In this episode of Startup Strategies, Juliana sits down with Stefan Bader, the founder who sold his parking data company to Continental, spent three years inside enterprise, then raised $8.3M for Cello after watching product-channel fit collapse across B2B. Stefan was at Continental post-acquisition when he realized he missed the messy zero-to-one chaos, so he co-founded Cello and started tracking something most founders ignore until revenue charts cliff dive.
Stefan reveals the brutal reality that customer acquisition cost payback time has 5x'd in five years - companies now need five years to recover CAC instead of 12-18 months. He's running a bet with the former VP of Sales at Pezono about which channel collapses first, and his money's on cold calling.
This conversation reveals why the next wave of successful founders will design growth loops instead of funnels, own their distribution channels instead of renting them, and diversify before collapse forces their hand.
Stefan shares:
- Why CAC payback stretched from 12 months to 5 years
- How the #1 Google result just lost 79% of traffic to AI overviews
- Why Monday.com lost 50% market cap from SEO over-reliance
- The casual contact loop that turns integrations into free advertising
- How to leverage fundraising itself as customer acquisition
- Why the GTM 10 Awards went viral and accelerated core loops
- How to prepare for AI search optimization instead of dying SEO
- The bet on which acquisition channel collapses first
- And much more…
Let’s break down his Startup Strategies.
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