Mention

Mention started in 2013 as one of the startups built by eFounders, a startup studio that launched three to four companies a year. Matt Vaxillaire, who had a finance background and had worked in entrepreneurship at the studio, helped build it before the team decided to spin it out. The product is positioned as Google Alert on steroids: it lets any company see what is being said about its brand, competitors, and products in real time.

The company raised about $500,000 very early on, and has not raised money since. It is a subscription business with two main segments. SME customers pay on average about $60 a month, while mid-market customers pay about $400 a month, with the mid-market offer launched later. Free users can track one keyword and get up to 250 mentions a month. Paid upgrades are driven by seat counts for collaboration and by features such as the influencer dashboard and analytics, which are not available on the free plan.

The mid-market business is sold through inside sales, while the SME business is no-touch and driven by marketing. Agencies use the product as well. Ogilvy, for example, uses Mention to track campaigns it runs for its own clients. Other customers rely more on the influencer detection tool to find people who already talk about their brand or should be talking about it.

Mention's acquisition engine is mostly organic. Each month about 10,000 people sign up regardless of marketing action, which Matt attributes to the product itself and to people talking about Mention. Paid spend is small, between $5 and $10 per month, mostly on Google, with tests on G2 Crowd and early experiments with other platforms. The company has also moved away from open blog content toward gated content such as landing pages and ebooks that generate leads for salespeople, rather than driving free trials.

The retention numbers were the standout. SME customers see roughly 2% to 3% gross MRR churn per month. Mid-market churn is much lower and close to zero or even negative on a net basis, though the cohort has only about one month of history. The CEO said he would pay up to $1,000 to acquire a mid-market customer, with payback in roughly two to three months. Early G2 Crowd results were not encouraging.

Mention has more than 600,000 users and more than 4,000 paying customers. The host estimated at least $240,000 in monthly revenue from 4,000 customers at $60 a month, and the CEO confirmed that as a minimum. The team has 45 people, with 30 in Paris, 10 in New York, and 5 remote. Mention was preparing a 2017 fundraise to double revenue, with a stated goal of reaching around $800,000 in monthly revenue by December of that year.