aren’t immune to cutting costs by cutting people. 2023: Strategic shifts • Transitioning to a single CEO model, Pedro took the helm while Henrique became chairman. Having two brains was slowing things down? • They continued to innovate, integrating AI into their platform. By the end of 2023, Brex hit over $300 million in revenue, proving that even with all the chaos, they were still making bank​. 2024: Path to profitability • With a goal of being cash-flow positive by 2025, Brex halved its cash burn by chopping 20% of its staff and focused on sustainable growth. Making money instead of burning it is always a sound strategy. • Serving 30K+ customers globally, Brex’s commitment to transparency & customer-centric solutions has kept them in the game. They’re not just participating – they’re rewriting the rules. Want to copy their homework? 1. Identify a significant pain point in an industry and create a solution that addresses it. Please don't start a business without doing this. 2. Utilize a strong co-founder dynamic to maximize efficiency & divide responsibilities effectively. Two heads are better than one, until they aren’t. 3. Secure early partnerships with influential companies to build credibility and a customer base. It’s always about who you know. 4. Listen to your customers. & Expand your product offerings to meet their evolving needs. 5. Maintain a strong focus on transparency & trust to build a loyal customer base. People surprisingly prefer not being lied to. 6. Strategically manage growth, and make tough decisions like layoffs when necessary to ensure long-term sustainability. 7. If you want to go public, be profitable. Did I miss anything?

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VCs don't want you if you're not throwing tons of 💸💸💸 at outbound marketing... 😮 From Matheus Darós Pagani's experience, this is why taking Venture dollars was not an option 🙅‍♂️ As an offshore development shop (located in Brazil), he experienced first-hand how cold email was a money pit 😣 Too many of his ideal clients were resistant to accepting software development labor from an offshore team that they'd never met. What did he do? He focused his marketing on building relationships and taking an organic approach to growth. Was it slow-going? Yes. But it has proven more successful than when he was pursuing cold email campaigns. Is this unique to offshore dev agencies? Is this true for all dev shops? I'd love to hear your thoughts below! 👇 _____________________________ Are you a software development agency looking for a little guidance on your journey to growth? Subscribe to the Dev Launch podcast! We interview software dev agency owners as they share their startup journey and what they're learning in the process. This isn't some generic entrepreneurial podcast with "rah rah" advice - we're talking about specific industry challenges. Find us on YouTube and Spotify. We are changing things up in the format as we launch into Season 2, so stay tuned!

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This is insane! Brazil's FinTech giant Nubank just posted another massive quarter. The growth & numbers NU is showing are out of this world and make it one of the best-run tech companies in the world 😳 Key facts and figures from Nubank's 1Q 2024 earnings: 👥 100 million customers globally (+26% Year-over-Year) 🌍 It's now the largest digital banking platform outside of Asia 🇧🇷 54% of the adult population of Brazil now uses Nubank 🇧🇷 It's now the 4th largest financial institution in Latin America 💰 $24.3 billion worth of deposits (+53% YoY) 💸 $2.7 billion in revenues (+64% YoY) 🤑 $378 million in profit (+160% YoY) What's also wild is that their average customer is now using more than 4 products 😳 But here comes the crazy part. NU's customer acquisition costs is something we have not seen before. Due to customer-friendly, low-cost products, #Nubank has a high NPS of around 90. Even a popular brand like Apple only has an NPS of 72, and banks are often in negative territory. That's why Nubank, to date, still acquires ~80% of its new customers cost-effectively through recommendations and word-of-mouth 😮‍💨 On top of that, despite serving more than 100 million customers, its monthly average cost per active customer remains below $1 🤯 This coupled with a stunning efficiency ratio of ~32% makes Nubank not only one of the best digital banks globally. It's probably the best-run tech company on the planet right now. Remarkable.

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🚀 Lago <> Stripe Integration: Your top questions answered here! 🚀 We often get asked about our native integration with Stripe. Here are the top questions from our open source community: 1. How does Lago integrate with Stripe? 2. Should I define my products, prices, and subscriptions in Stripe if they’re already in Lago? 3. Do I need Stripe Billing if I use Lago Billing? 4. Are payments and refunds triggered automatically? 5. How do you generate checkout URLs? We've got you covered! Find all the answers about our seamless Lago <> Stripe Payments integration right here. 💡

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Nubank is larger than Coinbase, Robinhood, Affirm, and SoFi combined, has more customers than Bank of America (while only operating in three countries in Latin America), and 80% to 90% of its growth comes through word of mouth because of the way they make customers fanatical about their product. Jag Duggal is chief product officer at Nubank, and in our conversation, we dig into: 🔸 How Nubank creates fanatical users 🔸 Measuring love through the Sean Ellis score 🔸 Tactics for driving word-of-mouth growth 🔸 The role of category design in creating successful products 🔸 Why companies should strive to be “fundamentally different,” not “incrementally better” 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gFsQZCSU - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gyj3Tvbk - Apple: https://lnkd.in/gx2wmjzt Some key takeaways: 1. The “Sean Ellis score” is a key element of how Nubank measures product-market fit and makes decisions about investing in new products. The score is based on asking customers, “How disappointed would you be if this product went away?” The answer options are: a. Very disappointed b. Somewhat disappointed c. Not disappointed d. I no longer use this product 2. A few of your strongest customers can teach you more than many of your weaker ones. Your strongest customers are generally your most engaged users, deriving the most value from your product. If you use the Sean Ellis question, your strongest customers will be those with the highest scores. Try to learn: what characteristics make them a better fit for your product? What can they teach you about the value of your product? 3. The best user research technique is often to just pick up the phone and call 10 customers. You don’t need a research plan, a research lead, someone to summarize results, etc. Those things just add distance between you and the customer and overhead that slows research down. If you have a direct line to the customer instead, you’ll often find that it only takes five conversations before you gain strong, reliable insights. 4. Your strategy doesn’t have to be “right,” but it does have to be clear. A clear strategy allows you to identify when things are off course, because it defines “what was supposed to be happening.” Aspirations or vague statements like “to re-invent banking” are not clear strategies. Clear strategies are detailed plans centered on specific problems, solutions, customers, and strengths. 5. Jag lives and breathes the motto “We’re in the business of being fundamentally different, not incrementally better.” In competitive markets, merely improving incrementally on existing solutions isn’t enough. Strive to be fundamentally different by reinventing or creating new categories. This approach not only sets you apart from competitors but can also redefine the industry standards.

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105 comentários

First Round Capital's 4 Levels framework is one of the most detailed and coherent guides on product-market fit (PMF) for B2B software businesses. And while this guide is geared towards venture-backed businesses, I've seen a lot of parallels within the bootstrapped community. Specifically, there's a version of the Level 3 PMF described here that bootstrapped companies hit where they begin to really start to seriously consider whether or not they should take outside help and/or investment. Usually these businesses are $1M+ in ARR, have team of ~5+ (usually more, and not incl. contractors), and have had a history of pretty healthy growth until the past 6-12 months. To echo some of the yellow flags mentioned in the guide, these businesses are now facing: - Inbound channels that are starting to stall. Referrals and word of mouth have started to plateau - Outbound efforts that have yielded little to no success, and have rendered the founders a bit gun shy on continued investment in these channels - A leaky bucket where unwanted/regretted churn is starting to tick up and competition is starting to get fiercer - Growth is starting to show signs of significantly slowing for the first time - Inexperience and/or a reluctance to orient the business towards larger enterprise opportunities, despite having some large logos or contracts It's completely understandable why founders would look externally for help at this point. The business has gotten farther than they probably initially imagined, but what got them to this point won't get them to the next step. At Polychrome, we've identified this point as our most preferred entry point into a business. Our expertise lies in partnering with and working alongside technical founders who've built a great business, but lack the GTM experience to take their bootstrapped business to that Level 4, Extreme PMF. If what I've shared above describes your business, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'd love to learn more and see if we can work together to help re-accelerate your company! https://lnkd.in/giKJ4Vfi

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The best way to understand if your company has PMF…

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Assessing the Culprits: iFood, Government Taxes, or Labor Laws? Which has the most significant negative influence on the financial health of ghost kitchens? iFood's Role: iFood charges a commission that can be as high as 40% on orders, if you account for all the extra marketing plugins you add to leverage sales inside the platform. Data from Inca Sushi: Initial Revenue: 30,000 BRL/month iFood Commission (40%): 12,000 BRL Revenue Post-Commission: 18,000 BRL The commission directly reduces the kitchen's operational income, which is a critical factor in covering fixed and variable costs. The steep commission rate forces kitchens to increase prices, which can reduce competitiveness and customer demand. Calculations: If iFood were to reduce its commission to 15%: iFood Commission (15%): 4,500 BRL Revenue Post-New Commission: 25,500 BRL Increase in Monthly Revenue: 7,500 BRL This change could potentially transform a kitchen's financial scenario from barely breaking even to achieving a comfortable profit margin. The Role of Government Tax Policies Taxes are levied on various fronts: revenue income, the upcoming VAT with the new tax reform, and payroll which can collectively eat into the ghost kitchen's profits. The burden can be significant, especially when taxes are applied to gross income rather than net income. Suppose the government provides a tax incentive, such as a 10% reduction in tax liability: Original Tax Liability (Estimated 4% on Gross): 1,200 BRL/month Reduced Tax Liability with Incentive: 1,080 BRL/month Annual Savings from Tax Incentive: 1,440 BRL While helpful, the savings from tax incentives are relatively modest compared to the direct costs imposed by iFood's commissions. The Constraints of Labor Legislation Brazil's labor laws are designed to protect employees, ensuring severance pay, mandatory benefits, and strict termination penalties. These regulations can make labor costs one of the most inflexible and challenging expenses to manage, especially for businesses experiencing fluctuating demand. If labor law reforms reduce the severance penalties by 50%, the savings could be substantial: Cost per Employee Turnover (Current): 3,900 BRL (including severance, vacation payout, etc.) Reduced Cost with Reform: 1,950 BRL Annual Savings for Four Employees Turned Over Once: 7,800 BRL Though significant, these savings are still less impactful compared to the potential increase in revenue from reduced iFood commissions. Identifying the Biggest Villain While all three factors significantly impact the profitability of ghost kitchens, iFood's high commission rates emerge as the most substantial immediate financial drain, directly slicing into revenue before any other costs are considered. Reductions in these commissions could immediately and significantly boost profitability, more so than changes in tax policies or labor laws. #ifood #clt #govbr

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Here is a market research for your next product idea. Verticals at which VCs want to throw their wallets. https://lnkd.in/d_EhqYcU It’s not a secret yet for some reason YC doesn’t get enough submissions in these domains. There’a at least 1 good idea I’ve got from reading this - Programming Language (or framework or fork) for New Space domain. There are some lessons to take from SpaceX approach to development and how they handle system recovery. Having this baked into language with set of testing tools to stress test the system is something that is needed to make programming for New Space more approachable. You could license tools on top of that. Do you have any other ideas? #vc #money #ycombinator #programming #spacex #newspace #startup

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In the end, everything will be alright. MMM: Monday Morning Meditation 05202024 Brazilian writer Fernando Sabino: “In the end, everything will be alright. If everything is not alright, it's not yet the end.” We proceed through life with highs and lows, trials and exultations. And with ever-diminishing bandwidth (aka focus or attention), we are susceptible to spikes in stress load. 🫨 Many times due to factors beyond our control or without direct connection to our world. Meditate on the choice we are given between acknowledgment and fear. 😧 Acknowledging the narrow fairways, or multiple breaks in the greens is respect, humility, inspiration even to get and stay dialed in. Fear prompts the flight mechanism, or invokes the fight in you. Either way eliciting a reaction that diverts our attention off course…and into the woods, the water and the showers without making the weekend cut. 🧗 Acknowledgment is preparation. 🚷 Fear is immobilization. We have the chance to choose either whether experiencing a blunt force or repeated low-dosage. Market gyrations. War. Passive-aggression. Leading the PGA field wire-to-wire. 🏌🏽‍♂️ True champions rally. True champions overcome adversity, injury, hardship, distraction. It is the will of the Victor to dig deep and find one more ounce of effort to punch thru to the finish. And in that moment - total clarity. 🔔 Clarity of the fortitude exhibited to persevere thru challenges. 🔔 Clarity of the support given by others to pick you up, dust you off, and encourage you to try again. 🔔 Clarity of the root - if any - to remove permanently from the garden. 🔔 Clarity of how it all fits together - as it always does. In the end. Stay in the race. 🐎 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 🚩 Connect to discuss this or any other opportunity for you to level up your professional clarity & performance. #acknowledgement #respect #professionaldevelopment #grit #successhabits #mindset / PALIO, Inc.

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Most Pioneer Fund companies send monthly updates (some quarterly), and we read every update across the portfolio of 500+ companies. I actually still personally read every update. Most startups send updates with these sections, and it works well: - High level metrics (revenue, maybe another key metric or two like GMV or MAU, growth since last month, cash in bank, burn rate, runway). Many of the most consistently-growing or fastest-growing companies also include a revenue graph. - Highlights - Lowlights - Investor asks - Maybe a couple investor shoutouts from last month - Some short commentary on what the current priorities are, what's coming next, etc. Some founders like to include a special section or two. A few of my favorites: - Photos or videos of technical progress for hardware companies - One of our founders sends a self rating on a scale of 0-10 for the month, along with detailed explanation. Pretty impressive. - A zoomed out view of how the mission/vision/strategy is specifically evolving - Some have very detailed additional sections that are specific to their business. E.g. manufacturing updates, distribution updates, regulatory updates, etc. Each investor update may only take a few minutes to read, but they are the summary of the hard work of an entire team for an entire month, often fighting uphill or sprinting downhill or exploring the idea maze. We're always grateful reading them.

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Hey @Elon Musk and @Joaquin Teixeira, Globo’s valuation here! We just ran a valuation based on Globo’s 11 years historical financial figures. And their 2023’s just went out of the oven today, you probably won’t find this analysis anywhere else in the world :) Disclaimer: Klooks is the leading provider of private companies’ financials in Brazil with clients such as S&P Global (Capital IQ), Moody’s Analytics, London Stock Exchange Group and others. All data in this post was taken from public documents filed by the reference company. On the 21st of April 2024 (yesterday) Elon Musk replied Joaquin Teixeira’s post (a right wing comedian) asking what would be Globo’s price (Twitter post thread with my comment here: https://shorturl.at/lnHOY please like and comment to help us getting attention!!). Well, Globo is a private company and since Klooks is the largest database of private companies’ financials in Brazil, I thought we were in a good position to give an idea to fellow Elon. So, to analyze it, first things first. Please welcome Globo’s historical 11 years financial reports in PDF in this link: bit.ly/globofin. I added a summary as an image here in this post, as you might be able to see below. We could make a quick EBITDA multiple based in their 2023 figures. They had BRL 1 billion EBITDA and, according to Klooks M&A monitoring, Brazilian private markets have been trading at around 5,2x EV/EBITDA, I could say quite comfortably their enterprise value based in 2023 figures would be somewhere between BRL 5-10 billions (and since they have a negative net debt, equity value would go to 12-17 billions BRL - roughly USD 2.4 - 3.4 billions). But I think the key question here is “what is an appropriate EBITDA projection for Globo?”. Would that be 2023’s 1 billion or 2014’s 4,4 billions (what would take Globo’s price to somewhere between 6 and 10 billions of dollars). What is more likely to happen in the following years? Based in Globo’s financial figures, there is a hypothesis that its EBITDA might be correlated to government administrations (during Bolsonaro's their results were much lower). Could 2023 be the start of an EBITDA revamp? Hard to say. The media market has changed drastically since 2014 with an expansion of streaming services and advancements in social media. We understand that government can help but might not be that decisive, so 2023's basis is probably more realistic than 2014's. Anyway, they managed to have positive EBITDA in almost every year of the time series. Apparently, it is quite a good cash cow. I think it might be an investment to consider, particularly with a significant earnout component. And you could buy Klooks too, the bundle is surely much cheaper than Twitter 😂 (Sorry I didn’t run a full DCF, I’ve got to get my kid at school now! I will keep you posted if I make it) Ricardo Amorim, Fernando Nakagawa, Raquel Landim, Caio Junqueira, Bruno Carazza, Bruno Rosa, Luiz Guilherme Gerbelli

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Stripe's decoupling of their value-added services from payment processing is commendable. Clayton Christensen would tell you: “When there is a performance gap — when product functionality and reliability are not yet good enough to address the needs of customers in a given tier of the market — companies must compete by making the best possible products. In the race to do this, firms that build their products around proprietary, interdependent architectures enjoy an important competitive advantage against competitors whose product architectures are modular, because the standardization inherent in modularity takes too many degrees of design freedom away from engineers, and they cannot not optimize performance.” Digital payments had significant performance gaps and both Stripe and Adyen saw this and approached it with a similar mindset back when they launched 10 + years ago. But a lot has happened in 10 years to close that performance gap. Again, from Christensen: “Once their requirements for functionality and reliability have been met, customers begin to redefine what is not good enough. What becomes not good enough is that customers can’t get exactly what they want exactly when they need it, as conveniently as possible. Customers become willing to pay premium prices for improved performance along this new trajectory of innovation in speed, convenience, and customization.” At Spreedly, we saw this change occur somewhere between 2017 - 2018. We went from a fringe idea (why would you want to work with multiple providers?) to hearing “Even the best provider places restraint on our product roadmap and growth. We need to build in flexibility from the get-go/now" I’m sure Stripe has known this for the last couple of years. This would be a gigantic engineering task to make happen though - a very impressive accomplishment. For existing PSPs and payment platforms like Spreedly that have always had an open platform mindset, this is excellent validation via a major market participant. And for merchants, there is more choice than ever when building the ultimate payment stack.

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I'm building a company in public. Here is where we are: Tecna was built to create amazing tooling for managers of teams. Your everyday place for everything about managing teams. Mistakes: Going too broad - Going for everything with limited resources makes all of it half-assed = pain points are difficult to communicate. Misplaced product - HR has responsibility for parts of the things we solve, and team managers has for other parts. This means none of them can make a buying decision without the other department = COMPLEX sales processes. Integrations - One key element is to integrate with existing tools and workflows. The cost of getting a new system is just too big if it's a completely standalone product. Value - It was built as a - Gather everything here. But the value of actually doing so was too low. Now what? - We have removed a lot of features to make it clear what we do. - We are moving from a "gather your stuff here" mentality to "Let us help you gather data, and give you valuable insights from it" mentality. How? The upcoming weeks we're releasing features that let you get data from your team members where the system help you extract actionable insights. We're also integrating our system to your favorite tools. I believe this is a key feature. Why? Now you get something from Tecna that you can't get elsewhere, and it continuously tracks your data without you doing anything = Preventing A players leaving while making sure your team is focusing on the right thing. Will update after feature release and let you know the impact! We're looking for 2 more managers that want to try this on their teams. DM me if you want to explore the Beta when we release it. -- 👋 I'm Robin. I don't know what I'm doing. Follow me to see me building a startup in public.

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If your SaaS *still* processes subscription cancelations manually, I... don't know what to tell you. Most startups are built for scale. The administrative cost of having someone follow up with every customer and process their cancelation manually? It adds up. Fast. Moreover, many cancelations happen near the date of renewal. Meaning, once your startups experiences moderate growth, you'll find yourself refunding payments to upset customers who were charged for an extra term... ... unless, that is, you hire a full-time person to deal with this. This begs the question: is this what you had in mind when you first launched your startup? There are better ways to deal with Active Churn — ways that don't add five figures to your payroll, ways that aren't cumbersome and frustrating for customers, ways that are proven to increase retention by up to 39% *without* more than a few lines of code. Curious to see how it looks? Comment here (or shoot me a DM) and I'd be happy to give you a demo! #b2b #saas #churn #startups #revenuegrowth

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I worked at a startup where our NPS dropped down to -53. 😱 For people not familiar with this customer satisfaction metric, -53 is code for “I’m not disappointed, I’m vitriolic.” We had to do something, fast. When I first sounded the alarm, our founders brushed me off. The loudest voices are the angriest ones, right? So we polled over 400 customers. The results? Our NPS was -51. I pulled quotes and stories to demonstrate some hard truths: Customers loved one aspect of our offering – but felt everything else fell short ➡ We weren’t delivering on the promises we made in sales ➡ Customers were waiting a week to hear from customer support when they needed urgent help ➡ Our customers told us everything we needed to know. We kicked off a 6-week sprint and... ↗ Imagined a new service model that leaned into what was working ↗ Reworked our sales pitch ↗ Fixed problems with our CRM related to responsiveness issues ↗ Rebuilt our reputation by working hard to get positive reviews from happy customers We didn’t solve all of our problems overnight – or even in 6 weeks. But listening to our customers led us on a path to develop a new technology that met our customers needs without a heavy burden on Customers Service, and was acquired for 7-figures. If you're a founder or leader in Consumer Tech or Services business who needs to get more connected to your customers (both lost and won), how they feel about your business, or how to build referrals and positive reviews through feedback loops – I will happily obsess over your customers for you. 📩 DMs are open.

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Companies: “We have a conversion problem” Plus, they also have: - One payment method (Card entry). - A non branded payment page. - No early payment options. They then question: - Why drop off rates increase. - Why customers hesitate. - Why confidence fades at checkout. Stop thinking one size fits all. And start investing in user experience and payment flexibility. ----------------------- Ps. The success rate of your conversion depends on how well you understand your customers needs and their buying behaviour.

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How to Calculate Terminal ARR For Startups With A Simple Formula, now on Crunchbase. Hope founders & investors will find this useful! :)

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I recently sat down with Joaquim Lecha, CEO of Typeform, to learn about the GTM motions that helped Typeform at different stages of their growth journey to $80m+ ARR. Their first engine was PLG, but as they grew, they had to layer in additional engines to keep velocity going. These interviews, which look at each stage of a SaaS brand's growth and what worked at those different points in time, are delivered monthly through ActiveCampaign’s new newsletter, SaaS Steps. Here is a sneak peak of Typeform’s second engine they added at $20-80m ARR… The team focused on building go-to-market (GTM) motions that satisfied three criteria: 1) Must be scalable 2) Fast feedback loops (no waiting months to see if things work) 3) Under 12 month payback period With this model in mind, they doubled down on:  🔍  Google Search Ads: Because there was so much demand for words like “forms”, “surveys”, and “lead generation”, Typeform began bidding for these words to capture the demand. They used a blend of branded and non-branded keyword tactics but focused on capturing demand via non-branded keywords. Using machine learning, they optimized the bidding process. 💰 Pricing adjustments: With the space becoming increasingly competitive, Typeform continued to evolve with differentiating capabilities and began to adapt its pricing strategy to better represent the value they were delivering for different customer types. 🚀 Upmarket infrastructure: To service more mid-market or enterprise customers, Typeform invested in the compliance and infrastructure changes needed to facilitate this (HIPAA, ISO 2700, SSO, etc). During this stage, Typeform grew rapidly from 45,000 customers to more than 125,000 customers, and from 200 million submissions to more than 500 million submissions annually. To see the rest of Typeform’s growth journey, opt-in to SaaS Steps and receive the Typeform story immediately.

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