Welcome to the 850 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, 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 click here:
To investors and friends,
Hi everybody! I hope you’re all doing great after quite a hot summer.
I can’t believe that we’re now more than 8000 people here! That’s almost 25% of the entire Snowball email list…
Anyway, let’s get back to it. What happened this summer in the Snowball universe?
Remember in June when I told you:
In June we entered the “quiet period” for Snowball. Indeed, there’s a seasonality in Snowball’s business. As we can see below, the growth slows down between May/June and September.
Well. That’s exactly what I predicted as you can see below (see how the curve flattens compared to before June)…
Let’s dig into what happened this summer.
The Main News
I transferred 588 000 euros from the US to France to lock in the advantageous USD/EUR rate we’re currently witnessing.
Sponsoring of the free version of Snowball is going extremely well (see the KPIs section).
In terms of subscription growth, the summer was very slooooooow. If you couple this with a lot of “billing failed” unsubscriptions, you get a pretty big churn on the paid side. Churn was 3.59% in June, 4.47% in July, and 2.64% in August. For B2B Saas, a good churn is usually between 3 and 5%. So it’s not that bad, but when the growth slows, the result is a flat ARR…
To counterbalance this slow growth + churn, I launched 2 promo offers that you can easily pinpoint below. Both offers brought 225 yearly subscribers with an average yearly discount of about 30%.
I had a great meeting with Hasheur to see how we could join forces in the crypto media space at some point. No deal, but the beginning of a discussion.
Started a monthly event on Instagram with Anthony Bourbon, the founder of Feed, who has a great community focused on entrepreneurship (close to the Snowball community). A single event brought more than 500 subscribers to Snowball’s Instagram account and about the same amount to the mailing list.
We’ve started to work on the “media product” with Mozza. So far, very happy about it.
But the most important news of all is that starting today, I’m not on my own anymore! More about that in the upcoming weeks.
KPIs
Let’s see what happened since the last edition (6th of July 2022):
ARR subscriptions (Annual Recurring Revenue): €254,178 (almost flat vs July with €252,975). This does not include the sponsoring revenues. See below. 👇
Sponsoring: Snowball is fully booked until the end of the year which represents a total of €65k for the rest of the year. The great thing about that is that I did not have to sell it to anyone. Sponsors came to us. If you want to share the offer (or if you’re interested), it’s right here.
The number of subscribers: 33,003 subscribers (+ 7% since July).
The opening rate, even though it’s always quieter during the summer, is still high with an average of 55 %.
Paid subscribers: 3,687 (3,642 in July).
Healthy but higher churn rate in June, July, and August (3.59% in June, 4.47% in July, and 2.64% in August).
Cash on hands: €708,583 in France, €925,156 in the US (€1,633M in total).
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.
My first key hire (COO/operations/swiss knife 😅) just joined my previous team of 1! Super happy about that, since we’ll be able to achieve much more together.
We did a lot of user research with Mozza to unlock insights about the media side of Snowball. I’ll probably write a dedicated edition to share the results with you.
We also started to interview many financial advisors to launch the MVP of our on-demand financial advisor offer.
We’ve selected some of them to help us launch this new service.
I’ve started to look for someone I can delegate the redaction part of the Daily Snow. I’ve asked the student community of Snowball because it’s a job I would have loved to do when I was in college. I’ve received great candidatures and I should pick someone this week. This will free around 2 hours of my time per day to work on more important/urgent topics.
Regarding sponsorship, the entire year is booked. Previous sponsors seem happy about the offer.
Still looking for the first PM (Product Manager). I’m talking with multiple PMs who could join Snowball in the upcoming months. If you’re a PM, just hit reply. If you know a PM, share the news with him. I paused the process in August, but I’ll continue to discuss with potential hires in September.
Plans
Here I’ll tell you what are the big projects we’ll be tackling in the upcoming weeks.
Continue to build the first Snowball micro-course on WhatsApp to see the potential of such content.
Start to test new acquisition channels: mainly paid ads, and TikTok.
Launch the MVP of the on-demand financial advisor offer (tech stack, KYCs, regulation, financial advisors relationship with Snowball, etc.).
Continue to work with Mozza on the media product.
Start to think about how this product will be built. Freelancers? Hiring a team of developers through Collective? Hiring a full stack developer? Honestly, it could be a mix of all these things. 🙋♀️ 🙋♂️ If you’re a full stack developer looking for a new adventure, and you like the Snowball vision/community, hit reply. I still haven’t replied to some of you since the last edition. I apologize for being slow…
On Wednesday, it’ll be the kickoff of the acceleration program with Les Echos. We’ll have to think about ways to take advantage of this opportunity. If you have ideas about what Snowball could do with the media group owning Les Echos and Le Parisien, leave a comment or hit reply.
Start to talk with potential writers/creators/journalists who could be part of the upcoming offer that will be a bundle of newsletters (more about that in a future dedicated edition). If you already write within the personal finance universe and would like to be part of this adventure, leave a comment or hit reply!
Problems
What are the current problems?
Slow growth during the summer but it was expected.
Need you for?
If you want to sponsor the free version of Snowball or if you know someone who’d like to. Click here.
You are a PM or a full-stack developer, and you’re interested in this project? Hit reply. If you know someone, spread the news. :)
Just wanna say hi. Hit reply. :)
Thanks for reading and do not hesitate to react in the comment section!
Awesome news and super excited to see Snowball growing and getting the visibility it deserves! As one would have guessed, I’m a huge fan ☺️
Nice news, thanks. 🙏🏻🙂