Hi there,
Welcome to the 76th edition of Heartcore Consumer Insights. Curated with 🖤 every week by the Heartcore Team.
If you missed the past newsletters, you can catch up here. Now, let’s dive in!
How Coinbase got its first 1000 users - Olivia Moore (Partner @a16z)
It was March 2012. Brian Armstrong posted a self-described “hail mary” on the tech discussion forum Hacker News. YC was interested in his startup, but he didn’t want to go at it alone.
Armstrong’s last-minute gambit actually failed. He did go through YC - but as a solo founder. Armstrong didn’t find his co-founder Fred Ehrsam until months after graduating and closing a seed round. He did end up meeting Fred on a message board, but it wasn't Hacker News - it was on Reddit!
When YC Demo Day rolled around, Coinbase had several thousand users and had processed $65K in transactions in the first five weeks. The company's user base was growing at an impressive 20% daily.
How did Armstrong do it? Three lessons from Coinbase's debut 👇
1) Read the room - and ride the wave. Spring 2012 was a fortuitous time for a new crypto platform. The second-largest exchange, Trade Hill, announced in February that it was shutting down. Other major exchanges had all experienced serious thefts. Coinbase, in comparison, had immediate credibility - the company was helmed by a former fraud prevention exec from Airbnb and backed by YC. Armstrong got the product out quickly - barely 3 months passed between his Hacker News post and the launch. The product was raw but this fast launch allowed Coinbase to capitalize on the flood of users leaving other platforms.
2) Focus on finding “your people": instead of launching with a TechCrunch feature or a tweetstorm, Armstrong posted announcements on Tumblr, Hacker News, and Reddit - places where his target customer spent a lot of time! Reddit was a particularly important acquisition source, as the early crypto community congregated here. In a post on r/Bitcoin, Armstrong offered 0.10 BTC to users who emailed in feedback on the site. The team also recruited early users by going directly to their inboxes with an offer they couldn’t refuse.
3) Get your users to do your marketing for you. How did Coinbase grow from its first hundred users to the first thousand? Coinbase’s first few cohorts received a referral link to give friends 0.10 BTC for signing up. For each friend that verified an account, the referrer also received 0.10 BTC. While small, it encouraged Bitcoin enthusiasts to get the word out about Coinbase. Claiming this BTC required that a user add their phone number, email address, and set up a Coinbase profile. Once they saw how easy Coinbase was to use, it was unlikely that they would immediately churn and send their Bitcoin elsewhere, particularly if that required setting up yet another profile.
The result? By the time YC Demo Day rolled around, Coinbase was already well on its way. Paul Graham’s reaction to Brian's summer 2012 practice pitch says it all: "Holy shit, is this the first time I've seen your presentation? That was really good."
“Beyond The Rational” - Frank Rotman (VC @QED)
Historically, the more commoditized a product was the more you could count on customers to behave rationally.
Consumers are increasingly making buying decisions and favoring certain companies on dimensions other than functionality and price.
“Beyond The Rational” thinking has always existed, but what’s worth internalizing is that its prominence is growing rapidly.
They’re not making bad decisions. They’re making decisions based on higher-order needs.
Higher-Order Need #1: Values. Values are increasingly becoming part of people’s public identities rather than hidden at the family or community level. And consumers are increasingly using their buying power to express their views. If a company’s values don’t align with the values of a consumer, it’s becoming increasingly common for the consumer to take their money elsewhere.
Higher-Order Need #2: Community. It’s a truism that human beings are social animals. We instinctually want to belong to a community and find like-minded people to interact with. The vast majority of companies haven’t been able to create a sense of community for their customers. But some have and they’ve become powerful, almost unstoppable forces. Apple, Peloton, Robinhood are all examples. “How do you know someone has a Peloton? Easy…they’ll tell you.”
Higher-Order Need #3: Exclusivity and Status. We live in a big world that makes it easy for people to feel like interchangeable parts in life’s machine. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that human beings have a deep psychological need to feel special. Some of today’s best companies focus on exclusivity and status. It’s not a surprise that NFTs and crypto punks have taken off. Social media has amplified the desire for exclusivity and status because it allows consumers to share within their friend groups and communities.
The sad truth is that most companies are doomed to live in the past and aren’t going to make the transition into this new world. The companies of tomorrow are going to increasingly win if they can design their products to cater to “beyond the rational” decision-makers.
Facebook first pair of smart glasses
Remitly S-1 TL;DR
Regulators in China Ban Minors From Online Gaming More Than 3 Hours Per Week
Customer service as a hook for acquisition and loyalty
Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality?
Unlocking “Disruptive Power” For Your Marketplace
“Fantasy Hollywood” - Crypto and Community-Owned Characters
Why the next big consumer platforms are social games
"Us VS. Them" marketing tactics for CPG
🇪🇺 Notable European early-stage Consumer rounds :
Gamestry, a Spain-based gaming platform, raises $5M with Goodwater/Target/Kibo - link
Oddbox, a UK-based sustainable food delivery start-up, raises £16M with BurdaPrincipal - link
OLIO, a UK-based food waste reduction startup, raises $43M with VNV Global/Luxor - link
Printify, a Latvia-based printing service for e-commerce, raises $45M with Index/Dreamers VC - link
🇺🇸 Notable US early-stage Consumer rounds :
Wanderlog, an S.F-based road trip planner, raises $1.5M with General Catalyst/Abstract - link
Mayk.it, an L.A-based social music creation app, raises $4M with Greycroft/Chicago Ventures/Slow/firstminute - link
Lean, an N.Y.C-based start-up aiming to give gig workers access to financial products, raises $4.5M with Inspired/Atelier Ventures - link
Zebedee, an N.Y.C-based developer of "Bitcoin-powered payment rails”, raises $11.5M with Lakestar - link
Callin, an S.F-based social podcasting app, raises $12M with Sequoia/Goldcrest/Craft - link
Solv Health, an S.F-based same-day healthcare and telehealth provider, raises $45M with Acrew/Corner Venture/Benchmark/GreylockVC - link
🔭 Notable later stage Consumer rounds :
Koyo, a UK-based startup using open banking to offer loans to people with poor credit histories, raises $50M with Force Over Mass/Forward Partners - link
Elvie, a UK-based developer of women's health devices, raise £70Mwith Blume Equity/IPGL/Hiro Capital - link
Marshmallow, a UK-based car insurer, raises $85M with Passion Capital/Investec/SCOR - link
HomeLight, an S.F-based platform for matching home-sellers with real estate agents, raises $100M with Zeev/Group 11/Stereo/Menlo - link
Insurify, a Boston-based virtual insurance agent and comparison platform, raises $100M with Motive Partners - link
Beauty Pie, a UK-based online buyers club for cosmetics, raises $100M with Index/Insight - link
ProbablyMonsters, a Seattle-based gaming studio, raises $200M with LKCM Headwater - link
Jam City, an L.A-based mobile game publisher, raises $350M with Netmarble/Kabam/Fortress - link
Cityblock, an N.Y.C primary care startup that targets the low-income medicare populations, raises $400M with Softbank - link
Heartcore Consumer Insights is a weekly newsletter covering notable consumer rounds and exits and top content in the B2C space.
