CHURN FM

Today on CHURN.FM we have Tina Todorovic, co-founder of Social Web Suite, a social media management platform for WordPress sites.We chatted about why Social Web Suite built a product focused on WordPress and how they scratched their own itch in the process.We also discussed the authentic process that Tina took to collect user feedback during their beta period and the tools she used to do so.Tina also shared how they managed to reduce 80% of their support requests and increase retention using clear website copy and targeted contextual instructional videos.I  spoke to Tina today who is at a much earlier stage than all our previous guests and I’m interested to hear if you think I should be speaking to more early-stage startups. If you have any feedback I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fmEnjoy the episode!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Today on churn.fm we have Stephen Levin, currently working on special projects for the CEO of Zapier and the owner of Think Analytically.We chatted about why churn is not a metric that should be measured with one number, the difference between customer, user and revenue churn and when to use the three.We also discussed the mistakes startups make when measuring churn, how contract length impacts retention, and why tracking cohorts is critical when measuring churn.Stephen also shared how to track the impact of changes your company makes to processes and product on churn, how to determine the input metrics that impact churn, and the power of integrations when it comes to increasing customer retention.I’m excited to hear what you think of this episode and if you have any feedback I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fmEnjoy the episode!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Today on CHURN.FM we have David Skok, a four-time founder, investor, and author of the blog For Entrepreneurs. We chatted about how David evaluates startups to invest in, the definition of product market fit, and what he looks for after it.We also discussed the importance of churn and retention in the investment evaluation process, the key characteristics that companies with great retention share, and the power of negative churn.David also shared what a healthy LTV to CAC ratio should be, why the time to recover CAC is critical, and what attracted him to SaaS, to begin with.I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too! Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Today on CHURN.FM we have April Dunford, a product positioning consultant and author of Obviously Awesome. April helps startups position their products so that their customers get it, buy it, and love it.We chatted about the definition of positioning and what it is and isn’t.We also discussed how positioning impacts customer churn and the common mistakes startups make when positioning their products.April also shared the 3 styles of positioning your product in a market, how positioning feeds your messaging, and how you can tell when you have a positioning problem.I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too! Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

In today's episode of CHURN.FM we have Dennis Kayser the Founder and CEO of Forecast. Forecast helps project-based companies automate operations, empower people and leverage insights to drive business performance and client success. Their goal is to eliminate all manual processes of resource & project management by using Artificial Intelligence to setup and manage projects automatically.We chatted about why retention is Forecast’s biggest lever for growth with 80- 90% of new users coming from organic sources.We also discussed how to set up a churn prediction model, what variables to include in a lead scoring model and how to use your ideal customer personas in your lead scoring and churn prediction models.Dennis also shared the quantitative measures you can take to flesh out your ideal customer personas and how transitioning from a startup to scale up impacts your personas.I hope you enjoy this episode!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Today on the show we have Andrus Purde the Founder of Outfunnel. Outfunnel is a sales-centric marketing automation tool that tightly integrates with modern CRM’s like Pipedrive. You can automate email marketing campaigns, track email and website behavior from click to conversion and get useful insights for your business.We chatted about the customer development process that took Andrus from idea to Outfunnel and how he created structured data from the in-person interviews.We also discussed the role of user acquisition on churn and how you can’t do acquisition well without understanding the impacts on LTV.Andrus also shared the attribution model used at Pipedrive that unlocked insights on their best-performing channels and campaigns by customer lifetime value.I hope you enjoy this episode!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

In today's episode of churn.fm, we have Patrick Campbell the Founder of Profitwell. ProfitWell provides free subscription metrics software to help you identify opportunities and then tools to help you reduce churn, optimize pricing, and grow your subscription business end-to-end.We chatted about how Profitwell added a services layer on top of their software business that decreased churn and increased their customer lifetime value from $6,000 - $150,000.We also discussed what companies get wrong when tackling churn, the steps required to nail your pricing strategy, the importance of value-based pricing and what your value metric should look like. Patrick also shared what he would do to tackle churn when given the task starting at a new company.This episode was priceless, I hope you enjoy it!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Today on churn.fm we have Mike Fiorillo the Founder of Optimology and previously a Growth Product Manager and Head of Optimization at Invision. Invision is a digital product design platform powering the world’s best user experiences.We chatted about Mike’s experience at Invision and his journey transitioning from conversion rate optimisation to product growth when they realised they were hitting diminishing returns on the CRO experiments being run. We discussed how they calculated the sample size required for tests and the statistical significance, how they prioritised experiments to run, and their process of building context for these experiments through quantitative and qualitative research.We also discussed how testing mitigates opinions and how Invision accidentally increased retention by focusing on virality.I hope you enjoy this episode!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

In today's episode of churn.fm, we have Julie Hogan, VP of the Customer team at Drift - a conversational marketing platform.We chatted about Julie’s early days at both HubSpot and Drift and the challenges that come with building category-defining businesses. The impact that the stage of your business has on churn and retention, and the importance of focusing on your early adopters to convert them into lifelong customer evangelists.We also discussed the 3 sins of customer success, how drawing inspiration from businesses outside your industry can improve your processes, and the importance of focusing on leading indicators as opposed to the final score.Surprise, surprise this was a great conversation, enjoy the episode!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

In today’s episode, I chatted to Steli Efti, the CEO & Co-founder of Close. A cloud-based CRM software optimized to help salespeople close more deals.We talked about how Close aligns their sales, success, and company around long term retention. We also touched on how to build a predictable, repeatable, and scalable sales process, how to define your ideal customer persona, the biggest mistake sales teams make, and why building up your sales teams confidence will reduce churn by aligning their pitch with the value your company delivers.I hope you enjoy the show!Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.