De-risk your startup now.

In honor of the retirement of the US penny, I’m offering a penny for my thoughts to 5 startups. You’ll get a one-hour advisory session with me for the cost of just 1 cent. You pick the topic - go-to-market, pricing, sales strategy, staffing, lead gen, forecasting, or let’s tackle a problem within your business… Read to the end to find out how you can sign up.

A profitability exercise. What does the end of the US penny have to do with your startup business?

It’s just common cents. It costs the US Mint over 3 cents to produce a 1-cent coin. 3.2 billion pennies were produced and circulated in 2024, at a loss of $85.3M dollars. (Source: US Mint Annual Report).??

For every newly manufactured 1 cent coin, that’s more than 2 cents of face value and revenue lost.? That’s not good for any business.

Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish with your product strategy.?

As an in-house executive, fractional-CRO, and consultant to several startups, I’ve directed tough conversations about the end-of-life of products that don’t add to the bottom line, drain company resources and, in some cases, threaten to put a venture under.?

A decade ago, I received memorable words from Craig Zingerline at Jason Calacanis’ Launch Scale event - “Never scale on negative unit economics.” Important words to live by! That’s why the recent news of the true cost of keeping the penny on the US Treasury’s product roadmap left a pit in my stomach. Why have they been throwing good money after bad (literally!) for years?

Startups to Fortune 500 companies should consider the same for hard goods, CE, and SaaS products. Minimize your worry over sunk cost and “what ifs” when evaluating the negative impact of a perpetually underwater endeavor. It’s essential to take a hard look at the numbers, consider potential fallout, make a decision, move on, and don’t look back. Do it before you don’t have 2 pennies to rub together.

Here are reasons a potentially good product becomes financially unviable and may need to be discontinued:

• The ASP or ACV - what the market is willing to pay - doesn’t meet margin objectives
• Lack of demand keeps production volume low and cost high
• Excess inventory accumulates warehousing costs and burdens the landed cost of the product
• COGS unexpectedly increases (supply challenges, component costs, labor cost, freight surcharges, taxes/fees, etc)
• Product adoption just took too long to meet profitability goals, and you can’t buy any more time

Does discontinuing a product come without consequences??

Of course not. In the case of the US penny, the action could drive up demand for nickels (whose production cost is also higher than its value!), businesses that accept cash will need to adjust pricing as pennies eventually go out of circulation, and changes must be made across many facets of the economy. Among positive consequences, nearly $90 million per year will be saved starting right now.?

Consider the parallel case for the margin-poor product dragging your company down.?

Offer: How to get my 2 cents for 1 cent.?

5 startups will get a one-hour advisory session with me for just 1 cent. You pick the topic - go-to-market, pricing, sales strategy, staffing, lead gen, forecasting, or let’s tackle a problem within your business… Simply fill out this form. Applications will be considered in the order they are received.? And, just like the penny, this is a limited time offer!

About Startup Maven.

Suzanne Mackay is a Sales leader who delivers immediate revenue growth through strategic sales and marketing program implementation. Team leader known for building and leading high-performance distributed sales groups. Trusted to scale global businesses in consumer and enterprise hardware and SaaS markets.?

Widely regarded for opening and expanding global business in consumer tech hardware, enterprise hardware, and SaaS, Suzanne designs and implements winning Sales and Marketing strategies that navigate the complexities of revenue operations in Consumer, SMB and Enterprise markets. She’s a 20+ year tech startup veteran with enough big company experience to fully appreciate the creativity, focus and team culture required to win lean.??

Available for short and long term projects and advisory, including:

• Fractional CRO/VP Sales
• Founder Advisor
• Sales Acceleration Coach
• Sales Operations Audit and Implementation
• RevOps Leadership
• Speaker

Learn more at StartupMaven.co