

Custora (YC W11) Helps Online Businesses Improve Customer Retention - pospischil
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/27/custora-helps-online-businesses-improve-customer-retention/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=FeedBurner

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il
Congrats on the launch- this looks like a fantastic product. For a long time
now I've been preaching that CLV is the most important thing a SaaS startup
needs to optimize for, so it's great to see technology emerge to meet that
need.

Using data to extract more revenue from existing customers without spending
more on marketing is something like the holy grail for businesses. I'm sure
Custora will do incredibly well as long as they can demonstrate that using
their product leads to clear increase in ROI; I look forward to seeing some
case studies.

It's nice to see the YC investment philosophy start expanding more to unsexy
but very profitable enterprise/B2B/under the hood type startups. I'm wondering
if they compared the track record(revenue and exits) of their past consumer-
focused vs business-focused startups and made a conscious decision to adjust
the types of startups they fund accordingly.

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pospischil
Thanks! It's great to hear other people share our view on the space. We're
really excited to be bringing the tools to a wide audience.

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rksprst
Good idea, but I'd like to have some more info about what you actually do and
how you do it (and what information we need to provide for you). Also, how
secure are you? How do you secure my information, where do you store it? Will
you use my data for aggregated reports?

Some of the data I want is also very specific to my industry, it would be nice
to see some of that industry jargon on your site to know that you get what I
want.

There's also lots of competing business intelligence software for various
niches, are you trying to be one tool for everyone? Personally, I'd rather use
a tool specific to my industry/niche.

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cpierson
Thanks for the feedback - it's helpful to hear reactions about what's most
important to add next the site.

We're learning that there are large aspects of the customer retention
challenge that are consistent across many types of businesses (e.g. for a
retailer, how can I tell if my customer is gone for good or just idle?). Of
course, some aspects are unique for each vertical. In those cases, we're
exploring how we can supplement existing efforts - some of our beta clients
have piped results from our analysis into other tools.

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dmix
I love how the tour section segments to provide more relevant content.

Very well designed landing page. The only thing missing is info about the team
behind it.

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cpierson
Thanks for the kind words - and for the suggestion for more info on the team.
The co-founders are computer science guys, and we also studied probability
modeling over at Wharton. Excited to bring these tools to market!

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dmix
You should keep a dev blog. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in
the architecture/algorithms running behind the scenes; plus it would bring
some links back to your site.

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cpierson
Great idea :)

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orky56
Very cool. Seems more like extracting value from the right customers rather
than the way you currently have it which seems kind of negative: Focus on a
few and forget about the rest.

Some other feedback: 1\. I clicked "Tour" and got stuck since I'm not either.
No way to get out except the Back button. 2\. Would love some screenshots or
examples of the type of data you will be presenting. 3\. Love the design! Is
it too retro-looking for the old guard of retail/e-commerce?

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b0b0b0b
I'm interested in learning more about how customers are modelled. Transaction
history, # support cases, usage patterns; these will be more informative than
acquisition channel. But then there's the matter of getting data into and out
of Custora. Looks really cool, guys.

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pospischil
Thanks!

Our models are calibrated first using transaction data, then by layering in
other types of usage.

Acquisition channel is then looked at to see which sources drove the customers
with the highest lifetime values.

As for data in/out: we integrate directly with a number of recurring billing
and shopping cart platforms or we can take simple log file inputs.

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InfinityX0
Your header font is kind grainy to me on Chrome - where it says "Find and keep
valuable customers". I like the design but that could be improved, IMO.

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pospischil
Thanks for the feedback - we'll take a closer look on different versions of
chrome.

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melissamiranda
Great use of color and illustration to keep it classy yet inviting. Copy is
spot on, too. Congrats.

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cpierson
Thanks for the kind words!

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reason
Your sign up page isn't working!

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pospischil
Sorry about that! It's working for us, what browser are you using? You can
reach me directly at jon [at] custora dot com

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reason
Working now! Sorry for the scare.

