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Superangel is proud to have a Superangel Insights session with Hedi Mardisoo, co-founder and CEO of Cachet. 

Hedi is among TOP15 women to watch in European fintech by Sifted and her startup Cachet is listed as a future unicorn prediction by prominent Estonian investors. She is going to share insights on building a network of 120+ key people and using it to prepare for a market entry.

In the session we covered:

  • How to build a network of key people in your industry?
  • How to prepare for meetings with mentors?
  • How to prepare entering a new market?
  • How to ask help so that it brings results and the intros you need?
https://soundcloud.com/user-948945263/how-to-build-your-network-to-enter-new-markets-hedi-mardisoo

Main takeaway from the session: Ask for help and you’ll be served.

  • Personal follow-up email is a long term investment. Put together an email that makes sense even when looking back at it a year from now
  • Successful ask is a key thing to successful networking. To ask well, you need to make it as easy for the other person to help you and spend their social credit
  • Figure out whose problem your product is solving on the other side of the intro
  • Start with markets that are not heavily saturated. Where are your key clients today?
  • Tap into embassies and use local organisations to help get your foot through the door in new markets
  • Hunger to grow, experience in the sector, good network and ability to solve problems, eagerness to build – formula for hiring a country manager in Cachet
  • Have a specific person in mind you want in your company? Be bold and ask directly.
  • Entering new markets and cultures means listening first and not pushing your ways only
  • Check out Global Entrepreneurs Program if you want to relocate and take your HQ to UK

Thank you Hedi for an insightful session! Best of luck building Cachet!

We’re excited to host Meeri Rebane in the Superangel Insights session on ‘How to Skip Your Backyard and Launch in Big Markets’. Meeri is the CEO of INZMO, the #1 insurance startup to keep an eye on in 2021 according to Business Insider.

Find answers to questions like:

  • How to enter major markets?
  • Why did they as an Estonian startup choose Germany as their first market?
  • How did they enter German market without speaking any German?
  • How to find key employees in a new market?
https://soundcloud.com/user-948945263/how-to-skip-your-backyard-and-launch-in-big-markets-w-meeri-rebane

“Startup founders have to think about the next fundraising every day. To do that, you need to think what kind of traction gets you there.”

Here are some key takeaways from the session:

  • Entering a small market successfully might take more effort than entering a big one. And next round investors don’t care much about successes in small (home) markets
  • The most important people in new markets are aggressive salespeople. Everything else you can do yourself
  • Hire senior guys. They are motivated to work in a startup as they want to make their mark in the industry
  • Launch a market where your valuable clients already are – it gives you credit and increases traction / interest.
  • Big clients give you a big opportunity but it also takes a lot of time. It may mean your startup can die 3x during the period. Think – are you financially ready to survive long deals?
  • Founders are like psychologists and providers who need to keep the employees motivated and help them do their job
  • Find ways how to incentivise corporate partners so that they are willing to open up their client portfolio for you

Thanks Meeri for a great discussion! Best of luck achieving your 10M€ revenue goal for 2021!

If someone told you the first step to increase revenue is to understand human psychology, what would be your first reaction? You’d probably think it’s vague. Alright, let’s get more specific. 95% of the decisions humans make are subconscious. Moreover, the attention span is very short:  first impressions are made within the first seconds. Now think about your first customer acquisition channel – what would you change knowing this information?

Superangel Insight session with Kristel Tuul, a data-driven growth marketing expert was all about hacking human psychology and turning it to your advantage for nailing conversion . You’d be surprised how much digging into human behaviour can change the way you want to present your acquisition channels. The original webinar or a podcast are available to follow how Kristel thoroughly analyses the website of GDPR Register and VideoCV. Be prepared for a session packed with practical information you can implement already today.

Superangel · How to Increase Revenue Without Increasing Ad Spend / w Kristel Tuul

Run a 5-second test to optimise the value-proposition of your product and attract high-quality leads

When potential customers land on your page, they behave differently depending on their awareness level – they may be unaware that the problem exists in the first place or they might already know your brand. Regardless, there are effective ways to optimize the acquisition channels to ensure the conversion of high-quality leads. 

Firstly, put on your customer hat and run two tests, 5 and 30 second test, which allows you to understand how well your page communicates your messages. How does it work?

5 second test – watch the page for 5 seconds, close the screen. Ask yourself:

  • What do you remember?
  • Was it trustworthy?
  • How did it make me feel?

Following the 5 second test, you should run the same procedure but this time at least 30 seconds or as long as you’ve managed to cover the content. Now ask yourself:

  • What is the most important message?
  • What is frustrating?
  • What is confusing?

Pro tip! This practice works well as a funnel: start from your ads and continue with the landing page, product page etc. The best outcome comes when you run this exercise on a selection of people at your target group or even at a coffee shop to get a fresh opinion and input – experience shows the discoveries are 2x better with strangers.

If the customer will spend only a couple of seconds on your page, will it be enough for her to understand what is the value of your product? 

Here are some practical tips to maximise impact:

  • Bring out the value first – why should they use your product? Is it to save time or money or to increase revenue? With this in mind, have a look at what your competitors are doing. Understand how they’re positioning themselves and what’s the value they are selling. Follow it up by bringing out benefits and then functions that allow you to deliver the values.
  • People skim read and only read headlines. Put the most important messages into headlines
  • For the same reason, put the most important messages into the 50% of your page
  • Use simple language and easy to follow structure: use bullets/italic/bold to bring out the most important information and break the reading pattern for the information to be actually noticed.
  • Give the image of “easy” even if your concepts are hard – make it as easy for the customer to understand your offer as possible
  • Use social proof to build trust – what have your customers or partners said before? 
  • Find out what’s the main device the visitors land on your page from. Make sure your website is mobile friendly and the message gets over the same way as from a computer screen.

Use mere exposure effect to create familiarisation 

Have you ever clicked on an ad and realised you’ve ended up in a completely different place than you expected?

Most probably you left the page the same very moment. The same happens to your customer if you ignore the mere exposure effect – a tendency to develop preferences for things simply because we are familiar with them. In practice it means that the more you perceive a certain message, the more likely you’re to rate it positively and trustworthy. Thus, all messages in your funnel should support each other. Create familiarity through channels and avoid conflicting messages. It does not mean repeating the same message several times on the same web page

Survey your website visitors and existing customers to improve clarity

Getting live feedback from your website visitors and customers is the best way to hack what works well and what you are currently missing. Using questions like ‘what are the limitations of the current solution’ and ‘what matters the most for you in a solution’ is a great way of reaching the customers who are hard to interview. Use your customers also to optimise your tag line and value proposition: what are the 3 adjectives they use to describe your company/product and how would they persuade a friend to start using your product? It’s likely the answer is different to what you thought was important.

Do not multitask. Focus on 1-2 channels

Select active channel as first (e-mails, LinkedIn) and passive channel as second (SEO, content creation, word of mouth). Within these channels, constantly learn why something is working or not working – don’t just copy something from your competitors website that looks nice. You cannot be sure whether the conversion works or not. Instead, focus on your biggest growth opportunity by continuing visiting your prospects and customers for their input. 

If you’re keen to learn more, check out these resources:

Books & online materials mentioned:

This article is from a series of sessions between Superangel and brilliant experts & entrepreneurs on the most relevant topics for early stage startups.