Sean Tepper bootstrapped Tykr for five years by obsessing over three metrics: visitor-to-trial conversion (he hit 4-5%, targeting 2%), trial-to-paid (40%, targeting 10-20%), and churn (2.9%, targeting 5-6%). With those numbers strong, any capital goes straight to marketing, where he measures every dollar spent.
Yeah. So I'm doing the opposite of most tech businesses out there in the world, which is I bootstrapped the first 5 years on my own. The reason is I wanted to dial in the 3 key metrics for SaaS. I'll keep this real quick, but you have visitor to trial, trial to paid, and churn. Visitor to trial for a SaaS, you want to be 2% or more. We're averaging close to 4%. Last month we were 5%. With the trial to paid, you want to be 10% is good for a SaaS. 20% is great. We're averaging 40%. And then churn, you want to be, I mentioned earlier, you want to be 5 or 6%. This is for B2B. SaaS or B2C like us, you can be a little higher. We're averaging less than 5, but the last 3 months we're averaging 2.9. So what that means is every dollar we raise, we don't have to throw it at ideas or salaries or high costs. We can put it all into marketing and advertising. So for example, I want to know if we put a dollar in, are we getting 3 back or 4 back or 5 back? That is the fun place to be with fundraising.
