❄️ [Investors update] Snowball - December 2022
Welcome to the 527 new subscribers who’ve joined us since the last edition. If you’re receiving this email for the first time, its main goal is to update you about how Snowball’s business is going. This is mainly for the 400 + investors who helped me raise 1.6 million dollars in February 2022, but I’ve decided to open it to the public for the curious out there. If you don’t want to receive it anymore, you can just unsubscribe at the end of this email or click here. And if you want to subscribe to BTC (Behind the Curtain), you can do it there 👇
To investors and friends,
Hi everyone. Happy New Year!
This update is a bit late but better late than never right?
About 10 days ago, I shared Snowball’s year in review with a lot of data if you’re interested. It’s in French though. But I believe that most of you are French around here.
This might lead you to ask yourself this question: why is this newsletter in English? There are 2 main reasons:
Snowball will be (I hope) international at one point.
We want to attract an international team.
Now you understand 🤓.
Also, we’re looking to hire a Senior Product Manager to drive the development of our future “fintech product” besides the current media offering. The job offer is right here. As we strive to become a diverse, and inclusive company, we’d like to focus our efforts on hiring a woman. If you know someone who knows someone, who knows someone… You know what to do.
So what happened in December?
The Main News
We’re super happy to have found our first tech lead! This is not public yet, but we found a great developer who’s been working for a french unicorn for many years. He’s not only a great developer but most importantly a great human being totally aligned with Snowball's mission and vision.
The ad business of the free version of Snowball is still going extremely well. A big European actor booked a new month with us.
ARR (annual recurring revenues) decreased a little bit. Not super bad, but not great either. A lot of churn in December because last year I offered a big discount for yearly subscriptions.
We’ve received 45 candidatures to be part of the future bundle! Some of the newsletter proposals are amazing and we can’t wait to unveil them!
KPIs
Let’s see what happened since the last edition:
ARR subscriptions (Annual Recurring Revenue): €247,200 (-3.5 % vs November). This does not include the sponsoring revenues. See below. 👇
Ad business: Snowball is fully booked until the end of March 2023. If you want to share the offer (or if you’re interested in sponsoring Snowball next year), it’s right here.
MRR: about €14/15K. Same.
Total projected revenues for the upcoming year (subscriptions + ads): €400,000+. Flat
Subscribers: 40,864 (+ 7 % since the 1st of December 2022).
Opening rate: 55 %. Flat.
Churn rate December: around 8 %. Higher because a lot of 2021 discounted yearly memberships came to an end. Churn is a real problem in the newsletter industry, and it’s something we will have to keep close attention to.
Cash on hands: €1,552,652 1,516,253 (-€36k MoM), and still missing about €35k of ads payments that should be paid in January.
Now let’s turn to the 3Ps (Progress, Plan, Problems). 👇
Progress
In this section, I’ll show you the main things that have happened in the past month/period.
Hired our first tech. Unfortunately, he’ll be able to start with us around April. He’s a great human being, a great developer with deep knowledge of front and backend technologies, he’s totally aligned with our mission and vision, and he’s also a fan of LEGO. Perfect match.
The development of the media platform V1.5 (Webflow x Ghost) is going really well.
We’re finalizing the selection of the first newsletters that’ll be part of the future Snowball Bundle. Interested? You can find more details here. More than 40 creators applied! We truly believe that we can reinvent how a media company is run with this kind of model that is fairer for creators. If you’re interested or know someone, apply or share!
We’re working with Pierre (ex-Head of Product of Konbini who could be a great addition to the Snowball team) on redefining the value proposition of Snowball which is not clear enough today.
Thanks to Pauline the Snowball trademark is registered in France.
I’m discussing with two publishers for a potential new book: Eyrolles and Fayard. Nothing yet, it’s just early discussions.
We’ve started to discuss with some companies to see if we could sell the Money Coach offer to them. Early discussions show us that it might not be easy. The main issues are related to:
Fear to choose a service that might make their employees lose money.
Fear of non-adoption/low engagement of the perk by employees (paying a perk for nothing).
Plans
Here, I’ll tell you what are the big projects we’ll be tackling in the upcoming weeks.
Package the future Money Coach offer. How much? For whom? Etc.
One of the financial advisors we worked for the Money Coach MVP/test is ready to join Snowball.
We will continue to explore the B2B2C potential of Money Coach.
Launch the V 1.5 of Snowball at the end of the month or more likely next month.
Launch the bundle at the same time (with a new business model).
Launch new growth initiatives (short videos for instance).
Continue to build the first Snowball micro-course on WhatsApp to assess the potential of such content (I’ve been delaying it for so long… sorry about that).
Problems
What are the current problems?
The revenue coming from the subscription business decreased a little bit in December. We need to boost our acquisition. I know. I’ve told you that for a while now, but I’ll keep writing it to remind myself 😅.
Need you for?
🙋♀️ You are a female senior product manager with an entrepreneurial mindset, and you’re interested in this project? Hit reply. If you know someone, spread the news. :) The job offer is right here.
✨ If you want to sponsor the free version of Snowball next year or if you know someone who’d like to, click here.
✍️ You’re a creator and you already have a community or you’ve got talent, but no community? Check this out if you wanna join Snowball. We have great perks including stock options!
👋 Just wanna say hi. Hit reply. :)
Thanks for reading and do not hesitate to react in the comment section!
Have a wonderful evening, and enjoy the rest of your week.
Yoann ❤️