Torch
Cameron Yarbrough and Keegan Walden met in a counseling psychology master's program and later trained together in a communications lab called T Group. Ten years later, a personal crisis for Cameron pushed them to build something together. After his father died and his daughter was born three months later, Cameron quit his company and became a full-time executive coach. He reached out to Keegan, who joined him, and the two began sending clients back and forth and collaborating as coaches.
The coaching practice grew into a consulting firm, and the founders decided that scaling it would require software. Neither was an engineer. Keegan drew on years as a UX designer and on working with engineers for a decade, and the team hired a CTO who shared their values. Their first piece of software automated the recruiting funnel for coaches, screening applicants on several dimensions before any interview. Early on, they reinvested consulting profits into MVPs built with low-tech tools such as SurveyMonkey and basic HTML.
The first paying customers came before any software existed. The business was already a group practice of high-level executive coaches, so it was generating income from services. In the early days the founders sold to their networks, and after about six months that pool was largely exhausted. They then had to build a go-to-market strategy aimed at heads of HR and learning and development. They raised a few hundred thousand dollars from angels and then joined Y Combinator, which they credit with helping them avoid early mistakes and raise money.
The founders built their product around customer feedback, arguing that a product built in isolation can lead founders astray. Selling larger organizational engagements meant each customer was worth a lot, which let them spend heavily on acquisition. They said acquisition is expensive, but payback arrives in about two and a half months. Their main acquisition method is high-quality leadership content, which influencers redistribute, leading readers to a landing page form. They also noted that the value of their service is intangible, which makes it harder to sell.
Torch works with companies such as Reddit and Twitch. Clients typically stay 12 to 24 months or longer. The founders say they are still refining their go-to-market approach through A/B testing and data-driven messaging.
- •Selling to organizations rather than individuals makes each contract large enough to justify heavy acquisition spending, which is why a costly content engine still pays back quickly.
- •Selling services first, before the software existed, gave the founders paying customers and real feedback that shaped the product instead of a 24-month build in the dark.
- •Their complementary skills and shared values let one founder handle vision and the other handle analysis and skepticism, which lowered the risk of a single-founder failure mode.
- •Long client retention (12 to 24 months or more) turns a services business into something closer to recurring revenue, making the acquisition economics work.
- 1.Start by selling a services offering to your existing network so you have paying customers before building software.
- 2.Target organizational buyers (such as HR leaders) whose contracts are large enough to justify a meaningful customer acquisition cost.
- 3.Use the services engagement to learn what customers will pay for, then automate those parts of the service in software.
- 4.Invest in high-quality, shareable content that partners or influencers want to redistribute, and route readers to a lead-capture landing page.
- 5.Track customer payback period so you know how much you can afford to spend acquiring each account.
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