Post Mortem on 5 climate startups in 10 weeks. They all died. And....
Hey IH, before I do my post/share/ask thing, an offer: If you need help getting out of the aalllllmooost-ready-to-shiiiiipppp-thiiiiiiissss stage, I’m your active listening friend….Been there, 10 times this year. Book 25 here
Last summer in my On Deck Climate Tech Fellowship, I tried to do 5 climate startups in 10 weeks.
None of the ten survived, but a few of them morphed into what’s now called My Next Electric. It’s basically an online school for going electric - vehicles, appliances, personal footprint. Unique approach: Lead with the fun affordable stuff like vehicles and cooking, not the boring, expensive stuff like heat pumps and solar.
DATA
Rev: 1863.78
Customers: 40
Cohorts: 2.5 so far, 3-5 on the calendar
Products in ladder: 3.
NPS 67.
NFS 56. Inspired by Packy McCormick's Funtier
STACK here
PRODUCT LADDER
$0: Weekly drop-in Q&A/AMA inspired by Mom Test genius Robfitz.com
$1.50: One-page cheat sheet PDF (pre-selling now)
$150: Week-long Crash-course. Next two cohorts are May 23-28, June 20-25
$15: Join for the Monday intro session only
GOOD
This has been really fun for me, especially since my inner middle school math teacher and my inner entrepreneur are getting along way better now. I dig the routine and the pressure to add no-code automation every cohort.
Feels like a real community flywheel is spinning and that people like the time together.
BAD/CLUELESS/HELP/FEEDBACK IF YOU'RE ABLE
Biz model, not sure. And I think I'm ok with that.
There's 25-70k of investment to do in every household over next decade or two if we really electrify, so I tend to look at this as customer discovery til I get to 100. Revenue is mostly exploring price elasticity, not real biz model, But it's nice to see things going up. And that stripe email notification is a sweet dopamine hit. Can't lie.
CRM - a mess, SEO - unattended, Paid distribution/social - no systems
I'm ready to fire myself from most of this. Fractional, contract, PT help
- How to juggle/drive traffic to many places mattcandler.io, nightshiftbikes.com, mynextelectric.com, medium, totally underutilized Forbes contributor blog.
- And that's not including social: 2 twitter accounts, 2 instas, a tiktok, a linkedin, 2 fbs.
- StreakCRM for now, abandoned Hubspot
Recurring revenue/pricing ladder?
I think I'm worrying too much about this. Should the obsession be: Get to 100, no matter the acquisition cost, or rev? Or some nuanced take on that mix?
- Subscribe for a buck a month to get the latest PDF one-pager cheat sheet.
- something/mo to access live AMA/QandA sessions
- ala cart custom coaching after you take the class.
Referrals?
If you or friends are looking for a fun way to move the ball on electric - EV, credits, ebike, solar, heat pumps, storage, come check it out or share!
Thx, Matt
