My Startup is Flatlining, Here’s My Plan to Fix It

This past quarter was brutal. After a year of hypergrowth, we hit a major plateau, and it's honestly been really tough. But - it's also forced me to come up with new ideas to reignite our growth, and I'm feeling super fired up about what's to come.

In this video, I’ll walk you through how we got to this point, the key red flags we missed, and my plan to kickstart our growth again.

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Timestamps:
00:00 - Our Financial Update
04:16 - Our Current Situation
07:06 - Our Gameplan

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[mariia_milashenko]

You're amazing for being SO transparent and open-minded to share your true startup story

[TheOMightySchiff]

This is awesome, practical advice both in the corporate and startup world. Amazing that in 2024 content like this is free!

[SebastianMuriel]

I’ve always admired your transparency and always-learning attitude. Thanks for educating us along the way. Rooting for you + your team!!

[dylancampos]

Great timing LOL! I sent you an email the other day checking in on you & Stan because I hadn’t seen any recent content. Glad you’re back but sorry things have slowed down. This will be a great test of the times for Stan, you got this

[joshbailey]

Congrats on 100K!! So well deserved <33

[matthiasrossini]

Love this reflection, thanks for sharing John!

Once critical feedback point though: in the beginning you mention the leaky bucket/classic user churn analogy. But then in the end it sounds like your solution is to just increase the size of the faucet (and the bucket?) by increasing reach? Yes it helps to get out of your bubble, but wouldn't the more logical conclusion be to on one side invest more in growth marketing, but on the other side also work more on product retention loops & better user onboarding before you turn the faucet up even more?

[liiam]

I love the transparency and how you're just openly sharing what it's actually like to run a business. Keep it going

[MyNomDePlume]

Partially the economy. This is the worst period ever for my tech company founded in 1997.

[esheodincanal]

That level of transparency and storytelling easily deserves 500k subs

[champion]

please make more videos like the hiring on other things that business owners need to know to run a business 🙏🏾

[marwan_abdelrahman]

Amazing stuff! Love that you’re building in public and being very candid about updates

[inkmanworkshop]

Thank you so so so much for sharing your story and insights! Learning so much.

[ariobi]

LOVE THIS. Such a fun update! Very inspired by how you're building in public.

[joshgreenfield]

Thanks for the update Jay. Really insightful to hear about the company's incredible growth and story so far. It's a testament for how much value the product brings. Are you guys considering another raise based on the current burn rate?

[TheDentalRPh]

Hey Jay - really love your content. I can really resonate with the leaky bucket analogy. Something confused me in your video though...

Question: Isn't adding more marketing and increasing reach to your TAM just adding more water to your bucket?

I thought you might address more core components of STAN, not trying to increase your water flow. Just curious!

[Jzguan]

Yo Jay, waiting for your kpi, commission, compensation videos for teams in growing my biz ^^
cant wait. fans of store too =)

[stevejason]

Please just be careful when you are going to dump a lot of money into less proven channels. You have a profitable growing company, if it doesn't become that rocket ship, your investors don't make a 10x+, but who cares you are set for life. Be careful when you are jeopardizing that to grow at all costs.

[henrycollins]

Hey John! Absolutely loved the video, and best of luck with solving the churn issue. As I was watching I thought about insurance, because that’s probably the “subscription” type business model with the least churn. I don’t know how that could help, but thought I’d share nonetheless

[emmanuelorilade]

Awesome content as always. And congrats on 100k subs 🎉.

[nickhumph]

Hey this is really interesting! Having similar challenges with scale. Love the idea you have on driving signups with more influencers.
Hopefully you'll be to able to achieve a similar trial to paid conversion with that colder traffic. Good luck!