Problematic child
problematic parent. If your customers are churning, here are two tips from Gokul Rajaram to understand why this is happening.
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Gone are the days when you were sizing the market and building your MVP with your dev gang. Now you have customers on board. 😎
You've created the elixir that solves their problems. Not just a regular vitamin supply like those other competitors, of course not. Yours is the sweet cure, blessed by the Virgencita.
Suddenly, some customers start to churn.
That's normal – you think.
My child is completely fine – you emphasize, while your child starts reaching a 5% monthly churn rate
There's no reason to panic – right? Riiiight? 😰
You fall into the shadows. Can't see the way out (we're getting dramatic but follow along.)
In his wisdom and omnipotence, Gokul Rajaram, known for his work at Google, Square, and DoorDash, and a world-class operator for SMBs and vertical SaaS, extends his hands to you and whispers:
Reach out to your customers and find out what the problem is.
You see the light, all is going to be ok 🧘… -ish?
Perhaps. Are your customers able to articulate what the problem actually is?
"I churned because the UX is not UXing" is an answer you won't receive.
Luckily for you, Gokul is a long-time bestie of ours, and he gave a private talk to Latitud Ventures Portfolio Startups a few weeks ago.
Questions about churn were made, and Gokul gracefully answered them – pretty cool to watch his brain in action, if we may add.
Here are two nuggets from Gokul's wide experience to help you in the churn department:
Interview your customers, but at the right time
A good practice for product development is to talk to your customers constantly as a way to identify and address potential churn risks.
And you don't even need to do it at scale!
Did you onboard a new customer? Reach out within the first 15 days to see how they are doing and offer any support.
3 months in of using your product, proactively email them or send them a WhatsApp to see how their experience's going.
Did they decide to stop working with you? Ask for a 1:1 offboarding call to understand the problems within their experience.
🍀 Excellent support and a commitment to customer success can significantly improve retention rates by identifying churn risks along the way.
Understand the problem, but in the right way
Let's say you hop into a call with an unengaged customer: what is your plan for getting your answers?
To get them to articulate the problem, first, you gotta ask for the story around the problem. That's an easier and more organic way for the customer to speak their truth.
For example: Tell me about the last time you [fill out the need your solution is solving] for your company. Like, the last time you [ran an expense report.]
They will remember that, and while they tell you the story ask them the questions you need to know.
Why did you use that service for?
How did you get to that page/feature?
Did it take a lot of time from you? Was it painful to get what you needed?
But be wide awake to use their narrative to dive deeper and unpack the specific issues within the experience the customer is having.
🍀 Conduct in-depth customer interviews, observe their behaviors, and gather stories to uncover their true pain points. That way, you can build features that drive meaningful changes in your customer's behavior and deliver tangible value.
Gratitud to Gokul Rajaram for his immense support to the startup ecosystem worldwide, and for joining us, pushing us to innovate and test every hypothesis we have. 💙
Gokul is just one of the experts our portfolio startups have access to when speed-running their path from 0 to 1. These founders walk through this journey alongside the Latitud Ventures team and a vetted community of other top emerging founders across LatAm.
Thinking our paths might meet in the middle?
Navigating Corporate Transparency
The US has put in place a new law called the Corporate Transparency Act to combat financial crimes, and over thirty-two million businesses are subject to it.
If you've incorporated in the United States 🇺🇸 or plan to in the future, your startup will be impacted. But don't worry, we gotchoo!
Join us for a live webinar with Carta on April 4th 🕑 to learn:
What the new rules are
What beneficial ownership means
How and when to file this disclosure
Hot News Ahoy! ⛵
✈️ From empanadas to tacos
Takenos, an Argentinian fintech that provides financial solutions for workers receiving money from abroad, announced its expansion to Mexico! The goal is to acquire at least 80,000 users by EOY.
🚌 Lease me your way up
Leasy, a Peruvian Fintech that offers financing to ride-hailing drivers in Latin America, raised a US$28M Series A round in equity and debt. The round was led by Magma Partners with the participation of Entangle Group, DeBa Ventures, Noa Capital, and Grupo CAPEM.
🎓 Major dropout
The Thiel Foundation has unveiled the 2024 class of Thiel Fellows. Hyperplane, a Latitud Ventures portfolio company, announced that co-founder Felipe Meneses is the first Brazilian to be part of this distinguished group. The initiative, set up by Paypal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel in 2011, has been giving out US$100k to people to skip college and start a company. Congrats, Felipe! 🎉