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Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

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Re: Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

#13

Post by reham »

berez wrote: post #5

saw your talk at Startup School - you guys killed it. One question kept coming to mind... sounds like you're focused on profitability but not hypergrowth (smart). Do your investors ever try to push you to value growth more than profitability?

First and foremost we had to focus on what made sense for our business. Initially we were trying to grow super fast without looking at our bottom line. After a lot of introspection we decided what made sense for our business is to grow (still fast) but focus on getting to profitability - for us this meant we shouldn't be "buying" customers who will use us once and never come back. Healthy, sustainable growth made sense for us.

Ultimately you'll need to partner with investors who align with your vision and that's what we did.

Re: Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

#14

Post by veritas20 »

Thanks for sharing the lessons that you learned and evolution of AptDeco. Great presentation with sound advice. Typically, a VC will go all in one category with one company. That company in this space seemed to be MoveLoot at the time. What did VCs miss in their analysis of AptDeco vs. MoveLoot? And, what do you think the key differences were between AptDeco and MoveLoot?

Re: Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

#17

Post by reham »

ahmedj2017 wrote: post #7

Did you have any experince in the field before you got to work on your startup or did you just learn in the go?

kalam and I both have experience building and managing large teams. Also, we both managed pretty significant partnerships. However, we didn't have starup experience perse nor experience in the furniture industry but it so happened that both enjoyed decorating our apartments.

Re: Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

#18

Post by reham »

ahmadss wrote: post #11
reham wrote: post #3

Reham and Kalam here. Let us know if you have any questions about AptDeco.

re: not being married to one idea, are you a moving company now or a furniture marketplace that moves furniture?

We're both. We think of ourselves as equal parts marketplace and logistics company.

Re: Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

#19

Post by reham »

Getpake wrote: post #6

Hi AptDeco team, When growth started coming in quickly, how were you able to distinguish between good and bad opportunities? Such that ones that would result in big revenue growth, but didn't fit your core values? Thanks so much!

I wish I could tell you there was a magic formula. The reality is we tried a lot of things, most didn't work and a few worked really well. So we doubled down on the things that worked. Before writing any lines of code or spent money on acquisition we tried to build a "hack" version of an idea to validate it. If we saw that customers were responding to it then we'd start thinking about scaling it.

Re: Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis of AptDeco (YC W14) – Startup School Video and AMA

#20

Post by reham »

arodceo wrote: post #16

What advice do you give to startups who are early and are looking to get to profitability as quick as possible (~12 months)? What should they be doing and focusing on?

Look at your expenses very closely especially customer acquisition costs and LTV. Are you acquiring customers who will come back and use again? Will they tell their friends about you? How long before you pay back the money you spent on the customer? If your payback period is quick then you're on the right track.

I think one of the more important things is finding channels that organically help you to scale without having to spend a whole lot of money on acquisition. Hyper focusing on getting referral/organic growth is a great way to get to profitability.

Finally, really think hard about hiring. We grow our team very slowly and it helped us keep our burn relatively low.

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