Leore + Lob: Aim for a lofty goal
Updated: Aug 4, 2021
I heard in passing Leore talk about his goals for Lob.
Getting to IPO by 2024.
Hitting $100M ARR and making some aspects of revenue consistent.
Owning 10%+ of the company at IPO, ie, a revenue focus.
It made me dig some more into the back story. Some high points:
Founded by Leore Avidar, Harry Zhang (Go blue!) in 2013.
Leore was a tech PM previously at AWS (studies Bezos) and a derivatives trader at Citi.
Aha came when it would take 60-90 days for a physical mail campaign, but 60-90 mins for an email campaign.
Builds RESTful APIs for developers to send physical mail.
"Saas+" model, ie, monthly recurring + metered pricing (~$0.40/mail)
As of July 2019
Employees: 83
Total funding: $25M
ARR: $40M
ARR breakdown: 5k customers on self serve plan at $180 ACV (long tail of developers). 600 customers at $50K ACV (going up to $4M ACV).
CAC: $13K
PBP: 4 months ($50K/ $13K)
Net cash flow: -$400K/mo to +$400k/mo
Runway: 5yrs
Growth: 2x- 3x/ yr
Retention: 98% (for legal compliance mail), 80% (for marketing mail)
$ expansion: 140%, ie, someone who spent $1 last year will spend $1.40 this year.
Net revenue retention: 120% (140% expansion - 20% churn)
As of July 2021:
Employees: 294
Total funding: $82.3M
Real customer: after 3 months of usage
First customers: From 'backyard'. YC community. HN brought in Oscar Insurance and a few other enterprises. Hustled their way into Microsoft since Harry worked there.
Growth levers: SEO, tradeshows, webinars and dinners. Topic: "Innovation in direct mail".
Goals before going public: $100M+ ARR. Higher quality revenue, ie, less volatility in some aspects of the business.
General goals:
Build a large company. So preference for attracting more capital rather than buying out existing shareholders
Hover around profitability (assuming like Amzn since he's a fan)
Journey, culture and people