What Works for Startups Like Yours?

Lead Crunch AI is an intelligent B2B demand generation platform founded by serial entrepreneur Olan Hyde that pivoted from a healthcare AI project to help mid-market companies find high-quality leads. Launched in September 2016, the company reached 90 lifetime customers with 55 active within 10 months, growing at 37% compound monthly rate with $200k in monthly bookings and $2M in trailing twelve-month revenue. The company operates on a hybrid subscription/on-demand model with 186% revenue expansion on customer rebookings.

First customers: Referral from venture capitalist met in Uber ride in San Francisco

ClaimCompass helps travelers automatically process flight disruption claims and receive compensation up to $700 per flight, taking a commission from successful cases. Founded in 2015 by Alexander Sumin and others, the company raised $200K from 500 Startups in October 2016 and grew 10x within months through aggressive paid advertising and a successful Product Hunt launch that generated 1,500 free leads.

First customers: Organic outreach through Facebook groups and message boards

Sulamon Ali founded Tiny Co in 2009 to create mobile games for the newly launched iPhone App Store. Their first game, Tap Resort, generated $500-600K in revenue in its first month through a partnership with mobile ad network Tapjoy. After raising $18M from Andreessen Horowitz (with Mark Andreessen joining the board), they scaled to $20M revenue in year one and $40M in year two, but hit a wall when Japanese mobile gaming competitors drove customer acquisition costs from $1 to $9, destroying their unit economics and leading to significant monthly losses.

First customers: Marketing partnership with Tapjoy (mobile ad network) that promoted their first game 'Tap Resort' into the top 5 free apps on iPhone App Store