He raised $1.5M, hit $400K ARR in 9 months— but had to Exit Early. Here’s the top 3 lessons he learned | Rob Palumbo, Co-Founder of Outpoint
Description
Rob founded Outpoint in 2020 to help marketers optimize their ad spend. He was a growth marketer and his founder a data scientist. He had team-market fit, a solid thesis, and paying customers. But when the recession hit and ad spend dropped, growth ground to a halt. Nothing he did could revitalize growth. Ultimately, he decreased expenses and exited. He was able to return some cash to investors, find a home for his team and keep the product going.
You tend to hear about what happens to the best 1% of startups. Here’s what tends to happen to the other 99%.
Keywords
Outpoint, product market fit, startup journey, acquisition, growth marketing, venture capital, business strategy, lessons learned, entrepreneurship, market dynamics
Why you should listen
- Why a great team and thesis won’t always lead to success
- How things out of your control can completely change your trajectory
- Why you should build something that works in both up and down markets
- How to find an acquisition when things aren’t going well.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00 ) Intro
(00:01:13 ) The origin of Outpoint
(00:04:40 ) Medium Mixed Modeling
(00:10:12 ) Speaking to Customers When their Revenue is Declining
(00:14:49 ) Outpoint's Runway in 2022
(00:19:21 ) Hunting to be Acquired
(00:26:07 ) Lessons Learned
(00:28:53 ) Almost Finding Product Market Fit
(00:30:23 ) Planning a Startup vs the Serendipity of Staring One
(00:34:30 ) Closing Thoughts
United States
