Shorthand

Graham Wood, an Australian investor with a passion for independent journalism, founded Shorthand in 2013. He had backed numerous publishing projects and recognized a critical market gap: news organizations and major brands were forced to hire expensive internal development teams to create interactive, multimedia-rich stories on a case-by-case basis. The process was time-consuming, costly, and not repeatable. Shorthand was designed to democratize this capability, reducing both time and cost by more than 10x in many cases.

The company incorporated in 2013 but didn't launch a product until 2014. Graham backed the venture with 3 million Australian dollars (approximately $2.5 million USD), which funded initial development and operations. The first two founders eventually departed—Graham wasn't satisfied with their progress—and Ricky Robinson joined as CEO in 2015, three years after the company's founding. Robinson wasn't a founder but became the driving force behind the company's scaling and growth.

Shorthand's early growth came entirely organically. The company spent zero dollars on marketing, instead relying on a viral loop: customers created beautiful, interactive stories using Shorthand, published them on their websites, and included a Shorthand logo at the bottom. Readers who were impressed with the stories clicked through to the Shorthand website to learn how they were made. According to Robinson, 30-40% of early customers came through this mechanism, with the remaining traffic driven by organic search. Publishers like the BBC, Business Insider, and Refinery29 became early adopters, creating a trust signal that attracted larger enterprise customers.

Shorthand's original pricing model was based on per-story limits—$3,000 and $3,500 plans that allowed customers to create two stories and then move on. This drove rapid growth in new customer acquisition because the plans "sold by the bucket load." However, Robinson quickly discovered the fatal flaw: once customers created their two stories and exported them, they churned. This drove gross revenue churn to 2% per month, far worse than the sub-1% churn the company had previously experienced.

Robinson pivoted away from story-limited plans and moved to feature-based pricing. The company introduced a tiered model: basic plans for smaller customers, and high-end "export plans" starting at $24,000 for enterprises that needed to host stories on their own infrastructure. The average customer now pays $6,000 annually (on annual subscription terms, paid upfront). By removing the story-limited plans, churn improved significantly, though it remained elevated due to cohorts of customers purchased under the old pricing model that were now being asked to pay at the new, higher price point upon renewal.

The company's customer acquisition cost stood at $3,000 to bring on a new customer generating $6,000 in annual recurring revenue (or 50 cents per dollar of new ARR), with a payback period of approximately six months. Since annual plans are paid entirely upfront, the company achieved cash-flow-positive operations in the last Australian financial year.

As of the interview, Shorthand had grown to 250 customers generating approximately $125,000 in MRR ($1.5M ARR), representing 100% year-over-year growth from $60,000 MRR one year prior. The company operates with a team of 10 full-time employees distributed across New York, London, Brisbane (Australia), Japan, and Seattle. Europe remains the company's largest market, though the US is emerging as a major growth opportunity.

Shorthand has begun optimizing for SEO—a lever the company had virtually ignored until recently—and identified significant low-hanging fruit in search visibility. Robinson also noted the opportunity to implement inside sales for higher-touch deals in the $24,000+ range, leveraging the company's high annual contract values.

At the time of the interview, the company was exploring strategic options. An unnamed well-known venture firm had discussed acquiring a stake, contingent on Shorthand reaching $2-3M ARR. The potential deal structure would involve the investor acquiring 30% of the company at a valuation implied by reaching that milestone, with the restructured cap table allocating equity to the management team. Robinson, despite driving significant growth as CEO, did not hold equity in the company—a reflection of his non-founder status and the company's unique capital structure under sole backer Graham Wood's ownership.