Journy · B2C · trip planning service
Pitch investors before you have a working growth engine
180 rejections over about 6 months
Failedfinancing
What they did
Tried to raise money for Journy before she had figured out a growth engine, tracking every pitch in a spreadsheet over about 6 months, sometimes four meetings a day.
What happened
180 investor rejections in about 6 months; she was down to $50 in the bank, maxed-out credit cards and under 3 months of runway before a $250K bridge from 500 Startups.
- Stage
- early
- Effort
- About 6 months of pitching, up to four meetings a day
“So when you try to raise money before you're ready, um before you figured out your growth engine, it is a slog. For about 6 months, I heard like I I actually went back and checked my spreadsheets because I kept kept track of everything. There was 180 no's.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Journy: Charge $6 a day for trip planning aimed at tech-savvy millennialsToo cheap to live on or to trust; 80% of revenue came from boomers
- Journy: Pack nine investor meetings into two days in one citySeed round closed in 2 days with three term sheets
- Journy: Spend heavily on marketing and press coverage early onDidn't work; founder calls it wasted money, no details given
- Journy: Pivot to business customers, local trips and online experiences during COVIDNothing worked; couldn't raise more money either
- Journy: Use one buyer's offer to pull in rival bids, then return to your favoritePreferred buyer agreed to pay double its first offer
- Sell $19 PDF travel guides from a landing page before building the app$3,000 in sales in the first month
- The Evolved Founder: Post founder videos on Instagram about your journey and expertise20K+ followers from 26 posts; one video drove 500K views, 2,000+ sign-ups
- The Evolved Founder: Test two hooks as Instagram trial reels, then post the winner to your feedWinning hook hit ~50K views vs 500; ~3,000 new followers in a day
- The Evolved Founder: Have Claude interview you to write scripts, then film five videos at onceLets her post alongside a full-time job with no editor; no numbers
- Use round prices like $19.99 or $29.99, not $22.99Round prices won in a community member's A/B test; no numbers
- Label the paywall button 'Start free trial' on Android and 'Continue' on iPhoneBeat 'Subscribe' in a community member's A/B test; no numbers
- Offer phone cleaner apps as a weekly plan with a 3-day trialHost says weekly tends to win across cleaner apps he's worked with; no numbers
- Put the year, 'New' and a clean-up message on an Android cleaner iconHost says these icon tricks have worked before; no numbers