Projects – 12in6

Background

12in6 specializes in helping startups unlock their full growth potential.  Our metrics, survey and experiment driven approach has evolved over 15 years of taking startups to market as VP marketing, interim VP marketing and as an outside advisor/consultant.  The first five startups our principal (Sean Ellis) helped take to market were:

  1. Uproar (IPO)
  2. LogMeIn (IPO)
  3. Xobni (Khosla Ventures – rapid user and revenue growth)
  4. Eventbrite (Sequoia Ventures – rapid user and revenue growth)
  5. Dropbox (Sequoia Ventures – rapid user and revenue growth)

We have discovered that most startups begin with an undefined period of time where they must hone their product for the right market.  During this period 12in6 can provide very little value and we encourage startups to tightly control cash burn and patiently engage potential customers until your product/market fit is right.  We offer a free survey to help you determine if you have achieved product market fit (details in getting started section below). 

12in6 Project Details

Once your startup has achieved product/market fit, you should enter a transition phase that significantly improves your ability to grow.  It is important to execute this phase with focus and speed so you can quickly transition to a growth company.  12in6 helps you complete this phase in as little as six weeks (most startups either skip this phase or muddle through it for up to 12 months).  The four key projects of this phase are:

  1. Positioning and entry page messaging
  2. Conversion optimization and metrics
  3. Monetization (business model)
  4. Customer acquisition strategy and planning

These projects are all driven by research into why your most passionate users love your product and are supported by metrics and experimentation. They are critical to enabling, funding and/or driving rapid customer growth.

Pricing

We’ve priced these projects to offer startups a strong ROI.  All clients complete the Positioning and Entry Page Messaging project (starting at $15,000) because, after product, it offers the biggest impact on long-term growth.  It also provides the necessary immersion so we can be effective in subsequent projects. 

Other projects are generally offered for a combination of equity and cash.  Startups are able to choose the projects with which they need help and both sides proceed based on chemistry and success potential.

Getting Started with 12in6

We offer a free survey to help you determine if you have achieved product market fit available here (you can use Survey.io for free or copy the questions to your survey platform choice).  We recommend sending the survey to a random sample of people who have:

  • Experienced the core of your product offering
  • Used your product at least twice
  • Used your product in the last two weeks

It is important for it to truly be a random sample of the above people. 

If over 40% of survey respondents indicate they would be “very disappointed” without your product, please contact us at projects (at) 12in6.com so we can determine how we can best add value with a project (we’re happy to discuss NDAs at this point).  We look forward to hearing from you.