How we hit our Techstars DemoDay Goal, Transformed our Startup in 12 Weeks & Went Viral

...A short reflection on Thrive Savings' busy summer at Techstars and some of the key transformations to our business....

Transformations

Thrive joined Techstars in June 2019 as a B2B2C and B2C business. We were live, launched, and saving for our customers in Canada. Thrive was a savings app for consumers & a matched-savings app for businesses and non-profits to provide to their employees (Momentum Canada non-profit and Levi’s Canada). We were trying to be everything for all people. Despite this, we had great numbers and engagement from our active users. 

Week 1, 2, 3, and 4 was dedicated to Mentor Madness. 

Mentor Madness is a series of 80 meetings with Techstars mentors to dig into our business. We asked alot of questions. We got a lot of opinions. We suffered mentor whiplash. The real skill was to assess and synthesize all this information to help us narrow in on Thrive’s direction and strategy. Our big decision point was whether to be B2B or B2C in our focus. 

A key realization for us was that we needed a deeper understanding of our users. We hired 2 interns in Week 4 to call each user in Canada, and anyone in the US that had tried to download Thrive. 

The key finding was that users who found value from Thrive were college students and new grads. We then used the Google Sprints’ Voting Dot methodology to flesh out all the mentor feedback and juxtaposed this with all our customer discovery calls to relaunch our direction. 

Week 5, 6, 7, 8. 

With our direction set, we set about executing at a really quick pace. We launched Thrive’s US landing page and waitlist at the end of Week 6 with the goal to acquire 10,000 signups by Demo Day. To fuel customer acquisition we also launched the ‘America’s Luckiest Student’ contest for $25K (paid against tuition or a student loan) to drive our waitlist sign-ups. The contest had to meet legal requirements in all 50 states and be bonded in Florida and NY state. It took many all-nighters to get this launched so fast. 

Since we doubled down on the US market, in Week 7 we returned all funds to our Canadian users. With too many headwinds against open banking and data sharing in that market, it was a necessary decision. Thrive’s exit garnered national media attention.

Testing and validation was the main focus. We ran multiple A/B tests, experimenting with messaging and creatives. Facebook ads also began during Week 7. Thrive had pro-bono support from MediaHub, the North American agency of the year. We also appointed campus ambassadors at 5 test colleges through the Handshake student portal. In Week 8, we began stress testing our revenue model. From our customer discovery the most requested feature was the ability to buy and fulfill goals in-app. In Week 8, we reached 2000 signups.

Week 9, 10, 11, 12, and Demo Day. 

In Week 9 we took a breather to really understand our virality and how to increase it. We started with landing page virality (share rate) of 8%. Under the tutelage of Josh Ledgard, the CEO & Founder of Kickoff Labs, we implemented a new system that incentivizes referrals. Small tests led to large improvements. Through the right mix of incentives, messaging, and channels we peaked our virality at 90% (9 out of 10 people sharing Thrive) in Week 10. 

We continued to test Facebook ads,  experimenting with creatives and messaging with a focus on measuring cost per click (CPC). We continued experimentation around virality.  We ran leaderboard contests with our community sign-ups which involved giving the top referrers a small bonus. In Week 12 we began a collaboration with Flipd, another Techstars-backed company, and the leading productivity app for college students in the US, Canada, and the UK to promote Thrive’s signup, launch, and $25,000 grant (America’s Luckiest Student) to their users. In Week 12 and 13, we presented our Demo Day pitch to Hikmet Ersek, Western Union’s CEO and the Colorado investment community, family, friends, and mentors. A mere 2 hours before our Demo Day presentation, we hit our 10,000th sign-up, at a $1 cost per customer. 

So what is Thrive today? 

Thrive Savings is an e-commerce platform that helps college students and new grads buy the things they want without going into debt. 

What’s next? 

Build on our momentum. Continue the best practices we’ve learned at Techstars, such as our Weekly KPIs and Investor Updates. Continue to hold ourselves responsible. Continue to learn and iterate. And continue to be the best we can be, as humans, founders, and community leaders.  

We will raise our seed round, test and finalize the integrations of our US app, and build a 100,000 strong Thrive community for US launch in January 2020. 

Thank you for following our progress! Stay connected with us on our socials and let us know your thoughts and feedback.